Yellows 1 Hayes and Yeading 2

There was one discussion lighting up the Grenoble Road following yesterday’s masterclass in abjectness. Chris Wilder is losing the plot with a glut of loan signings few can see we need.

It’s totally unfair to damn Wilder on the basis of this defeat given what he’s achieved in the last year or so. And the knee-jerk reaction from many is hopelessly irrational. However, there is an uncomfortable truth that Wilder plays a high-risk game.

Look back to the end of last season. Having steered the team to the brink of a miraculous promotion, he disbands the team almost in its entirety and rebuilds again. Then at Christmas he breaks up a back four that conceded but a handful of goals. Then he has four or five proven forwards, but insists on signing Franny Green and John Grant.

Chris Wilder is a tinker, how many times have we seen players jogging across to the touchline to be given another minute tactical tweak. Are we to believe that the likes of Hayes & Yeading are so tactically sophisticated that constant adjustments are needed to slay them?

Nope, I think that Wilder’s tinkering is his nervous tick. He just can’t leave things alone. Claudio Ranieri was the same; he couldn’t leave his team alone. Mostly Ranieri was a successful manager, but he famously overcooked his twiddling at a Champions League Semi-Final against Monaco in 2004 that eventually cost him his job.

Like Ranieri, Wilder’s tinkering got the better of him last night. His constant re-dealing of the pack will inevitably produce a duff hand eventually. Yesterday was a case in point; a combination of tinkering with the loan system, injuries and suspensions produced an insipid performance. But worst still, when it was going wrong, there was no proven plan to fall back on – the playbook is too full.

Had there been more stability he could have called a plan B that the players could have confidence in. Instead they ended up playing yet another system with players who’ve barely met before. It’s difficult to know how you can dominate a game when you’re still working out who the bloke to your left is. This might not have been the single cause of last night’s debacle, but it was a big influence on our ability to rectify the position we found ourselves in.

But, let’s look at the positives. Yes, we have a squad with almost too much choice, inviting Wilder to fiddle endlessly with. But it is one with the quality to take the title. The margins have narrowed, but the title is still in our hands. Stevenage are on a hell of a run, but they have a lot of games and a similar history of choking. Don’t tell me that they won’t feel the pressure. And, above all, for all his fiddling, Chris Wilder gets it right far more often than he gets it wrong. This isn’t over.

Yellows 1 Hayes and Yeading 0

Can you feel it? The distant carol song, the nip in the air? It’s unmistakable, that feeling of inevitable and impending doom. It’s been brewing for a few weeks; we’re not scoring enough, winning with enough style, then came Chris Wilder’s ‘enjoy it’ rant. Now we have a penalty crisis.

I don’t blame Wilder for being bewildered by the temptation to press the panic button when things are going just too well. Quite justifiably we have a reputation for capitulation, not just the collapse three years ago, it’s been a long time since we had a whole season of success.

Those of us that remember the 95/96 promotion run, will recall that it came off the back of half a season of spectacular results. We were no better than ordinary in the early part of the year.

You have to go back to 84/85 to see a season, which consistently delivered good results from August to May. It’s no surprise that we can’t sit back, relax and watch the success.

But, so far, every apparent wobble – Mansfield, Kidderminster and Barrow – has been followed by confident victory. The latest, 1-0 versus Hayes and Yeading, was important because it chased the fear from the door. Let’s be honest, the players are performing against a tidal of doubt, not in their ability to play football, but also in our ability to hold our nerve.

Yellows 1 York 0, Yellow 2 Yeading and Hayes 0

The conditions ensured that we were hardly going to get an open and flowing game yesterday. A set piece was always the most likely route to victory. In addition, the inclusion of Willmott and Day, who did OK, but unbalanced the back four, plus York’s use of wingbacks, pushed Murray and Trainer into more defensive roles leaving Guy and Constable unsupported.

Given the situation I was lamenting our lack of strength in depth – our inability to bring anyone on from the bench who could change a game. I was thinking that we needed a Julian Allsop or Paul Moody to batter our way to victory. Then Phil Trainer flicked a ball over their back four to Yemi who drew the foul and won the game.

The concern still stands – when we’re good we’re possibly as good as almost anyone in what is a pretty average league. I’m still not sure of our ability to ground out enough points to make a true impact on the league.

To the credit of most fans, there was patience around the ground – an acceptance of the conditions and that a sound thrashing was never on the cards. All apart from the bloke next to me who insists on reacting to every mistake with the perpetual outrage of a Daily Express reader.

Now onto Forest Green and the Setanta Shield – there will be many who will call for us to rest players because it’s a distraction. This is a mindset born in the Premiership – where deep squads and the dominance of ‘the big four’ allow teams to select their competitions and play different teams accordingly.

For me, no team can turn on and off their form, especially not at Conference level. Like the win against Yeading and Hayes last week, it’s important that we keep winning games regardless of the tournament or opponents. One of the lessons we appear to be learning is that games are there to be won and lost, we have no rights at this level.