Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2017 3:48 pm
Posts: 5493
Location: In the Armchair.
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THE MELTDOWN – THE END OF SEASON EDITIONWho knew I would be galvanised enough to once again return to the PC try and work out what went wrong. As you are all too aware I called time on the “Meltdown” midseason as it was getting too depressing to write the same thing, week in, week out, there are only so many ways you can describe a festering turd so to speak.
I also in my own small way felt I was aiding the depression of fans, and I didn’t want to contribute to what was already a depressing enough time. I said several times in the first half of the season, this team/club make it an easy to choice when wondering if you should keep watching or not, with several deciding a trip round Tesco’s held more appeal, so I didn’t want to add fuel to the fire.
I myself drastically cut the amount of times I hit the road to follow the Dons up and down the country and that after getting on for 6 seasons without missing a game, and that included the FLT, ok my health didn’t make it any easier but I’m sure if we had been flirting with promotion, I would have found a way to get to games.
Sitting here now trying to pinpoint what went wrong is very difficult as if you had sat 20 or more Dons fans in a room and asked them the reasons behind the worst Dons season in history, they would I’m sure come up with several factors, and I confess with well over 50 years following the game I could probably give you several reasons, and still be miles off….so one thing I think is clear, is there is more to this than meets the eye, so probably it might be easier to work backwards from where we are today to see if that sheds a better light on things.
There are on inspection a few factors that saved us from the ultimate humiliation of relegation that is the football graveyard of the National League, firstly despite what some thought, the Dons were too good to go down, or probably more accurately Morecambe and Carlisle were too poor to stay up, but even me who never even considered relegation at any stage can now confess that I did start doing the calculations in the final games, especially when Gladwin was at the helm and as good as confessed he had no idea what to do, he may have been at the helm, but the rudder had snapped off and the outboard motor was broken and beyond repair, and even then, the fuel can was empty, it was starting to look bleak.
The second factor is of course Paul Warne, joining a club with a minus factor in terms of confidence cant have been easy, but somehow he restored the mentality all over the park and one thing I think is more than evident is the determination by every single one of them is not to concede turning a side that once leaked like a rotting shed roof, into a defensive attitude that is needed to propel yourself up the leagues.
Of course even with 4 clean sheets to his name in his 4 games in charge now means nothing, the slate is wiped clean, he will be judged on firstly the recruitment and who he releases in the summer, and then a quarterly report just before Christmas, and can I say now if things don’t start how we hope, anyone talking of sacking him should be slapped down, you could argue that sacking Lindsay was the right thing to do, but I would argue it is not dealing with the root cause of the problem, the likes of Graham Alexander, Liam Manning, and yes Scott Lindsay are not bad managers, hopefully that has been proved beyond doubt, managers IMHO are rarely the cause, but often the scapegoat.
Let’s not forget Lindsay got a team tipped for relegation out of LG 2 the season before, Manning sits on the brink of Premiership football, and Alexander has steered Bradford up and in front of crowds we can only dream about, bad managers …. not for me.
As I have said several times the sacking of Manning was lunacy, but it was typical Pete, the fans started getting restless, he came in for criticism, the club was scrutinised at every level, and he chose the “Get Out of Jail”, option sack the manager, buy a bit more time, reset, distract the fans and go again, and why not, it was a tried and tested method that had served him well for 20 years, and of course it gave him another opportunity to play to the crowd via the medium of Anglia News……and as very often before, more people fell for it, he told you exactly what you wanted to hear, and like a Kier Starmer pre-election promise it was all Smoke & Mirrors, and I’m sorry to mention it yet again, how people believed his explanation about Lewie going to Charlton to prove his fitness is still in my mind incredible…my, my, some of you lot are cannon fodder to the likes of Pete, he must have been pissing his pants telling that old chestnut to anyone gullible to listen…..and plenty did.
If you’re not sure when this all started going wrong I am more than willing to tell you, it was about 5 minutes after we got promoted to the Championship, yep that long ago, as the realisation that more investment was needed to keep the good ship MK Dons afloat in the waiting room of the Premiership. On that day the bulk of the players that were instrumental in that unexpected promotion were scattered to the four corners of the EFL, and the bit part players left behind supplemented by sick notes, has been’s, and never going to be’s were left to carry the can, it was of course a recipe for disaster and the inevitable happened, and even when Robbo was crying out for players to keep us up, the response from the Boardroom was you can have next seasons transfer budget, but you will get nothing next season, of course and rightly so, Robbo chose not to take this Catch 22 option.
We were told at the time funds were in place to maintain our lofty status and we wouldn’t give up our place lightly, but the reality was we couldn’t even stump up a £100K extra than our final bid for Will Grigg, that could have kept us up and guaranteed attendances of around 15,000, but it was deemed too much and the decline started, so, I wonder if those bean counters looking back at that moment think that £100K decision cost this club millions and accelerated the decline.
I realise I’m jumping about bit, but stay with me, I’m not so organised these days, my thought patterns aren’t so manageable.
