Barring a freakishly large win for us when we play Millwall tomorrow and a equally freakishly large defeat for Portsmouth when they travel to Stoke the following evening, we’ve already reached the stage where we’ll still be at the bottom of the table after another full round of Championship fixtures have been played – how many times have there been when we’re barely into October and the team at the bottom of the table is in serious danger of becoming marooned already?
People say it only needs two or three wins on the trot to change the atmosphere completely at the club and they’re right, but when a team in professional football in one of the most competitive leagues in Europe has the truly atrocious goal difference of minus fifteen after only seven games, you have to wonder if that is, in any way, realistic?
In a fortnight or so, we’ll be at the sort of time in the season when Neil Warnock was appointed in 2016. We were in a mess when Paul Trollope was sacked, but eight points from. eleven games with a goal tally of eight scored and nineteen conceded sounds like riches indeed compared with the current single point from seven games with two scored and seventeen conceded.
Eight years ago, Tan and co probably came up with their best ever managerial appointment when they hired Championship expert Neil Warnock who turned things around and, amazingly had us celebrating promotion nineteen months later. However, it was a good three or four months after his appointment before I can remember feeling like the threat of relegation had gone and it seems to me we’re in more trouble this time around than we were eight years ago.
It’s been said that we have the talent in the squad to be doing a lot better than we are. I agreed with that at first, even if I thought that the lack of the sort of striker which had been, if not promised, then very heavily hinted at, would stop us repeating last season’s top half finish. However, you have to go back to that two goals scored/ seventeen conceded stat which blares out that the squad is not as good as so many City fans thought it was, in fact it’s much, much worse.
In mitigation, I’d like to think that the defensive record will slowly improve once we get Jesper Daaland and Will Fish playing in the same team and we’re not going to end the season with just something like fourteen league goals scored, which is what would happen if our current goalscoring rate continued until May. However, you only have to look at how, once we actually created something in midfield, so many promising situations were butchered on Saturday to think that, even if a new manager can make a positive impact, sticking the ball in the net will remain a serious problem.
Twenty third placed Portsmouth can point to a very tough first seven fixtures as the reason for their struggles and there have been those who say that we’re now entering a series of “easier” games. Aside from the fact that no game can appear easy in our position, Millwall usually represent a different type of challenge to that which we’ve seen in most of our games so far and, although they don’t lose many at Cardiff City Stadium, there have been an awful lot of draws in recent years – will that sort of history be a stronger influence than the fact that we’re crap at home and have lost seven out of our last nine matches at our home stadium?
Here’s the usual seven questions dating back to the sixties on our upcoming opponents with the answers to be posted on Wednesday.
60s. Born in London in a place which was also the surname of a team mate for a while at Millwall, this midfielder only left the capital to play in Kent in his seventeen year career. He made a single league appearance while representing the club which plays on the rainbow nation’s road before he moved to Millwall midway through this decade. One hundred and fifty odd appearances in seven years at the Den says that he spent quite a bit of his time out of the first team picture, but his longevity at the club confirms he was a regular member of the senior squad. When he did move it was to play in blue in the lower leagues for a club where, as at Millwall twice in his early years with them, he was nominated as Player of the Year. He packed more appearances, and scored four times more goals, into his four years with his third club before moving to a club that was a forerunner of a team that is currently facing a struggle to stay in the National League, can you name him?
70s. This forward was a lot more unusual during his career in England than he would be now. He was never going to win international caps, but his form as a youngster attracted one of the First Division’s biggest clubs at that time. It took him two years to break into the first team and, for a while at the start of this decade, he was a pretty regular selection for them as he managed to set a record relating to European club.football which will never be beaten. However, the fact he wanted to move to Millwall when the decent sized transfer offer came suggests he knew he would never truly establish at the First Division club, but, as it turned out, he never really made the impact expected of him at Millwall either and when he left for America after four years, he hadn’t reached one hundred Football League appearances in England. Over the next dozen years, he played for five sides in America, but there was an interruption in one of those years when he played another sport for a team of Floridian adventurers. He still lives in America and Wikipedia describes him as an “accomplished author” who is he?
80s. Soon to be centurion on the wing?
90s. Wander around Beeb and I’m transformed into Millwall defender! (6,6)
00s. Fourth letter covers capital city?
10s. Which former City and Millwall player from this decade is currently playing for Serbia while representing White Eagles that play at the Dianella Reserve?
20s. Which member of the current Millwall squad began his career with the Anchors, before moving on to the Synners, then the Heed?
Answers
60s. Born in (Alex) Stepney, George Jacks played one league game for QPR before signing for Millwall in 1965 and was a leading member of their team which were promoted twice around that time. Jacks signed for Gillingham in 1972 and then spent five more years with Gravesend and Northfleet who were renamed Ebbsfleet United a quarter of a century or so after Jacks had retired in 1981.
70s. South African born Derek Smethurst signed for Chelsea in 1968 and became the first foreign player to gain a winner’s medal in European competition while playing for an English club when he was a member of their squad which won the European Cup Winners’ Cup in 1971. In 1977, Smethurst played as a place kicker for the NFL team the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in their pre season fixtures.
80s. Former American President Jimmy Carter, who turns 100 tomorrow, shares his name with a Millwall winger from the 80s who went on to play for Liverpool and Arsenal among others.
90s. Damien Webber.
00s. Dion Dublin.
10s. Thirty eight year old Andy Keogh plays his football now for Dianella White Eagles of Perth, Western Australia, a club that was founded by the local Serbian community.
20s.Macauley Langstaff’s first three clubs in senior football were Stockton Town (the Anchors). Billingham Synthonia (the Synners) and Gateshead (the Heed).
