The Cracks Are Appearing And Widening

First it was Green criticising the rest of the team, then Zola had a go at his players via the press, then there were rumours that Zola was unhappy with Nani and now we read that Duxbury demanded to see Zola after the Fulham game and hear Zola effectively calling his players gutless. These are the clasic signs of a club lurching into crisis. Duxbury and Zola have been very good up until now at presenting a smiling, unified front, and the Claret and Blue Klan have been happy to buy into the "Everything is on course" deception. Yet all along, this blog has been predicting a disaster, pointing out how Duxbury has been pulling the wool over everybody's eyes, highlighting the frailties in the squad and the risks we were exposing ourselves to because of lack of cover for key positions but nobody wanted to listen. "Shut up you spud!", they yelled, before demanding, "Why don't you leave our club alone?" There was even a petition on WHTID to close this blog down!

Well on Sunday, the players were booed off the pitch; Zola looked like a man in despair; Clarke was suddenly keeping his distance, not at the shoulder of his little general; and the team looked clueless when playing against the 10 men of the team fourth from bottom in the table. Crisis? This crisis!

Now we need to get real and start demanding the truth from the Board, not swallowing Duxbury's sugar coated bullshit. What is happening with Ashton - we want to know. Why is Dyer out for 2 games after every twenty minutes of competitive action - we should be told. Why did we surrender our League Cup place for the second year in a row by fielding a weakened team - fans who pay to see the team play are entitled to better. Why is Zola buggering around with 4-3-3 when it obviously isn't working? Why did we buy Kovac and sell Collins - that decision was bloody ridiculous and must be explained. Why didn't we try harder to retain Neill - we are clearly missing his leadership on the pitch hugely. Why did we wait until the season was three games old to sign anybody approximating to a second striker? Why is Franco fit enough to play for Mexico but not fit enough to make it onto our sub's bench? Is it just that the guy is crap? Why are we playing right footers on the left flank and left footers on the right? The questions go on and on and on.

What we must not do is allow Duxbury to wallpaper over the cracks and keep smiling as they widen into a chasm. There are now so many parallels to the Great Escape season: a terrible start, players lacking confidence in the manager, new foreign signings who do not fit into the shape previously employed successfully, and a Board looking to cut and run. The big difference this year is that we do not have Tevez, Neill and Collins, three key players in the Great Escape. Perhaps the Three Monkeys brigade will now open their eyes, listen and find their voices because, if these issues are not addressed quickly, we are going down - just as I warned, to wails of derision, before the season kicked off!