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Where From Here?
Where From Here?
Sunday, 6th Mar 2005 00:00

Where Do We Go From Here?

Very worrying times on planet Swansea as the Swans lose another game and another league place in the process against a side that I suspect 95% of Swans fans as a minimum would have said we should have beaten. Where do we go from here?

Well in simple terms we have to go into the last ten games with a belief that we can win them. Well at least six of them anyway. You can laugh and scoff at that comment if you like based on our recent form but we have to have that belief.

And when I say 'we' I mean everyone. Starting with the board and management at the football club, running down through every single one of the players that will be involved in those ten games and to the thousands of Swansea fans that will watch those games. We have to have belief, if we don't have that belief then we may as well give up on the season now because if all those people think that we won't do it, I'll pretty much offer you a cast iron guarantee that we won't.

Rightly so the performances of late have drawn criticism. And so it should for any side that has picked up just 5 points out of the last 21 available and none of those coming in four road trips in that period. Fingers have been pointed from the supporters, some of them justified, some of them not and the performances have been chewed over, analysed some more and for good measure they have been pulled apart almost play by play. All fine under the circumstance and we shouldn't expect any difference.

We have to assume that they have also come under the same scrutiny inside the walls of the Vetch as they should do and as a team we have looked at ways of correcting the run that has seen us drop from a comfortable place in the promotion zone to just hoping that we can cling at the moment to the tails of the likes of Scunthorpe, Macclesfield and Southend.

When we beat Chester way back at the end of January I firmly believed there was only one way we could go and that was up. We were six points clear of the promotion zone, 11 points clear of the non play off places and hot on the heels of leaders Yeovil at one point ahead of us. We blew two chances to hit the league summit and then it really hit home. We are now 9 points off the top, we have been caught and overtaken by three sides and just six now ahead of the dreaded 8th place and a guaranteed another season in the basement. All facts that we know have to be reversed and who can blame any fan at the moment for wondering where the next three points would come from?

Maybe that worry extends to the players as well but them more than anyone have to have the belief that it can be overturned and they have to believe that the process will start next Saturday against Rochdale. It has to be instilled into them that they can return to winning ways and stay there. They have to believe that, if they don't then failure is certain. As supporters we can have doubt but it won't mean automatic failure, if the players have doubts then it will. if the manager has doubts then that will surely rub off on his players.

I try to remain optimistic in these times and it is a challenge at the moment. A very big challenge. I don't feel personally that I am prone to over reaction any more after a defeat any more than I am prone to the opposite over reaction when we win. I will hold my hand sup and say that after the previously mentioned Chester game I did think we would do it from there. I felt that after watching the side stumble through so many games with three points that we were one of the better (or least worst whichever you prefer) sides in the division and that the position we had built ourselves would be taken forward because of the belief that it appeared was there on the pitch.

That belief on the pitch has wavered ever since that game and it has to change. And with it we have to see and feel passion. Running through the club from top to bottom, transferring as well to and from the terraces. Everyone united with one goal and one belief - that next season will be witnessing League One football at White Rock.

It isn't going to be easy - no-one ever pretended that it would be - but we have to have belief that it can happen. We're not out of it yet but of all the sides currently in the top half of the table I firmly believe that we possibly have the hardest job ahead of us because we are heading in the wrong direction.

Where's Delia when you need her? ;-)

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