Through the seasons before us..

Footballers aren’t renowned for their intelligence, and reading the article on the Evening Post website today is perhaps a little more revealing than it should be, if you read between the lines.  Of course, I could be being outrageously paranoid, but some of skipper Ian Breckin’s uncarefully chosen words do hint at something I’ve suspected for a while, and it’s partly this that makes me still not quite comfortable with our current playing personnel.

You see, footballers are wrapped in cotton wool – that’s the problem.  You and I know only too well what it’s like to have a bit of a tosser of a boss, but you still work to the best of your ability, because if you don’t, you lose your job – and in reality, not in football land, you lose your income.  There’s no paying off of contracts, that’s it, nada, you’re gone.  Footballers have so much power that they can seemingly not make an effort, with no fear through loss of income.

This is what I believe happened to us last season.  An element of a successful side is of course driven by team spirit or “a good dressing room”, but ultimately even when those things are broken, it is still possible to function – when we had our very own “wanker boss” of Gary Megson, I firmly believe certain members of our squad literally downed tools and didn’t even try; they did it most obviously away from home, because they didn’t have the nerve to at the City Ground.

And that’s why it concerns me that Smoulders has retained such a large number of Megson’s players – it’s true that he’s cleared out some dead wood, but I worry that if times become difficult (such as now, when players are showing obvious signs of complacency) and Smoulds needs to deal with it he could end up with the same “strike” mentality from some of the upstarts amongst the ranks.

I’m sure that Smoulderwood will have an idea about these possibilities – I seem to recall he’d had a chat with Megson shortly after taking the post; and Charlie McParland will no doubt have an inside scoop on any potential rebel leaders in the playing staff – but well, it just reaffirms to me that as Megson took a deserved shoeing from the Forest community for his role as manager, some players who still feature for us probably should take a tad more of the blame for our demise than they do – and I worry they might do it again.

By stating that respect for the boss is the key to this seasons performance, it follows that a lack of it drove our poor performances under Megson.  Now just from whispers I’ve heard I can understand why many of the players didn’t respect the ginger one, but that’s the problem, surely whether you respect your manager or not you should work hard for the supporters?  Maybe I’m too much of an idealist.