Dark, Darker, Darkest
Well, that went south quickly.
We start the month off with a hugely positive result, beating first-place Stockport 3-1 on the road in the FA Trophy Cup. It’s a marvelous win. We follow that with a 1-1 draw against a mid-table team, and things are definitely turning in the right direction.
The next five matches, however, bring us thundering back to earth in a series of increasingly depressing performances. We only manage one draw against four losses and are beaten by a combined 10-2 tally over our last two matches.
The mood in the locker room has fallen apart, resulting in two team meetings to help patch things up. The fans are calling for me to change tactics, which we’ll be doing anyway. So many things are going wrong in our matches, and it doesn’t matter what I try. Defensive, positive, different players, different tweaks, it just doesn’t matter. Opponents are pummeling us on defense and snuffing out our attacks on offense. It’s awful. We end the month in 21st place, a full four points from safety.
Going forward, I’m at a loss as to what to try, and I can’t imagine the board will be patient with me. I’ve switched up our formation for January, but I honestly feel like the 3-1-4-2 we’d been using suited our personnel well, and we don’t have a lot of depth to work with.