How does she do it? How does Amy Rayner manage to bring out Harriers’ worst performances?

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a rant against women referees, although I don’t think shes a particularly good one, it’s just that we never play well when she’s in charge and, more to the point, we never win.

Seven times so far we have had the misfortune to have her in the middle and have managed just two draws from those games.  Not only that but the performances have never been great and often been amongst the worst of the season, for instance last night at Oxford, last season’s defeat at Droylsden and also at Grays.

Her full list of shame reads like this:

• 19/11/2005 Harriers 0-0 York City
• 02/01/2006 Altrincham 3-0 Harriers
• 17/02/2007 Harriers 0-2 Exeter City
• 18/08/2007 Grays Athletic 5-1 Harriers
• 26/01/2008 Droylsden 1-0 Harriers
• 12/04/2008 Harriers 1-1 Histon
• 25/11/2008 Oxford United 1-0 Harriers

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I’m really sloppy at keeping this blog updated, so old posts remain on the front page for a long time.  I noticed that some posts there that I wrote a year ago seem relevant again.

Posts about planning here and here, and a further one about the disappointment of having our hopes built up and then dashed could have been written about our start to the current campaign.

By all accounts the crop of trialists that spent pre-season at aggborough were the best as a group that we’ve had for many years, and that those that were signed added to the players that were kept on from last season and the key signings of Darryl Knights, Adam Bartlett and Luke Jones had set us up for another promising season.

That promise quickly began to ebb away.  Opening day against newly-promoted Lewes saw that promise starting to diminish as the side toiled away against a nervous looking team and come away with just a point after sloppy defending had allowed the visitors back into the game.  That was followed up with a defeat at Cambridge brought about by more sloppy defending and an apparent lack of confidence as heads dropped once United were ahead and it wasn’t until the last five or ten minutes that we looked like getting anything out of the game.

Sloppy defending, there seems to be a pattern emerging here, at Mansfield on Saturday saw the game lost before the break as we gifted The Stags a 3-0 half-time lead, with one goal coming inevitably from Michael Blackwood on his first encounter with us since being released at the end of last season.  Granted, there was a second half comeback that threatened to snatch an undeserved point but it only really served to paper over the cracks in this young team that is lacking an old head to drag them through the tough times when things aren’t going their way.

What was apparent from the second half at Mansfield was that the best way for Harriers to get out of their current slump is for them to play with greater tempo and urgency from the start of the game and not when it’s too late in the game to get anything out of it.  I also feel that the manager needs to bite the bullet and drop players who are not performing sooner rather than later, there are far too many of them in the side at the moment who do not deserve to be there on current form.  Last season the same mistake was made, perservering with James Constable and Justin Richards who were not scoring and leaving Iyseden Christie and Matt Barnes-Homer on the bench kicking their heels.  When Christie eventually got back into the side he scored goals for fun and Barnesey developed into a useful member of the squad when he was given a run in the side, ending the season with more assists than any other player.  This time round it looks like Martin Brittain and David McDermott are the players who should be in the side instead of the likes of Dean Bennett, Simon Russell etc who are not really performing at the top of their game.

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Or just too early to write off?  Floundering in mid-table or handily placed to make a run at the play-offs?

There’s 20 games still to play and we’re only eight points off the play-off positions, still in the FA Trophy and still in the Setanta Shield and it’s still early January.  However, many people are of the opinion that the season is over already and the best we can hope for is mid-table mediocrity.

Personally, I’m a bit undecided on the matter – on the one hand we have plenty to play for but on the other I can see totally where some are coming from.  On the face of it we have a decent squad, even if it is too small, with fringe players that are better than the fringe players we had last season, but they are far too inconsistent.  There have been times this season, Exeter and York at home and Forest Green and York away spring to mind, when we’ve played some really good stuff and looked capable of matching most teams in the division.  But, just when you think they’re going to get it together, they pull out performances like the ones at Farsley, Guiseley and Altrincham where they play like dustbins and look barely capable of staying in the league (I know the Guiseley game was a cup tie, but the performance was still dreadful).

Seven times this season Harriers have taken the lead in a game and failed to win.  The ability to finish off a game is proving to be one of the biggest problems they have; six of those seven games were in the Conference – five draws and a defeat – and have cost the side 13 points.  Had those leads been held onto, there would now be 50 points in the bag and we would be sitting comfortably in fourth place in the table and everybody would be excited about the prospects for the remainder of the season.

And that’s with the current squad that we have.  The next couple of weeks are going to be crucial.  Mark Yates has sent out Jon Munday and Jonny Harkness on loan leaving the squad stretched even thinner than it already was, so he has room to manouevre to bring players in to strengthen.  So far he’s brought in Dean Bennett again, although I’m not convinced that this is a particularly good move, and apparently missed out on a youngster from Nottingham Forest who chose to move to Chesterfield instead.  I don’t think a 19-year0old kid is the answer though, we’re already a young side, a better move would be someone a bit more experienced in the middle of the park to take control of things and hopefully enable the team to see out games when they get in front.  One or two key players could be all that it takes to spark things back into life, it’s just a question of whether or not Mr Yates can find them.

But, back to the original question.  Season Over? I don’t think so, not just yet, anyway.

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They say that the mark of a good side is being able to grind out results and pick up points when playing badly; Harriers seem to have that down to a ‘T’ at the moment.

The last four games have seen them pick up two wins and two draws and they haven’t looked at all convincing in the last three.  Another old cliche that almost fits at the moment is "Win the home games, draw away", the last four games being split evenly two at Aggborough and two on the road, so 8 points from those four games is "Championship Form".

We also know that when Harriers hit any sort of form during a game they are too much for somee teams to handle, see the results against Exeter and York for example, although at the moment those games seem a lifetime away in terms of performance.

Maybe when the likes of Scott Bevan, Jeff Kenna, Simon Russell and Iyseden Christie are all back from injury and Mark Yates has a full squad to choose from then we will see a return to those days when we were blowing teams away and scoring goals for fun.

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