marcoloco wrote: ↑Sun Sep 01, 2024 9:23 pm
brandyball wrote: ↑Sun Sep 01, 2024 4:48 pm
marcoloco wrote: ↑Sun Sep 01, 2024 2:05 pm
We have them in our next league game at home.
Wouldn't be too confident.
Shels and Rovers next. I'd say a 2 wins would shut down any doubters (me) amongst us. Fair to say we've reached the business end of the season. All to play for and no room for error now.
But Marco - this is what people have been saying for the last 3 years, and then we keep falling short, this endless faith and hope in Higgins is shocking and bewildering to me and a lot of other fans.
Everything else has fallen our way this year, Shels and Rovers keep dropping points after points and yet (like the last 3 seasons) we cannot capitalise, as we just do not have the mental strength, nor the correct management philosophy to just go aggressively for it. We trundle along week after week, and it is other people's results than are leaving us still hanging in. We absolutely do not deserve to win this league.
Last 5 games - Shels away, Dundalk home, Cork away, Waterford away, Galway away - every performance has been the same, an absolute borefest, no chances created, no urgency at all, no passion, nothing. Only a freak goal against Waterford and we would not have won any of them. Had we beaten Shels and Dundalk - the league would be half ours by now - but no, we talked up the 0-0 draw against Shels, as if it was the greatest rearguard action since Dunkirk, when in essence Shels were a joke and where there for the taking, even with our 10 men.
Higgins keeps kicking the can down the round, instead of just simply beating Shels and Dundalk and then we are away and cannot be caught. That was the two games to do it. Shels at home in the last game of the season, it will be over by then, so why waste the opportunity a few weeks ago ?
I hate this expression 'business end of the season'; the business end of the season should start at game one. If you lose the league by 2 points, it doesn't matter if they were dropped at the last game of the season or the first game of the season, you still came up 2 points short. So stupid points we dropped in injury time to Rovers and Drogheda back in ~March and April, will come back to bite us. Higgins saying 'We are entering the business stage of the season'; drives me nuts, every other club in the league will tell you, had we simply knuckled down in April - June, we could have had the thing won by July; but we didn't, we dropped points after points (Sligo at home, Dundalk away, Drogheda away, Sligo away, Bohs away, Galway home) - and Higgins was very dismissive of it, stating it is okay, it is still early doors, as long as we are in the hunt at the end that is all that matters. But the signs were there back then, with rubbish performances, which carried into Europe, and then are still carrying through. Beating a rubbish Waterford twice at home, beating Drogheda (who were missing 7 players) beating Pats in the Cup (when they were clearly only focused on Europe) - only deflected away from the rubbish we were getting, backed up by the fact that we have never had a decent run of 3-4 good performances in a row - so the warning signs have been there all season, but in Higgins we trust, and dare not question, has been the saying all along.
Rovers are now in serious danger of not getting Europe next season, which would be a catastrophe for them - so when they come to us in their next league game, they absolutely need to get something from this game - or they may not catch Sligo, Waterford and Galway. So again, we have invited this pressure onto ourselves, instead of us doing the job against the likes of Dundalk, Sligo and Galway.
We too, should we lose to Rovers could be in big bother for 3rd or even 4th - as Sligo, Waterford, Rovers and Galway are all hunting us down, and we have yet to beat Rovers or Sligo this season too.
If Shels beat Bohs this Friday night, they will go 6 points clear - and they absolutely will not lose this. They will come down to us in the cup buoyant and Duff could do his usual 0-0 masterclass and take us to penalties and if the worst happens, our season could be over inside the next two weeks. I sincerely hope it is not, but when you adapt an attitude of trying not to lose at all times, at some point you will need to actually win games of football - and I fear we aren't mentally strong either for either, and I have concern that having to beat both Shels and Rovers in quick succession, could be too much for us.
Unless, we get the locals back into the team, who understand what it means - this must include Fats, Boyce, Duffy, Coll and Shane - those 5 at least understand what it means to us fans, get them 5 on the pitch, ditch the freeloaders from across the water - and we may have half a chance.