The 21st November promised to be one of the great matches of the season. The Daggers sat in top spot with 32 points from 16 games, and the visitors Rochdale were just 3 points behind. The game certainly lived up to the hype with both teams have excellent spells in the match but despite being the better side, we found ourselves on the wrong end of a 2-1 scoreline.
Fast forward just 12 matches and we now find ourselves in 12th with only 8 more points to our name. To highlight quite how pivotal this match appears to have been, Rochdale are now the leaders with a massive 19 point advantage over ourselves. Dale finally appear to be fulfilling their promise with a superb young side built by the excellent Keith Hill whilst we seem to be going in the opposite direction.
If the league had started on the day of the Rochdale game, we would currently be in the relegation zone with ten goals scored and twenty conceded. Football is full of ifs and buts (here’s another coming up), but it is still an alarming statistic. John Still has remained bullish in the face of adversity this week:
“We just need to tinker with one or two things and it will all come right. A club the size of ours will have ups and downs.”
You would have to agree with him, even if only out of respect for his record as our manager. So if we really are only a small adjustment away from the heights of the first few months of the season, where do these adjustments need to be made? In terms of personnel, the side we fielded against Rotherham is four players different to the one that started the season and one of those you could argue is an improvement with Ogogo proving more adept at right back than Scott Doe, with Doe currently performing well in Antwi’s place. Therefore you would have to point at the three other changes and the most glaringly obvious is that two of them are in central midfield.
Whilst it is more than fair to say that Taiwo/Thurgood was light years better than the current midfield permutations on offer, I don’t think this is our only woe. Form is a funny thing – even seemingly poor sides can go on great runs off the back of some self-belief, just look at the heights Birmingham have hit in the Premiership this season. Getting off to a flyer with a shaky win at Crewe followed by crushing defeats of Torquay and Shrewsbury set us up for a superb run that stuttered with Ogogo’s red card at Macclesfield, and was shattered by the cruelty of Rochdale’s victory. Getting hammered 6-1 at Huddersfield in the cup probably didn’t help morale very much either.
So, with doubt perhaps creeping in, it was far from the ideal time for the side to become unsettled. Several injuries, suspensions and a high-profile transfer out of the club ruined the momentum and balance of the team at a time when we badly needed some stability to bounce straight back. The vibe we had in those early weeks has visibly drained from players who are not reproducing the form they showed before. You can’t blame them given all the disruption they have been through, but now it is time for them to forget about the table, forget about recent results, and just play the football they are capable of. Feeling sorry for ourselves will not win football matches.
Early indications are that we have finally replaced Griffiths adequately with young Damien McCrory, but not before we went through an ageing Lockwood and a very inconsistent Day. It also seems Josh Scott is now free of injury problems and Ogogo is back in the side after inexplicably being overlooked when Ofori-Twumasi was around. With any luck we can now field a proper team until the end of the season, but the big players such as Benson, Gain, Arber and Roberts need to be mentally strong to lift their young team-mates. Benson is probably the most worrying case with his conspicuous anonymity in many matches of late.
Mental toughness seems even more relevant when you consider the amount of goals being conceded just before half-time. Against Notts County, Shrewsbury, Cheltenham and Bury we have shot ourselves in the foot with minutes left in the first half, going on to lose 3 of those 4 matches.
Returning to the topic of our central midfield, we have never replaced the high-energy of Solomon Taiwo and are obviously missing the defence-screening abilities of Thurgood, but we must be able to find a solution amongst our squad. Gain is more than capable of making an impact from this position, but Spiller has flattered to deceive on a few occasions with Marlon Pack not offering any obvious qualities.
We are crying out for somebody who is mobile enough to play in our high-tempo system and the best option seems to be Ogogo. He has played in this position whilst at Arsenal, and his excellent stamina, power and pace seem well suited to a role alongside Gainy. It would be a big call to disrupt the defensive unit, but with goals being leaked anyway we seemingly have little to lose. Romain Vincelot is a ready-made replacement at right-back if Stilly can show the faith that made him offer the Frenchman an 18-month contract. The other position of much discussion amongst the Dagenham faithful is the left of midfield, with Montgomery’s name constantly mentioned. Given Nurse hasn’t scored for 2 months and has only a single assist to his name so far, it seems a fair shout. But actually I would pick Tommy Tejan-Sie after his early-season glimpses. He certainly has the skill to create some chances for our starving strikeforce.
Here’s hoping for signs of recovery against Bournemouth this Saturday. In John we trust.
nice one , must admit I share your views on most points , I personally would pick Antwi over Doe , TJ over Monty or Currie. We could rest Benno and give Walsh a crack at it but I couldn’t find it in my heart to drop him even though the rest could do him good.
Moving Ogogo to midfield and playing the Frenchman at RB is an exciting thought and hope that the astute JS will perhaps give it a go.
Now we have found a good LB ,I feel the time is right for a bold move.
If it doesn’t work we can easily switch it back , what do we have to lose at this moment as we have been unable to pick up any points anyway.
I just hope we put in a good performance on Saturday so that we can see some light during this dark period. Up the Daggers !
On the topic of playing rochdale we were top of the league, anyone remember that with 20 minutes left of that game we were still top yet disaster stuck with thurgood going off injured then with 15 minutes left of that game we were 2-1 down fighting for a point.
Another good read and Up the Daggers!!!
odrocket , when Stu went off , changed our season but he was captain that day and was covering every blade of grass , I feel that his injury was a result of him trying to put in a super human effort. Can’t wait for him to be back and playing.