Worrying times for Rovers but we have to have hope

WITH 19 games played, Sligo Rovers are sitting just outside the relegation zone thanks to Drogheda United’s horrendous goal difference.

We have won just three games all season. We’re now almost into July and we have yet to win a single game away from home, it pains me to say it but that is relegation form.

Only Galway United have won fewer games than Rovers.

In the last seven games we have lost three and drawn four. There’s always the flip side in the sense that we could be losing more of those games but if we are to survive we have got to sort that out.

It’s not just away form that’s a concern, home form is a bigger worry because our form at The Showgrounds played a huge part in our fifth place finish last season.

Friday night’s 2- 0 defeat to Bohemians was a really tough one to stomach. Micheál Schlingermann’s howler for the opener didn’t help matters but Rovers were by far the better team in the second- half and we had Bohs sitting in their own half for most of the 45 minutes.

Again a defensive error lead to the second goal and it was a suckerpunch. The worst part about it was that Rovers played good football in parts and there was certainly an improvement from the games against both Finn Harps and Galway United.

Liam Martin has often been the scapegoat but he made a huge difference when he was introduced as a sub in the second- half. Daniel Kearns showed us in glimpses what he can do but we still could not score a goal.

We struggled in the final third once again and the reality is that what we currently have up front is just not good enough. Jonah Ayunga has come in for a lot of criticism at times and probably deservedly so, but he worked hard in the first half on Friday night and spent much of the opening 45 minutes in his own half defending.

And for all the improvement we have seen, it’s still not good enough and it’s still not enough to see us clear of the danger zone. We have to hope that the new signings hit the ground running and can help us out of this mess.

It’s not good enough and seeing bits of pieces of good play is absolutely nothing if we’re not winning games and that’s the reality of it.

There are a lot of players there who just simply are not good enough, and that’s not their fault.

And then you have players who are good enough but are not doing themselves justice, perhaps those are the ones who need a proverbial kick up the backside to open their eyes a bit. With a very stretched squad the last few weeks Gerard Lyttle has been trying everything to figure out what’s best. We haven’t seen the best of Kieran Sadlier in the last three games, and we all know what he can do so we need that back if we are to pick up results in the coming weeks, if he is to stay, that is.

Results have not been kind, and that’s hard to deny, but I fully believe that Gerard Lyttle will take us out of this mess. With new players to come in, and hopefully a few more signings he can hopefully put his own spin on things. People keep asking if there are three teams worse than Rovers there.

There are. There are five teams at the minute battling it out, and I don’t believe that St. Patrick’s Athletic, Galway United, Drogheda United and Finn Harps are better than Rovers - at least not on paper.

I feel like I’ve typed these words every season since 2015 but Lyttle is right when he says we all have to stick together. You can understand if confidence is low within the squad. But these players have to stand up and start putting in performances that they are paid to do. They were signed for a reason, rightly or wrongly, and they have to start proving that they are worthy of places in the squad.

We’ve all been disappointed with how things have gone the last few months, but I’m refusing to sit here and say we’re going down. It can’t happen, not to Sligo Rovers.

Crowds have been relatively good and have given Lyttle time to get things right, most know that this mess is not his fault. With the July transfer window opening in mere days, now is his time to start getting it sorted.

We’re in trouble if we don’t pick up points from the next few games.

I’d take a draw against Shamrock Rovers right now but our failure to beat teams around us in the table means that we will have to start winning some of those games against teams much higher up the table than us.