Hypocrisy

Clayton Beerman admits he’s not perfect, but then who is – not even Jose!!

It’s official I am a hypocrite.  I know it to be true.

Let me set a hypothetical scenario. We are managed by let’s say an ex Liverpool manager who just happens to be Spanish and bears a stunning resemblance to a person in the catering trade. This manager has been rude about us before he joined and when appointed refused to discuss it or apologise. Let’s just say that he drops one of our favourite players but the people he puts in are no better and he keeps picking two underperforming players who in the case of certainly one of them is stinking the place out.

What do you think the greeting for that manager would be on Saturday? Personally in that hypothetical scenario I would be livid and not a happy bunny. I would be questioning whether he knew what he was doing especially when he again picks the aforementioned two players.

Some of you may have guessed where I am going with this! What has happened to my Jose? Where is he? Why is he choosing to ignore what appears on the face of it to be obvious to the rest of us?

Is there something going on behind the scenes that none of us are aware of? There can be no other logical explanation for either the strange selections or the lack of passion of some of the performances. The one thing you could always say about Jose’s teams is that is exactly what they were a team. On Wednesday there seemed to be an element of waiting for something to happen rather than anyone taking the game by the scruff of the neck. Watching defenders bring the ball out and finding no one to pass to was disheartening.

We no longer have any leaders on the pitch but worse we have one sitting unused on the bench. I do not watch him in training, I do not know if he lost something but I do know that he could not possibly do any worse than what is out there. I think that since his brush with the media he has certainly become less rabble rousing when playing but with a new keeper and centre back there needs to be an authoritive figure out there. It is years since we have been so disorganised at the back.

Personally I think Jose is trying to settle on a back four and stick with it and that is why those four are likely to play again on Saturday. It appears for the second season in a row a decent left back will sit on the bench whilst our best right back plays at left back. This year is slightly more understandable with Baba being younger but in relative terms could he be any worse than Brana is at the moment if introduced with Cesar swapping?

For the record I love Jose. He is the best manager we have ever had and ever likely to have. He has more credit in the bank than anyone else. I do not want him going anywhere and if he has to have one bad season to get it out of his system then so be it. I can live with that but will Roman? The fact he is still in a job after the season we are having it looks like maybe there are a few issues behind the scenes which we are not aware of not least the illness to Jose’s father.

All that being said the continuation with Brana and to a lesser extent Cesc make no sense. Of course he can see that Brana is being targeted by opposition coaches  (except St Arsene) but chooses to do nothing to address that. He has not become a bad manager overnight but if you looked at that team in the last two games in isolation you could argue that they were not playing for the manager.

I saw no fight against Newcastle until we scored. Yes it was a good comeback but we got back in the game
with a worldy not anything tactical and of course there has to be spirit to get a draw from a 2-0 deficit. Against Porto we were decent got kicked to pieces and had a stonewall penalty turned down but we certainly looked second rate again in defence.

Also why leave players at home on a European trip if they are not injured. It’s not as if we are hard up and saving on air fare and
accommodation. How can that do anything but harm team unity? I don’t believe everything I read in the press but there has to be a certain amount of truth in those stories

All that said, on Saturday I shall support the team as I always do. I will grumble in the pub beforehand that I can not believe Brana and Cesc are both playing and JT is on the bench. When in the ground I will not chant against the manager but I will have a secret prayer that he has rediscovered his mojo, that things are good in his world and he can again make us champions (I’d settle for competitive at the moment) because “In Jose We Trust”.

Clayton Beerman

@goalie59 on Twitter