You have to look at some of the things going on at the club at the moment to get a clearer picture of the last 20 years, the training ground for example, over 20 years and not one spadeful turned and every imaginable excuse given, yet not even a year in ownership and all the hurdles have been negotiated and the diggers are moving earth at Woughton….oh hang on…..you believed the MK Bowl story….hahahaha…honestly, you didn’t think that had been bought to host football did you, well don’t feel bad, you weren’t alone, perhaps we could host a concert for you, Blood Fest 2 anyone.
Right back on track…..just in case you hadn’t noticed a succession of managers have been scapegoats for the regime, probably not intentionally, well definitely not intentional, but I’m sure we hoped that someone might manage to get tune out of the regular stream of sick, lame and lazy players, and to be fair one or two did, but it’s not a strategy that was ever going to work, as when the sun shone the summer clear-out meant we would continually be back to square one, and anyone worth a few quid was sold to the highest bidder, again not a wise policy, selling the family silver every season was always doomed to failure, sooner or later, players like Scott Twine, or Max Dean ran out, and so we find ourselves where we are today.
I do though think that another reason was instrumental to both the decline and the small rise at the end of the season, yes, it’s the skipper Dean Lewington. There have been plenty of rumours about spats between Lewie and managers, its not a new thing, and not for the first time the manager has eventually paid the price, although it took a bit to shift Neilson. What form these spats allegedly took is a mystery, some say Lewie as skipper was rightly speaking out on behalf of the players, and the managers didn’t like it probably deeming Lewie as a disruptive element, but I would maintain in any working relationship between a group of people a conduit from top to bottom has to be in place and respected, and if the rumours of Lindsay’s dressing room tactics are true, I’m not surprised he eventually paid the price as it appeared the players responded by doing the minimum required to almost force the owners into taking action.
So Lindasy goes and in comes Warne and whilst you cannot deny he has had a dramatic effect, I don’t think we can dismiss the “Lewie Effect” which has united the club, the players, the management and us the fans by announcing he is calling it a day at SMK, and for about the only time this season everyone has been pulling in the same direction to make sure he is given the sendoff he deserves, Warne in reality has had a bit of a helping hand from the skipper.
So, what has changed, well the fight in players obviously and the determination and the fans sticking with the side despite being served up garbage time and time again. The other factor is the likes of some players being played to their strengths, who knew playing them for the reason you bought them would work, crazy stuff this management lark and then we have the likes of people like C Mac who has shown the form of a keeper that once relegated us, and all it probably took was an arm around his shoulder and telling him he is loved, but its worked, and although you could argue he hasn’t had much to do, he has dominated the box and given his defenders confidence.
You could argue Warne hasn’t had a bad introduction to his tenure at SMK but I’d argue that he has faced a team that took us apart earlier in the season scoring 6 goals, two teams that had playoff aspirations, and a team with about the best form currently in LG 2 and scoring for fun, and coming out of it with no goals conceded and just 2 shots on target allowed over those 4 games, that is a remarkable set of stats.
What it has highlighted though….as if we didn’t know it…. we have scored just 1 goal in the last 7 games, and although I’m not sure our strikers are good enough anyway, it’s more than clear we are not creating any chances, and that after we bought just about any midfielder that was offered us in the summer, and bolstered that with Danny Crowley, although playing him in an unfamiliar role didn’t help the situation.
A few weeks ago before Warne came in I was mulling over the suggestion that yet another major clear-out was needed although I have revised that, and I don’t think the cull needs to be so severe but the 6-8 players Warne suggests seems to be about right and I think we can expect to see new strikers, but for me a bit more muscle in midfield would be welcome, I don’t want to see the likes of Kelly & Crowley expected to be the ones in an overly defensive role, that should also free up the likes of Gilbey to do what he does best.
And so, to Liam Sweeting, I liked the guy initially, that first season he proved he knows his stuff, although based on his record since you could argue he got lucky on several occasions. He has come in for a lot of scrutiny from fans some of it probably unjust, should we be criticising him for giving us bang average players that are renown for being injured on a regular basis, or should we be sympathising with him for working under an extremely limited budget, its like giving a builder £10K and asking him to build you a mansion and he gives you a one bed flat, so the cynical about me possibly thinks his position in the club was a nice little fire break in the structure for Pete, and a possible reason Pete refused his resignation, removing that fire break would have left him really exposed for more scrutiny, it was probably nothing like that, I have a wild imagination.
So what now, well I think we can agree that things are on the mend, even off field matters like the building issues in Lewington’s have been resolved, yet another nothing can be done myth dismissed…incredible isn’t it, building a stadium without a dedicated home bar, and when finally worn down and a fan initiative gets one off the ground, everything is done possible to avoid spending money, and every bullshit reason is given, except the truth, and now….oh look….it can be done, who knew.
So things are getting straight off the pitch, the concourse is sorted, a new shirt and badge is on its way, the season ticket prices are sorted, and a whisper that we might have new shirt manufacturers, so its just the team, and I think Fahad and Hart have had too close a shave with the unthinkable to make sure the same mistakes will not be made again and for the first time in our history, lessons will be learnt, and acted upon and with Warne now very much apart of that team I believe we are finally as best prepared as we can be and if they get it right, slowly but surely the fans will return, the future look bright, but I confess I thought that last August.
Summer well folks, I’ll see you in the centre circle in May.  WD
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Being tortured for over 90 minutes on a weekly basis is taking its toll.
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