Should We Be Worried?

Last night’s disappointing display at Wycombe has been much debated over the 24 hours that have passed. Many fans are in agreement that going out of the LDV Vans Trophy is certainly not a catastrophe but should we be worried about the level of performance that we put in on the night.

Kenny Jackett has openly admitted today that his side was well prepared for the game and he went into it with the attitude that he wanted to win the trophy and most definitely was not taking it lightly. This in itself killed one of the theories that was put forward in that we didn’t particularly want to win the game. I personally didn’t buy into that theory because if we were taking the competition lightly then surely we would have played the likes of Murphy and Fisken as opposed to as full a strength team as we could manage on the night.

Of course it is possible to believe that the players had one eye on what is a big game against Bristol Rovers on Saturday. It’s happened before to most clubs that they worry about a game coming up and cannot get going so in theory that is possible and believable? However, surely even with that in mind we would have still put forward a display that was better than the one witnessed by just over 100 fans last night?

There is something that has not been mentioned about last night and that is the amount of times that the players (on both sides) found themselves slipping over. It wouldn’t have taken Einstein to see a wet pitch last night but every two minutes it seemed one player was slipping over suggesting that maybe the preparation was not as thorough as we are being led to believe. But the main question for me remains should we be worried about the performance that the fans witnessed last night.

The answer for me is a very simple yes and no. It’s always likely to be a concern when you see your side so comprehensively short of ideas and completely second best to, no disrespect to Wycombe, a very poor side. We gave the ball away far too cheaply and using a phrase coined so often at the start of the season there was plenty of ‘hoofball’ being displayed. I have read the newspaper reports about a handful of Swansea chances which I can hold my hands up and say I really don’t remember such was the display that was being witnessed. On both flanks we created very little until the last few minutes when it was Lee Trundle providing the crosses rather than either Forbes or Britton (as it was at the time) And in the middle between Martinez and O’Leary nothing really happened for either. There was no direction and there certainly was no ideas. Had it been a league two fixture I do hold my hands up and say I would be worried at this moment in time, it’s only the fact that it was the LDV that eases that worry a bit.

I do find it hard to believe that we could put in a performance as bad as that on Saturday. Despite not playing at the top of our game in the last few weeks we have not been as bad as we were last night which does still make me wonder whether we were taking it as serious as we would a league fixture. We have created chances in recent weeks and we have certainly had more attacking play. Maybe not as much as we did in September but nowhere near as bad as last night.

I won’t press panic after last night’s game – I don’t think it is a fair judgement – but only an idiot would tell you anything other than we need to step up several gears on Saturday and maybe in the long run the Wycombe game will actually assist us in what we all want by giving us a wake up call before complacency could even think about setting in?

In answer to the original question – we shouldn’t be overly worried but at the same time, we shouldn’t think that everything is as perfect as our league position may suggest. It’s nearer that then dreadful but let’s see what happens on the weekend.