A Rant on the Sunderland Game

By: Matilda | March 9th, 2010

I’m not quite sure if I’ll get the heart to write a full report. I am thoroughly disappointed with our team, and their ability to come back after a goal. It is hard to work up your spirits again after conceding at 41 seconds, but, dear lord, this is their profession! All they get paid to do is kick a football around a pitch, and they are in, arguably, the best league in the world. They should be able to muster their spirits enough to come back.

I am so tired of this Jekyll and Hyde team. At this point I would take crap football, but I just don’t want to be teased with nice football in between. I don’t want to get optimistic if it’s just going to end in a 4-0 defeat to Sunderland. Sunderland! The same Sunderland that hadn’t won in 14 games! Now, granted they have a potent strikeforce (Jones, Bent, and Campbell), but they are by no means better than us by a 4-goal margin. When we’re playing like we can play, I’d bet we could beat them.

But that’s just the thing, Bolton only play like they can play 1 in 3 games. So are we really a quality team if we can achieve quality, just not with any regularity? I really don’t know. I like to think of Bolton as a quality team (though I know the vast majority of people in this world do not), but there is a real possibility we could go down. If we keep pulling bullshit like today’s match, we will.

I think the most irritating this about the whole situation is that Bolton didn’t lose because they didn’t try. They lost because their trying wasn’t good enough. This wasn’t an uninspired team, this was a frustrated, panicked team. If our players (who mind you, get paid roughly what an average person makes in a year, a week) can’t pull out nice football even when they’re trying, we no longer have reliable players. There is something wrong with our club, and it goes deeper than Megson, deeper than Gartside, deeper than unsupportive fans, right down to the players. When Coyle came in, we all (including myself) thought after an adjustment period, we would return safe and sound to the midtable, where we belong, with only a couple bump to show for a trip down to the bottom.

But we’ve had an adjustment period. It’s been two months. And honestly, just in terms of results, very little has changed. The back four has been worked out, but that is the only thing that I can say has improved. When we play well, it’s how we played during the good times with Megson, and when we play poorly it doesn’t matter what it looks like, it’s not getting results. All of that aside, if we go back to the first Arsenal game, we played well and still lost. At the end of the season they don’t check who’s played the prettiest football to determine who goes down, it’s about the points. It’s about getting the results, I don’t care who the gaffer is.

OK, now that I’ve got myself thoroughly worked up, I’m going to go take a relaxing shower, and then probably eat my feelings. Depending on my emotional stability tomorrow, you may or may not get a match report.