During the poor start to the season in terms of points, and as the vultures circled, I was one of the ones remaining for patience and calm.
It's only fair to report that I am now on the verge in terms of Hurst and would give him 4 more games to get at least a win and show signs of instilling some confidence moving forward.
I feel for Hurst. I think he came here with a plan, one that would have involved making a few changes to a reasonable enough squad, but with Webster keen to go, the money we were offered for Waghorn (with the bid we once turned down for McGoldrick fresh in the mind) and then Garner wanting to leave, in addition to McGoldrick moving on, I do feel that Hurst was left with no choice but to make sweeping changes to the squad.
The way this almost fell in instalments didn't help either. Jordan Roberts seemed a reasonable punt when that was what we were shopping for, but almost immediately we had money for the likes of Edwards who would immediately be ahead of him in the squad.
Then after not being able to afford Nsiala and Nolan when other areas needed addressing more, like strikers and wingers, the money became available and so we went back in for them.
The poor start to the season saw the new players look bright and the old players struggle with the system. But as wins eluded us the new signings looked like they started to doubt themselves at this level and with the senior pros struggling we began to look very poor.
Lately, as the newbies look even more devoid of confidence, the senior pros have largely improved, leaving last nights shambles to one side.
The lack of experience in the side now fully evidence with so little belief, he turns to Pennington and Walters and looks at Collins to try and resolve this, with a squad getting harder and harder to pick a best team or a settled one.
Dozzell has only just returned. Huws is injured yet again, Bishop and Adeyemi are nowhere to be seen. Players Hurst would have hoped at least one of could make a real impact on the start of the season.
Some will crave for Nydam (can't get in the St Johnstone team), Morris (can't get in the Forest Green team) or Emmanuel (at Shrewsbury) as being the answers. I'm not sure they were really going to be the difference makers either though in reality.
Hurst suffered some really bad luck with red cards and injuries but lately, probably fuelled by a bit of panic, changed his philosophy to try and eek out a win in any way possible, chucking fuel on what was beginning to be a burning mess of a start to the season.
All the bad luck Hurst has had or lack of quality in the final third is now insignificant against the mistakes that Hurst, who has really only ever known success, is regularly making now in probably the only really bad spell he's had in 10 years of management.
It seems like the absolute perfect storm for relegation now. No goals, no confidence, no quality, the experienced pros are goalkeepers, centre halves and defensive midfielders, nobody that will win you a game, just keep you in one. Harrison and Walters have both suffered injuries that further deplete our already toothless options.
We are unlikely to get anything at Swansea or Leeds and so the QPR and Millwall games are realistically the games we have to win one of. Even then is this really going to propel this squad to pick up another 40 over the course of 2/3 of a season if we only have around 10 or 12 points at best after 1/3 of it would have gone?
Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong this season. Initially that was the rub of the green. I still think if you put any of Edwards, Chalobah, Donacien, Edun or Nsiala in a mid-table Championship team they would look perfectly capable. I think the problem is we have all of them in the same side.
But since the Norwich game, where I get that Hurst was desperate to win and changed the game plan, we have looked an utter shambles. Hull, Brentford in the first half, Bolton, Birmingham for most of the match and Middlesbrough have been a woeful mish mash of styles, personnel, tactics under the believe that if we can someone nick a win we will have enough confidence to start to move forward.
I'd love Hurst to turn it around, but I really cannot see it being likely now. I cannot see we have enough quality or experience in the squad to grow quick enough and sufficient enough to survive.
If we don't seriously improve by the end of October I think Evans has to bite the bullet and look to replace him. I'll be terribly sad if that happens, but otherwise I really cannot see how we can possibly expect to survive. I think even Micks dire, turgid, grind out a result style would be challenging with what we have.
I genuinely do feel so sorry for Hurst. He has largely been the author of his own misfortune but I can see the logic in what he was trying to do, but think he's just been very naïve in expecting it to work. Maybe with a win early on it would have done and we'd be comfortably mid-table now and all happy with how the 'project' was looking.
Just a sad time to support the club that we've made the change he had to make to stop the club dying a slow death and that it has gone so badly wrong. |  |
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