Are Chesterfield's Players Mentally Damaged?

Apparently our players are mentally damaged, according to the manager, mind you he's called Mad Dog anyway, so he should know.  Perhaps we can sign some sane players to save us from a third relegation on the trot.

Gozie Ugwu who was going to be our goal scorer this season got 2 in the net for Borehamwood on Saturday, he was loaned out having lost his confidence at the Proact. I’d assume he’s feeling quite cheerful at the moment, presumably they have someone to pass him the ball in the penalty area.

Fans conducting a poll online have come up with some interesting results, most feel that the club should have a proper scouting network set up, there’s a feeling that Martin Allen is ringing up his mates in football to find players and frankly it has led to some frankly odd signings. It’s no coincidence that we signed some of the best players ever seen at the Proact with Paul Mitchell looking for talent, I was greatly concerned when Danny Wilson said that he was surplus to requirements. 

Also the fitness of the team seems to be a real concern or maybe we have just got slow players? It was no surprise that with a full time fitness coach the team used to be much better.

Fans also seem to be of the opinion that the club might as well give Martin Allen a chance because if we got someone else in then the same situation would happen all over again. Also a lot of people polled suggest that the manager should be given funds to sign 4 or 5 new players, frankly the ones he has signed aren’t performing or aren’t good enough. The blame and fault lies at Allen’s door and at least he’s big enough to admit it, however a third successive relegation would lead to oblivion for the club. Look at Stockport County a team we used to play regularly, they had the plugs pulled financially and look where they ended up. How many of our fans would buy a season ticket to watch National League north football?

Continuing our tour of places we hoped we’d never have to go to Marc Antoine Fortune’s second half goal may have saved Martin Allen’s job, but then again last time we went away and drew, many thought we had turned the corner only to endure two absolute horror show in the week shipping six goals in 2 games to Gateshead and Maidenhead

Maidstone United away

A few statistics are horribly being touted round fans web boards this week, we’re actually not on Chesterfield FCs longest ever non-winning run in history. This 11 games sequence is puny compared to our 21 game winless sequence in 1999 – 2000 which did see the blues relegated, mind you that was in the third tier of English football, so you can argue that this is our worst ever effort.

We are so bad we can't beat Dover

We're so bad it's unbelievable. 

Martin Allen says that the rot has stopped after a 0-0 draw with Dover who have the division’s worst defence. Ok The Blues had chances and hit the bar and post in the dying seconds but the opinion amongst the fans is the performance and style of play and general inability to string passes together is cause for real concern. Chesterfield managed to play well for the first 15 minutes of the second half and then again for the last 5 minutes, which is not enough to win matches.

This week’s depressing statistic is it’s now 481 minutes since Chesterfield managed to score a goal in the non-league, we actually managed not to let a goal in, although our defence did grant the now obligatory free header to the opposition, Dover were actually so bad with only one man up front, they could barely mount an attack for the majority of the game.

This is terrible....

It’s rather depressing when the biggest cheers of the game were for when Dover put on their Ghanian substitute Nortei Nortey, a man whose name must have commentators salivating for a yellow or red card awarded against him. Purely for comic effect I only wish he could play on the same team as French defender Rod Fanni or former Sunderland and West Brom player Bernt Haas.

So where now? The club has a bid in for a player we can only hope it’s either a midfielder who can pass the ball or a striker who can make a goal for himself out of nothing. Fans are currently debating exactly what our best line up is or even if we have players who can fit into each position or even if there is any line up which can possibly work. 

You have to have some sympathy for Gozie Ugwu, It seems that Martin Allen placed faith in our striker who has never yet hit the net for Chesterfield, it’s just not working for him. When Ugwu actually tried a shot from 30 yards there were fans in the west stand sarcastically cheering the fact that he’d had an attempt on goal, it’s 10 games and no goals so far for Ugwu in our colours. The only alternative is to replace him with Marc Antoine Fortune who has never been prolific as a striker either.

Let’s not forget that Martin put together a side that he claimed at the start of the season were good enough to get promoted, well that’s gone and now it looks like he’s onto plan B. The only player that’s shown consistency is Charlie Carter and we haven’t won since he was injured, hopefully his return will instigate a revival.