Any hasty decisions in terms of management leaves us where we were this time last year

IT’S been a long time since the Showgrounds emptied so rapidly and so early. The anger levels from supporters towards players and management haven’t been so visible in a long time, as they were towards the end of Saturday’s game.

Even during our more recent poor spells under Owen Heary and Dave Robertson, fans haven’t been this enraged. After a few great years, we’ve had to put up with our fair share of poor performances from the lucky few who represent our club.

But the slop that was served up on Saturday was unacceptable from a bunch of well-paid, well looked after full-time footballers.

Everyone has their reasons, but what annoys me the most is that we have a squad of players good enough to finish mid-table at the least.

We were never going to challenge the Corks or Dundalks over 36 games but we do have it in us to comfortably finish mid-table.

But we don’t seem to be a squad, we’re not together in where we’re going. We are a group of individuals with no collective compass.

The job of getting everyone moving in the same direction is the manager’s. Ger Lyttle will always be the first to have the finger pointed at him and going on recent weeks, any criticism is justifiable.

We are disorganised, playing players out of position.

We have a back five full of mishaps, who look likely to concede at any given moment. We have potentially the best attacking midfielder in the league playing in front of our back four in Rhys McCabe.

We have two wingers who haven’t put a decent ball in the box all season. We have arguably the best finisher we’ve had at the club in a long time but we can’t seem to get any service to him.

We’re mentally and physically weak. Competing with a batch of full-time footballers who are constantly out-battled. David Cawley and Gary Boylan apart, I wouldn’t back any of our players in a 50/50.

We have Kevin Deery as an assistant coach. One of the warriors of the game on this island over the past few decades.

A captain of an unforgiving Derry City side for years, you’d think he would demand everything out of his players. But for whatever reason, it’s just not happened for Rovers this year.

The reporters from the local Derry media who made the journey to Sligo on Saturday were as aghast at the performance as they were towards the club’s ability to continuously receive the financial backing of our supporters.

They couldn’t believe the club had raised over €40,000 despite supporters and those volunteers who were behind those money drives, having to put up with what we’ve seen the last few years.

This also upsets supporters in that it becomes a yearly feature to go cap in hand to the same people over and over again without any real success to show for it.

It was during the post mortem late on Saturday that somebody brought up the last time Derry took three points from a visit to Sligo. August 2009, the Showgrounds ringing out to a chorus off boos and calls for the manager’s head after a four nil defeat.

Paul Cook was in his second season, struggling to steer what was probably a less talented squad than we have now towards safety.

The knives were out and certain sections of support wanted a new man.

But the club stuck with Cook throughout his rookie mistakes and even though we had to rely on results towards the latter end of that year, we all know the rest of that story.

It’s not to say that the good times are surely on their way back but to make any hasty decisions in terms of management just leaves the club back where we were this time last year.

However, a defeat this Saturday in Limerick would leave Rovers five points adrift of the Blues in eighth spot.

It’s too early to start thinking about survival at all costs, but a five point gap would be a difficult one to cut in the short term given the awkward series of fixtures on the horizon.

Supporters and the volunteers who run the club deserve so much better than what they’ve been offered since February.

What we are seeing on the pitch is a million miles away from what’s good enough for them and for Sligo Rovers.