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WARNOCK WEEKLY - TO SPURN OR NOT TO SPURN - 23-1-08
Tom Warnock
In football, we always talk of that circumstance and reflection called hindsight.
So prior to Saturday's game many of us would have bitten off any hand that offered us a point from the high-flying Rovers.
At that time however, we could never have guessed it would be a repeat of the West Ham away game in terms of the sheer volume of guilt-edged sitters we missed.
The guilty culprits need to take a look at the finishing of David Wheater as there is no doubt Wheats could show Aliadiere a thing or two about heading. Tuncay's point blank miss was more down to a trip/stumble/lack of concentration than it was a lack of class.
Nonetheless, with our home form so unpredictable, those two points dropped could come back to haunt us.
It should be an interesting couple of weeks ahead though, with the cup tie at Mansfield to come followed by the best away trip of the season for pure banter, Newcastle away.
How sweet will it be to go there and spoil the "party". The absurd delusional euphoria has gone to the heads of all Geordies and far from giving Keegan time, they already expect miracles.
We need to be the side that tears up the script and swaggers out of SJP with all three points. We need to show Mark Viduka that by leaving us he may have left one bottom half club but we need to remind him that he has merely signed for another one.
Sandwiched in between those two fixtures is Wigan at home. This will be a huge fixture as the term "six-pointer" doesn't begin to describe it.
The two points dropped at Blackburn mean that the Wigan game could turn out to be a season defining fixture.
If we win, it will push us away from Wigan and gives us a five point cushion. If we lose, we will be back on the brink and all the signs would point towards the fight going right down to the last. That is not something we want by any means.
I feel we have the ability to win the game but a slow start or a defensive strategy will unsettle the crowd because nerves will be jangling. And so they should be, safety is still a long way off.
If anyone needed to be persuaded that it's a striker we need, then surely Saturday would have opened everyone's eyes and started alarm bells ringing.
It staggers me how we manage to complicate so many transfers. We did it with Rocky from Sporting, Woodgate from Madrid, and Zenden, and now there is a complication with the Alves situation. The way the club deals with transfers comes across as amateurish.
I feel if we don't make a telling acquisition before the window closes, we will live to regret it. We may just struggle on without another striker, but it won't be pretty. Nothing is more frustrating than watching from the stand as chance after chance is missed - it makes you want to lace up and get on the pitch yourself.
I'm looking forward to the cup game however. It's a really good draw in comparison to some teams and we can take this chance to progress.
Last season we had some riveting cup ties with Manchester United and they gave us something to focus on away from the league. It would be fantastic to make progress again and possibly exact some retribution on United in the later stages.
It's a game which calls for professionalism and organisation. After that the gulf in quality should take its course. In practice though, Mansfield won't want to make it that simple.
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