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Speaking for myself, I wasn’t too impressed by what I saw pre season and, although the Leeds game was memorable for all the right reasons, the televised Watford debacle was equally so for all the wrong ones - early displays and results suggested we would be seeing more of the Watford type of performance than the Leeds ones. At this time we were constantly being told that because of all the new players brought in, the team needed to time to gel - although this got a bit boring after a while, it was a fair point and as August went into September the signs were there that the new team were getting to know each other better.
What became clearer was that this was a team in the best sense of the word with the adversity that brought them together perhaps helping to create a spirit among them that the previous seasons team (which I still think was marginally more talented than this one) lacked - whereas players in last years team looked to pass on responsibilities to someone else, many in this season‘s team, apparently, go out of their way to seek it. This willingness to work and scrap for each other was perhaps the telling factor in successive 1-0 home wins over Leicester and Palace which I think were so important in convincing all at Ninian Park that the season could be more than just another relegation battle.
However, it was probably the 3-0 win at Stoke shortly afterwards that first set supporters thinking that we could be more concerned with the top rather than the bottom of the table over the coming months. The usual hard work and strong team ethic was there at Stoke but there were also signs that this team could play a bit as well as the home team were ruthlessly torn apart by a devastating first half showing.
Cameron Jerome got two goals that night and in those early months I don’t think it is an exaggeration to say he was as effective a striker as any in the Championship. Maybe Jerome’s form has evened out recently and he has not been as influential in recent weeks as he was then, but the fact that Dave Jones trusted the nineteen year old to play the lone striker role at Leeds, and that he, apparently, made such a good job of it, speaks volumes about what a great prospect we have on our hands.
Jerome’s early season form emphasised that, besides being a solid, well drilled and hard working team, we have had individuals giving match winning performances. In recent weeks, Jerome’s mantle has been taken up by Jason Koumas who week by week is convincing me that I have never seen a more talented individual player at the club. From what I have read about the game, Leeds can be added to Leeds at home, Brighton and Ipswich as games in which Koumas was the difference between us winning and drawing.
To my mind, it is fair to say that for the first half of this season we have had a group of players with a great team ethic within which a few individuals are capable of turning in match winning performances on a pretty regular basis. However, when talking of individuals, I think it must be said that the individual who is most responsible for us being in fifth position at the moment has not kicked a single ball for us in first team action!
Dave Jones’ appointment felt right at the time and nothing he has done since then makes me think otherwise. The number of early goals we have scored is testimony to our manager’s ability to send out a well motivated team and only two days ago he showed a degree of tactical flexibility that his predecessor would never have done.
However, if I had to name one reason for Dave Jones being right up there with the best managers I have seen at the club, it would be the good judgment he has shown in the transfer market. Faced with the task of cobbling together a team from almost nothing in a short space of time with limited financial resources, Dave Jones has done a marvellous job. When you bring in so many new players, it is inevitable that some of them will turn out to be duds, but, at the moment, I would say that only Darlington and Mulryne fall into that category (and to be fair to them, they have both had injury problems since signing for us). To balance that though, although some of them took a while to settle, Purse, Loovens, Whitley, Koumas and Cooper now look great signings while Cox and Ricketts haven’t been bad either. However, it is not only on the field that Jones has bought well, you get the feeling that people like Cox, Purse, Cooper and a few others are also good in the dressing room and have played a part in fostering the team spirit without which we would never be where we are now.
So what can we expect from the second half of the season? Well, first of all, it should be said that we probably need another sixteen points to avoid the drop! I don’t expect that to be a problem at all, but, for me, what else the team does is very much dependant on what happens in the January transfer window.
First and foremost, we must aim to keep the squad that we have in place. Unfortunately, unless we somehow come up with the money to match any bid from another club and, just as importantly, find a way to pay all of the player’s wages rather the proportion we are currently paying, whether Jason Koumas stays or goes, is largely out of our hands. The same isn’t true of players like Jerome and Ledley and we must try to hold on to these players at all costs (as much for the effect their sale would have on the morale of those supporters who have stayed with the club over the past few difficult months as for what we would lose on the pitch).
Of course, in an ideal world, we would be looking to add to the squad (or at least try and sign some of the current loan players permanently). I rather doubt if we will be able to do that, but, if we can and Dave Jones is able to bring in players who would not disrupt the spirit which has helped to take us so far, then I don’t see why we cannot sustain our current promotion challenge - whether we would succeed in prolonging our season into the play offs or not, I’m not sure, but I think we would be in a position where we would still had a chance in the last few games of the regular season.
On the other hand, if we had to go through the closing months of the season with just the current squad, I think we would struggle to maintain our challenge. I say this not because our players aren’t good enough, just that we don’t have enough of them. Whilst Saturday tended to prove one of my pet theories (that once we have to go outside our “first eleven”, we start to struggle) wrong, other results and performances have indicated otherwise. I believe that, as the injuries and suspensions began to bite, our lack of strength in depth would be exposed and, rather like two seasons ago, we would end the season with a series of games which had very little on them as we settled for a safe mid table spot.
However, even if that ends up being the case, you won’t hear me complaining! Given what went on from March to July at the club, I’d willingly settle for mid table mediocrity this year. However, the encouraging thing is that you get the impression that Dave Jones and his team will not be prepared to see out the season quietly - they have spent all of the first half of the season successfully defying the odds, perhaps they can make people like me look even bigger mugs over the coming months by maintaining their current position right up to April 30 and then prolonging the season into May!