It’s often a thing that our valued readers regularly give their two pence on our content, sometimes agreeing, sometimes disagreeing, occasionally getting abusive.
But today we were regaled with what would be our pick as comment of the year from a Mr Craig McDonald who was replying to a Mr Neil Black…
Mr Black suggested our criticism of Ryan Kent’s performances this season was unfair, where we implied his being unavailable for a while was a blessing in disguise to both him and the club, giving him a badly-needed rest.
“FFS people have short memories… Shocking comments about one of our best players”
said Mr Black.
The response, from Mr McDonald, was a touché moment, however:
“It’s all it is, memories. You turn up to work next week and do f*ck all and see how long you last…”
Never have we been in more agreement with a reader’s comment than this, and it sums up both the problem and solution with football support.
Craig is absolutely correct. Imagine you have a stunning week at the office – all the numbers add up, you win 6 new contracts, and you secure 4 new clients. The next week you sit around, barely do any work, make a few phone calls and put no effort into it.
Does your boss let you off happily and say ‘last week was brilliant, feel free to laldy it up now because you can live happily off that’ or does your boss get upset and wonder why your feet are up and you’re hopeless?
No one would get away with a bad week at work, or putting no shift in. Why should it be different in football?
Kent is out of form, not alone, but certainly not delivering. As fans, do we cut him and others slack because they were great last season, or do we expect those standards to be maintained this time around?
In the office, it’s certainly the latter.
And yet, being critical of any player sees accusations of short memories, as if memories are more important than what the player is doing on the pitch today.
It’s not Kent alone – at least he IS trying. He’s just not got the form, and Stevie’ been on record saying that. But in general, can we please stop using 55 or ‘short memories’ as a reason to defend bad form this season?
It won’t help anyone, and even our players aren’t using that excuse.
It’s not just Kent who is not performing. SG summed it up we are not fully in top gear yet . There are lots of reasons injuries, lack of fresh quality signings, attitude to getting going again. As I have said it’s easy to slip I to the swamp with “shite, pish etc etc ” it’s also easy to sugar coat it too. Onwards 56.
I don’t think it’s an excuse. It’s a fact. We aren’t playing well as a team and our best players aren’t playing well individually. We KNOW they can do it but we need to help them get back to that level. Kent is one of them but the guy refuses to hide and he will get back to his best. Maybe as you say the break will do him good as well as open the door for someone else. I remember the legend Davie Cooper having plenty of ordinary days. It goes with the territory when you are a creative player. Sometimes it’s just not your day.
As you say Kent at least is trying, unfortunately though he does seem to be playing within himself and I’m pretty sure he’s been carrying a knock or two and playing through the pain. I agree, think it could be a blessing. The boy needs to get hims of right and it’s time for others to step up in his absence. We all know what Kent is like when a marker is set down for him.
Also fair to say no fan is criticising based on one week being below par. There has been a general drop in effort and performance for a while. Even allowing for some injuries and Covid disruption, the glaring elephant in the room is SG’s ongoing refusal to deviate from the starting eleven. Tav and barasic both been off form for a long time, yet bassey and Paterson both flying at present- yet we keep going with the two off form, mostly nullifying both wings. Kent has been a 4/10 performance for too long ( forget the Real Madrid bullshit!)- Wright has looked hungry and changed the game domestically when he comes on yet we stick with Kent. Davis has been a shadow of himself, Kelly hungry and looking like a real player but can’t even get a look in from the bench. Morelos- well take your pick what Alfie turns up- run all day or couldn’t give a shit. Not hard to see why we’re struggling, on any given day recently we’re carrying 4-5 outfield players.
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