One step forward and two steps back for Rovers

ALL of the hope and exhilaration from the 1-0 win over Shamrock Rovers last week was ripped out from underneath us on Sunday afternoon when Sligo Rovers were put to the sword by Derry City.

Losing 4-0 to a Derry side who just three days previously played a European game, is inexcusable.

Gerard Lyttle is the first one to say that he got it wrong against Derry. The tactics, the formation, the team, it just didn’t work.

And while the buck does stop with the manager when it comes to that side of it, a certain amount of it is out of his control.

I hate to accuse players of not caring, I would generally say that’s just an easy thing to throw at footballers. But they didn’t look half as interested on Sunday as they did when they played Shamrock Rovers.

As soon as Derry went ahead that was it - game over. The heads dropped, they weren’t willing to fight for it.

It was a pathetic excuse for a performance from a bunch of professional footballers - there is absolutely no hiding from that fact.

We cannot sit here and continually delude ourselves into thinking that it will all come together at some point.

The reality is now that we are

one game away from completing the second series of games.

That means that we are two thirds of the way into the season.

That’s two thirds of a season that us deluded fools have been telling ourselves “it will all come together/we will be grand”.

Maybe things have to get worse before they better, maybe the players have to sink to the bottom to realise what they need to do in order to get this club out of the mess it is in.

I sympathise with Gerard Lyttle in some respects. Sticking Tobi Adebayo-Rowling on the right wing didn’t work, and poor Seamus Sharkey probably had the most hectic 45 minutes of his life, but the manager obviously felt change was needed. It didn’t work. Ayunga was not good enough in front of goal.

We are not in a position in the league where we can afford to completely flutter around a pitch for 90 minutes like a bunch of amateurs playing a pre-season friendly against a professional side. Maybe they did get somewhat carried away after beating Shamrock Rovers the previous week, I would believe it.

But we all got carried away. Mainly because that was the glimmer of hope we needed. We saw what Rovers were capable of that day, even with a depleted squad.

But they can’t just pick and choose what games they turn up for.

That was the perfect opportunity to kick on and go on a good run of form.

Now we’re back to square one and it feels like one step forward and two steps back.

I still believe we’re good enough to get out of this mess. And I believe we have the right manager to help us along the way. I don’t think his players are doing him justice at the minute.

I guess, as a young manager he is learning all the time. At least he’ll know not to try that formation or tactics again.

It’s a learning curve for him as much as any of the players, and he may be just a bit unfortunate in the sense that he cannot afford to make big mistakes given the precarious position Sligo Rovers currently find themselves in.

Every week in which there’s been a bad result, I’ve thought to myself ‘this should be the kick up the backside that they needed’.

If Sunday evening’s result doesn’t fit the bill, then nothing will I’m afraid.

The players owe it to their manager, the club and their fans to go out every week and give more than they have been doing.

It sounds daft to anyone not at the game on Sunday, but a Derry journalist commented to me after the game that he felt Micheal Schlingermann was man of the match.

Without the Mayo man, it well and truly would have been a cricket score on the evening.

Schlingermann looks a much more confident man following a couple of difficult weeks for him, and perhaps the rest of the team can follow suit.

There is a great opportunity to make amends slightly (not at all entirely) for that result when Rovers take on Drogheda on Saturday. If we can’t beat Drogheda then maybe we don’t deserve to be in the Premier Division. We have got to be winning those games in order to beat the drop.

We have not seen enough to be confident we will avoid relegation and that’s the big problem - fans don’t have much reason to be hopeful as we head into the final series of games.

It can’t get much worse than losing 4-0 to Derry - or can it?