Lincoln 6 (Six)-0 U's: What's The Opposite of a New Manager Bounce?
A real night to forget for the U's at Sincil Bank, as Lincoln sliced through us time and time again. The task for Monk is now looking impossible.
Where do we start with that then? I’m not going to criticise Monk for naming an unchanged starting eleven as no matter how bad it was it ground out a point at home to Northampton and he’s obviously trying to settle on a first choice side.
What I can criticise him for is not changing it ten minutes into the game when it was obvious that a central two of Digby and Cousins provides neither the strength, quality or tactical nous to prevent repeated attacks going straight through us.
What I can criticise him for is not changing the shape, the tactics, the anything as soon as Lincoln put the game to bed.
But lets be clear - this isn’t strictly Garry Monk’s fault. If there’s criticism to be dished out he’s probably the least deserving of it. There were eleven players out there on the pitch and how many can come out of that with any credit? James Brophy perhaps, and he still couldn’t put the ball in the net from eight yards out. If he’s our big hope for avoiding the drop then perhaps we really are doomed.
Monk has taken the job believing he can get something out of this squad - does the squad believe that themselves though? Do they care? It didn’t look like it last night. For all the bad times we had to endure last season it never seemed as if the team had downed tools - they’d run out of talent, but never application. Half of this lot look like they don’t give a shit, we’re a paycheck to them, a last bite at the League One cherry before dropping down the divisions. That’s not Cambridge United. We’ve often been outclassed, but never outfought. We can deal with there being better teams in the League than us, but there shouldn’t be teams with any more drive and passion than us. Hard work overcomes talent. That shouldn’t be stood for by any one. Board, coaching staff, senior players, fans. Everyone needs to make it perfectly clear to those players who played last night that what we saw is not acceptable. If they’re not in the training ground already then they should be. If they’re not making moves to apologise to those who travelled to Lincoln then they should be. If they’re not asking their agent to get them a new club in June then they should be.
The worst thing is? This isn’t even the first time it’s happened this season. We saw the exact same apathy against P*sh back in November. Two managers later and fuck all has changed. If we’re going down, we have to go down fighting. Relegation undoes all the hard work of the last four years. There’ll be no point redeveloping a 12,000 capacity stadium if no-one wants to come and watch a soft United get thumped each week. You might think I’m being hysterical, but Wrexham-aside, no one gives a shit about League Two football. They never have, they never will.
I don’t know how Monk responds to that? Realistically what’s he gonna do, play the kids? We haven’t got a squad big enough or fit enough to make wholesale changes on Saturday. It’s still too soon to make any real judgement about him as a manager, and he deserves till the end of the season at least. The players though, judge them all you want. They’ve made their minds up whether they want to fight for us already.
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