That’s one game down

how many more does Juande have?

After last nights UEFA Cup shocker against Udinese he can’t even fall back on the cup specialist tag, Bolton on Sunday will it be the end?

As Woodgate said after the latest defeat there was nothing positive they could take from the game. Yeah they started reasonably but you never felt they were going to do anything. Oh wow Jenas had a run into the box, then lifted a weak ball onto the head of Bent who proceeded to remove any pace it had giving it to the ‘keeper.

I’m sure it was during this stage that Ray Houghton sealed his place on the “Cretins Who Commentate On TV” list when he said all Jenas needs is a good run in the team. Yeah because he’s spent so many games on the bench over the last few years. Dear god he plays every game possible, no matter how crap.

And then there was a back pass, a needless one at that but an easy one to deal with. But this was the moment Gomes decided to have this games howler. He stumbled back gave Quagliarella an opening and stupidly grabbed hold, giving the Udinese player just the opportunity he needed to fling himself to the ground. Penalty duly given and scored.

Gomes had plenty of good saves after that, though he did have a dodgy patch straight after when he should have palmed a shot wide but played it into a dangerous area – the kind of thing that got Robinson slaughtered – but as I’ve posted after nearly every game he is going to do something stupid at least once a game and the way things are going this season it’s going to cost us more times than not.

And that was that, one nil down no chance of a comeback, even from just a goal down. And to be honest I expected so little before the game my expectations had no where down to go after they scored. It is quite relaxing watching when you know the outcome, even though it’s live.

How many games does Ramos have to save his job at the Lane, if he actually wants to and doesn’t quite relish the sack with a nice pay off and a chance to head back to Spain, where they don’t blame him for any of this.

It’s alright claiming he has to be given time and he only has the players Comolli handed him but his use of those players is quite baffling. Ledley can only play one game a week, you have to prioritise, in the grand scheme of things this game was unimportant the league is the most pressing matter right now. Unless of course getting through the group stages of the UEFA Cup is more important than trying not to play in the Championship next season. The defence is shredded for a tough “must win” league encounter with Bolton, where is our best defender required more, I wonder.

Then there’s the constant changing of the team so that no one can form the type of playing relationships that produce winning sides. But it’s not just the changes it’s the confused use of players in games that they’re not really that suited to and their benching for games that seem right up their alley. Case in point Modric a player that has so far struggled in the hurly burly of English football, so he’s started against Stoke a big physical, quick, up and at ’em team and is on the bench for a European tie against an Italian side where he would have the time and space to play his style of game. You could also make the same case for Dos Santos.

It doesn’t make sense unless you come to the conclusion someone somewhere doesn’t know what they’re doing, or they do and they know the likely outcome and that’s why they’re doing it.

This time last year Martin Jol had been so undermined by the chairman and his cronies that the players weren’t giving him everything on the pitch, I don’t know if they’ve ever done so for Ramos bar the Carling Cup run. There’s dissension in the ranks, players are rightly dropped for it but I can’t see it getting any better in the very short time it has to so that it can make a difference.

Chopping and changing managers doesn’t work, we’ve shown that over the years but that doesn’t mean when something is obviously just plain wrong and hasn’t worked for a number of months it has to be allowed to run it’s path straight down into the old second division. It means when you’ve got a bloke who was doing the job you don’t try and get rid of him before anything has started to go wrong and make it inevitable that things will go wrong.

If/when Juande goes he has to be followed by those that went out of their way to undermined his predecessor to get him in…