'Nothing will come of Nothing'

For a while now, we have been urged to be ‘patient’ (a favourite word for some but not for all). According to this script, we should accept that this transfer window will be an empty one apart from a loan perhaps. We get on with it, roll through the rest of the season, make it to the end in one piece, and wait for the fireworks recruitment of what we are told by some is a top recruitment team.

Sorted! Bonfires and bells! And breathe.

We even have one or three on here who know what The Friedkin Group and its wheeling and dealing lads are up to. So much so, that we ought to relax a little and go with the flow. These people know that TFG have a ‘plan’. TFG have apparently made a calculated decision to not spend for now. We must accept, in the words of one poster, that this is ‘not inertia or incapability or intractability -- it is intentional’. ‘Inertia’ and ‘intractability’ can in fact be ‘intentional’.

So, there we have it. The first part of ‘the plan’. We must accept this because it is – what? – pragmatic, realistic, and on the right side of caution. We must be quiet, patient, and wait and see. TFG’s ‘intentional’ course of action is the correct one. It is not questioned in this version of events. In TFG we must trust.

And, anyway, the ‘menu people’ who buy the pricey food and tickets and put up with the worst transportation arrangements for any Premier League ground, have no say in any of this. TFG is only interested in their pockets -- not their mouths or minds.

Let’s think a little bit more about this.

Now I would be thrilled if the cheery ‘patience’, 'wait and see', 'trust in the plan’ scenario worked like clockwork. Who wouldn’t be? Success for us is like a drop of water in the driest desert. We’re parched. We’re starving. But this is one perspective only.

There are other possibilities and concerns that have equal legitimacy. Nor is the TFG way necessarily the right way, as a few on here are working round the clock to tell us, like those lads in the suits who come knocking at our doors to save us.

In no order of priority, there are issues and concerns that are not anticipated or even raised in the pragmatic corner over there.

Who was that fella who said that there were no guarantees in football?

It might not... but it’s entirely possible (made even more likely by our comic exit from the FA Cup) that the rest of the season will fizzle out into grey 13th-16th place land. More empties pockmark the stadium.

The atmosphere stinks at times. We win one, we lose one, we draw one, we lose one; players X and Y are out for the rest of the season. We chug along in expectation of something sunny around the next corner. There is always hope, right (no matter that well-trotted out adage)?

A possible direct consequence of doing nothing is that things go from bad to worse off the pitch. The pragmatic line does not refer to us, the fans, other than to tell us to lap it up and put up with it. Also, they never speak about the players.

It’s as if we reach the end of the season – phew – and we can breathe a sigh of relief. The players are made up, beaches beckon, sun, sun, and more sun. Better still, the recruitment fireworks are about to start. Angus Kinnear has got the matches. Two packs.

There is not a word in the pragmatic narrative about players wanting to leave or leaving. They might already be thinking along these lines but then half a season of torpor, with all that might mean for morale and sense of belonging, clinches things. Does anyone seriously believe that a sluggish second half of the season might not turn heads as the usual vultures swoop?

Ndiaye, Dewsbury-Hall, Garner, and one or two others might not leave us... but they could. I can understand why they might want to if we slump into a somnambulistic season’s end. Our best players have ambition. Their club is a big part of who they are, their status and standing. They want to win things. Some of them want to get caps.

So, we drift through the rest of the season, hoping that the players we pin our hopes on are with us when the next season starts. Great plan, that. Innovative. Inspiring.

A related point, I think. A ‘pragmatic’ second half of the season is hardly likely to enthuse the ‘exceptional’ players in Kinnear’s world (according to Kinnear, we will only buy ‘exceptional’ players) that we might want to bring to the club. No more McNeils.

By the way, Kinnear presided over buying Dibling, Barry, and Röhl, all clearly ‘exceptional’ players in his expert view. We only do ‘exceptional’. I don’t trust Kinnear or a word that comes out of his scripted mouth: ‘exceptional’. Dear God...

And this is the fella who one of the pragmatic bunch quotes approvingly, saying that he will have a good old chuckle at the players we are linked with this month. Disgraceful. Twatdom of the highest order.

Meanwhile, in TFG’s brilliant ‘plan’, we get to the end of the season and we wait for all these ‘exceptional’ players to join us in droves, clearly enthused by our season’s end’ Let’s see what happens. This is, after all, only one perspective.

Lastly, the pragmatic approach does not once mention the impact of a chugging along TFG season on the best fans in the world. Not once. So, you loyal lads and lasses pay your hard-earned money, for fuck's sake, never mind your time, effort, and state of mind.

It has been ordained in ‘the plan’: if results do not go the right way – and I mean ‘if’ – who would want a murmuring, disgruntled, unhappy, apprehensive, stifled Hill Dickinson crowd that clings to the odd good result? Never mind the impacts on player recruitment and retention.

Things will pick up once the Afcon lads return. Hang on, we only had two lads at Afcon, like Wolves, West Ham, Brentford, Man City, and Spurs. One of them is in his last season with us, I suspect. The other, Ndiaye, I fear, will not be with us next season. Ndiaye will make a difference when he gets back, but he cannot turn things around on his own as torpor waves its ugly hand. We are on a really bad run that began before Afcon.

The assumption that we will be fine this season and set up for recruitment fireworks over the summer is a real risk. We need now – today, tomorrow, the day after – what TFG did not give us over the summer. This is not the time for doing nothing in a pragmatic vein. That is hardly a finely-tuned strategy in the light of events.

‘Nothing will come of nothing’, as the old king said. The pragmatic people leap on a couple of statements from Kinnear and Moyes – statements that don’t even match as Moyes is more ambiguous – to carve out the first part of the plan. Reasons not to be cheerful, one: they have not got a clue what will happen over the summer, but they keep telling us that they do.

Short-term damage for long-term gain. Let’s see how this one works out.

Best-case scenario? Mine is only one of a number of potential outcomes. It would be terrific if we cruised through the rest of the season with what we have, finishing in the top half, attracting potential ‘exceptional’ recruits who matter and who actually want to join us with a spring in their step.

One poster. One interpretation. One potential sinking feeling. One desperate to be proved wrong. I’m just sketching a potential alternative. That’s all. There’s always more than one.

COYB!

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