I’m a winner, and that was as bad as I’ve ever seen any team of mine play
CHESTERFIELD’S 3-0 home defeat against Gateshead on Saturday made it just two points from 27 for our columnist’s team, who are one point outside the relegation zone. His press conference after the game provided a fascinating insight into the pain endured by a struggling manager. Instead of Martin’s column, which will return next week, we publish a truncated version of his views about his future and his team. I’M very upset. It’s a total letdown for all our supporters. I feel let down.
At times this season we’ve played well. At times we’ve been unlucky. There’ve been times when we’ve not got what we deserved. But today was the complete opposite.
That was probably as bad as I’ve seen a team of mine play. We lacked energy. We lacked enthusiasm. We lacked pace, power, energy, quality on the ball, tenacity off the ball.
I made two substitutions at halftime. I could probably have made seven.
We were outrun, outfought, outpaced, outplayed. They were a far better team than us and I am very, very, very, very disappointed. Let me be perfectly honest — we wouldn’t have scored if we had carried on playing out there until Sunday night.
We will be in tomorrow (Sunday) at half past nine. Before that, I need to get home and watch the video. Though I’m not sure I do need to watch the video actually. You can’t coach attitude, can you? Attitude, fighting spirit, desire. You can’t legislate for not having those things in your game.
I’ve been doing this for over 500 games. I think that today was probably going to rank up there as the worst I’ve seen. It was embarrassing.
I don’t think we looked fit enough, I don’t think we looked strong enough. I don’t think we have enough pace. We’re well short.
I was so excited about coming here today. I’ve been so looking forward to coming here to play. A couple of new players, home debuts, players added. What a disappointment that was. What a complete and utter disappointment.
I always take the blame.
Ialways say, if we don’t win, that it’s my fault, we didn’t do this, I should have done that, could have done this, could have done that. But I don’t go over that white line. Sometimes some of those players have to look at themselves and say: ‘ That’s nowhere near good enough.’
There have been enough managers on the roundabout at this football club. So we will all have to ask the question: do you want another manager and make it the fourth in one calendar year?
That isn’t great, is it? That isn’t right. That isn’t going to work. I just have to bang my head and remind myself that it was only a couple of years ago that I put a team together who won this league. And it was only a few years before that that I put together a team who won Division Two. And both leagues I won comfortably as a champion. So can you imagine how painful it is for me to watch this?
There have got to be questions asked. I would be asking questions (if I was running the club). I fully expect that.
But they’d probably be the same questions they were asking the last manager and the last manager and the last manager, so you keep adding them and adding them.
I will get it right because I always do but certainly for now it is a headache. There’s no doubt about that. A headache.
I suppose there’s that temptation to go in there and throw cups of tea and rant and shout and blame and hammer everybody verbally. But I have to find out why we looked physically in second or third gear and plodded through that game.
Why? When we trained on Tuesday, we were right on it. On Thursday, we were right on it. Is there a fear of playing in front of just over 4,000 people who are diehard supporters? Even today the fans hardly had a go. They are here every week. They don’t have go at the players. They don’t even have a go at me.
If I had paid my money I’d have been throwing my Bovril straight at the manager and the players, because who would want to come and watch that?
My work on the training pitches is very similar to what I’ve done over the years.
So is it that Martin’s gone mad? Is it Martin doing something different? Of course it’s not. I’m not far away from what I was doing successfully in the past.
So do I need to go to a coaching manual and find new things to do? I don’t think so.
What are we going to do between now and Tuesday night? Probably have a sleepless night, get my head around it and get that group of players to put in a performance that’s going to do our club proud.
Chesterfield play Maidenhead at home tomorrow. Maidenhead are three places above them in the Vanarama National League table.