The Harvey Greenwood Column

Tuesday 26 November, 2002

Nobody Said It Would Be Easy

Just before the beginning of the season one of my work colleagues (a Notts County fan) asked what my hopes were for the forthcoming campaign. After the relief of surviving the summer, my reply was, 'To be still in business and avoid the drop come May (2003)'. He looked bemused, I think he thought I was joking, and to some extent I hoped I was.

The last week has had me thinking about my reply more and more. With little information coming from the club on how we are doing off the field, and the disaster that is happening on it, I just hope that I have some sort of prophetic ability.

Off the field we knew the new regime would be a different beast to the Richmond era, with talk of 'evolution not revolution' and the board not wanting to be in the media limelight. Shaun Harvey touched on this again in his programme notes on Saturday, saying 'We would rather do little talking but deliver. My advice at the moment is to trust us and do not miss the (Supporters) Forum when it is announced!'.

The 'evolution not revolution' sounds good, however experience in business has taught me that when people communicate little and ask to be trusted it is time to be nervous. We await the forum anxiously, and hope for some transparency.

As for events on the field, it is becoming increasing difficult to see us as a Division One team come the end of the season.

Discussions among fans in the concourse at the back of the Kop on Saturday were centred on players coming back from injuries and suspensions, and what difference will they make anyway, and wouldn't we be in the same position?

The starting XI against Sheffield United had an average age of 23 and had only 4 players from the opening game against Wolves (Uhlenbeek, Emanuel, Evans and Gray), and 5 players from the best results of the season against Ipswich and Rotherham (with Bower and Standing in whilst Emanuel was out injured).

The need for experience, leadership and motivation is clear, and the sooner we can bring players back to help on all three fronts the better we can be. A fit back line to include Wetherall, Myers and Atherton you would hope would help, however where we find more steel in midfield with Kearney out for the duration, and where we find a strike force nobody seems to know.

The Ward/Cadamarteri partnership on paper looks good, however does not translate to the pitch. Neither are currently looking like a 10 goal a season striker, never mind 20! Goals when they do come, are mostly from midfield, but seemingly at the expense of protecting the back line.

Lets hope we can get some of the back line casualties back and able to play for more than one match, and together would be even better. As the saying goes 'If you don't let in goals, you don't lose matches'.

Come what may, the rest of the season is going to be a hard slog, but did anyone realistically think it would be otherwise? We need to make it through the short term in order to have a long term, and nobody said it would be easy.

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