Where Did This Season Go Wrong?

For all the pre-season hype about back-to-back promotions and potentially reaching the play-offs, this season really has gone pear-shaped.

Today, as on the opening day, Notts were beaten 3-0 by a far superior Huddersfield – who have shown us the proper way to play football both at the Galpharm and in our own back yard this season. It is a result that leaves us a miserly two points above the League One relegation zone as the season draws to a close, and I for one am worried that there may be an immediate return to League Two only a year after ending a depressing six season stay in the football league’s basement division.

The blind optimists among the Meadow Lane faithful – of which there appears to be few – will point out that Notts still have up to three games in hand on the teams around us and if we are able to win those and pick up points elsewhere we will be fine. But ‘if’ is the important word.

Notts have now failed to score for 400-odd minutes and even that goal was a penalty – Alan Gow’s only goal in a Notts shirt at Hillsborough. By the time Oldham visit Meadow Lane on Saturday; it will have been over a month since Notts scored a goal from open play, Craig Westcarr’s goal against Brentford at Griffin Park, which is a frightening statistic at the best of times, but being in the midst of a relegation battle makes it that much worse.

So, where has this season gone wrong?

Some may look to January and the sale of Ben Davies as the moment our season petered out. Others will argue that our fantastic run in the FA Cup distracted us from the bread and butter of the league, leading to the position we find ourselves in currently. Others will go back further, to October 24^th, and see the sacking of Craig Short – or even a few days after that and the appointment of Paul Ince – as the point our season turned for the worse.

For me, you have to go way back to the 27^th May and the day that Steve Cotterill informed us that he would not be remaining as Notts County manager for the 2010/11 season.

It was the news that every Notts fan had been dreading. The man that had guided us to the title – a man we had idolised as a manager for the previous three months – would be leaving Meadow Lane.

Many will argue that I am living in the past and need to move on from the fantastic time that we had under Cotterill, but the stability that we would have gained had he signed a long term contract could have played a vital part in shaping this season differently.

I look to both Bournemouth and Rochdale for proof. Both started this season with the same managers that won them promotion into League One last season and both are still in with a chance of making the play-offs come the end of the season, albeit Rochdale’s chances are fairly slim now. Even when Bournemouth did lose manager Eddie Howe to Burnley in January, the men at the top decided to go for a continuation of what they already had in appointing Lee Bradbury as player manager with big Steve Fletcher as his assistant. This move has kept Bournemouth ticking over in the same way they were before Howe left as, whilst Bradbury will have added his own spin to the managerial position, he will have kept much the same as before he was appointed.

If only Cotterill had stayed, we may be looking at the other end of the league table to find ourselves well in with a chance of challenging for the play-offs instead of languishing a couple of points above the drop zone in the lower reaches of the table.

However, that is all ifs and buts and we do have a serious threat of being relegated, which will continue to be a threat in my eyes until we can find some form in front of goal. A season that initially promised us so much could go horribly wrong, but I believe that we have enough in the locker (or changing room) to pull us through and to then push on under Paul Ince next season.