THE CONCRETE ROUNDABOUT (TCR)

I've been avoiding posting on here up until now. It's taken me most of the day to come to terms with what's happened. We've all known it's been coming for a while, but it doesn't hit you until that whistle blows and it's all over.

It's been an absolutely disgraceful season, there's no two ways about it. Mistake after mistake after mistake. We all know the problems, it's plain to see. I just hope that Mr Winkelman can see them too. And not just see them, but (for once) learn from them. Starting with the recruitment in the summer. We replaced the likes of Darling, Twine and Parrot with Oyegoke, Grant and Dennis. Then we decided to sack Manning, fair enough, but the timing was baffling. Gave Jackson all of a single week to assess his squad before the window opened. Not to mention the match day experience...

I think the main reason that this hurts so much is that absolutely none of us saw it coming. In many ways I think the game against Barnsley is like our last 5 years in microcosm. When we were in league two we brought in a guy who knew the league and, more importantly, knew how to get out of it. Whatever you thought of his style of play, he did his job in that year. Since then we made steady progression, bringing in Martin to improve the style of play. Everytime we sold a player, there was a better replacement. Good recruitment (I know, who would've thought?). Then we went to the next level under Manning. We couldn't believe our luck. It was simply some of the best football we've ever seen. We were flying, on top of the world... nothing could go wrong now, right?

And now here we are. Crashing back down to earth with an almighty bang. It's like the biggest kick in the balls ever. And much like last Saturday, you couldn't make it up. Nobody blows a 4-1 lead at home with 20 minutes to go. Nobody goes from a point off automatic promotion one season, to relegation the next. Nobody. Absolutely nobody. Except us.

I've been avoiding posting on here up until now. It's taken me most of the day to come to terms with what's happened. We've all known it's been coming for a while, but it doesn't hit you until that whistle blows and it's all over.

It's been an absolutely disgraceful season, there's no two ways about it. Mistake after mistake after mistake. We all know the problems, it's plain to see. I just hope that Mr Winkelman can see them too. And not just see them, but (for once) learn from them. Starting with the recruitment in the summer. We replaced the likes of Darling, Twine and Parrot with Oyegoke, Grant and Dennis. Then we decided to sack Manning, fair enough, but the timing was baffling. Gave Jackson all of a single week to assess his squad before the window opened. Not to mention the match day experience...

I think the main reason that this hurts so much is that absolutely none of us saw it coming. In many ways I think the game against Barnsley is like our last 5 years in microcosm. When we were in league two we brought in a guy who knew the league and, more importantly, knew how to get out of it. Whatever you thought of his style of play, he did his job in that year. Since then we made steady progression, bringing in Martin to improve the style of play. Everytime we sold a player, there was a better replacement. Good recruitment (I know, who would've thought?). Then we went to the next level under Manning. We couldn't believe our luck. It was simply some of the best football we've ever seen. We were flying, on top of the world... nothing could go wrong now, right?

And now here we are. Crashing back down to earth with an almighty bang. It's like the biggest kick in the balls ever. And much like last Saturday, you couldn't make it up. Nobody blows a 4-1 lead at home with 20 minutes to go. Nobody goes from a point off automatic promotion one season, to relegation the next. Nobody. Absolutely nobody. Except us.

Dons finally get into the Championship, lose their best players and sign a couple of Spanish players totally unsuited to Championship with some journey men footballers, get relegated and sack their manager

They replace with a over-hyped Scotsman with a personality of a gnat, who banishes the Captain & long serving Dean Lewington, buys mainly poor Scottish players, replacing him with a ex youth coach with a plan and without a idea of how to survive L1.

Getting relegated to L2 they employ a L2 veteran, fashionardo, who just gets us promoted and we sell our best player and we go on to us worst run of results in our history. Replacing him with a manager who is more interested in possession than scoring, behind close doors we struggle until the allocated points per game has us finishing mid table.

This doesn't stop us losing our best players and the much sort after manager jumps ship before the 1st game of the season. Employing a coach only known to his mother and Liam Sweeting, the club manages to make the play offs, to fall to our county rival.

As a matter of course, we lose us best players and sign players, either been involved in relegation, are unknown future prospects or players at the end of their career. We slump again and employ another youth coach, who despite promise, fails to turn around the club and we are relegated back to L2.

You really couldn't make it up.

Have you thought about writing the Meltdown….you seem to have a lot of talent.

I cannot wait to see how the club handle it in terms of Winkie, Sweeting etc in front of the camera.

Thanks but it doesn't compare to yours. I guess if you can't do it every game, is to have guest contributors. Happy to do 1 or 2 a season.

Have you thought about writing the Meltdown….you seem to have a lot of talent.

No no no. We're not having someone with talent writing the Meltdown.

Seriously, if you step back from it (which I could fully understand), I'd miss it. It combines passion, personal bitterness, good insight and batshit craziness, all in perfect proportions. It's one of the best things about this place, even when I disagree with every word (which ain't that often, he whispered).

We replaced the likes of Darling, Twine and Parrot with Oyegoke, Grant and Dennis.

I agree with a lot of what you said, but I don't quite agree with this. I understand the frustrations with recruitment and in hindsight we made a hell of a lot of mistakes. But I think it is slightly dishonest to make those direct comparisions.

The Twine replacement was a big miss, but that was always difficult having gone from Gilbey to Fraser to Twine. We hoped it would be Grant. Let's not forget Twine only had 6 months experience in L1 having previously been shipped out on loan to L2, hardly guaranteed success or a clear proven track record.

We replaced Darling with Tucker - somebody highly sought after with 100 games at this level and cost us a reported £300k
We replaced KKH with Oyegoke - one Premier League youth England international for another Premier League youth international
We replaced Parrott with Barry - one highly rated Premier League Ireland international for one highly rated Premier League, former Barcelona England youth international.

Now did the work? Hell no. But most of us felt at the time they were pretty good replacements