Lions need new manager to take them forward

By Ian Toal on November 1, 2007 12:00 AM |

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LAST Saturday's 4-2 defeat away to Leeds underlined the need for the board to appoint a permanent manager soon.
Ideally we need to get someone who is fairly experienced in the lower leagues who can then assess the squad we have at the club and look towards moving us up the league.
The longer we stay down the wrong end of the table, the more the confidence will sap away from both the players and the supporters and relegation will become something that everyone will start to fear. Once this fear grips the club, that's when you are in trouble.

On Saturday (October 27), despite the heavy defeat, there were decent signs up at Elland Road. We had a goal ruled out after only three minutes for offside. And despite falling behind just before half-time we had by then a decent opening half and all-square would have been a fair half-time score. Supporters were still hopeful of getting something out of a game that the majority had written off before the match started. Unfortunately we collapsed early in the second half, letting in three goals in seven minutes.
Returning goalkeeper Lenny Pidgely, making his first start of the season, gifted Leeds their second goal by booting a clearance against Leeds forward Kandol only to see the ball end up in the back of the net two seconds later.Lenny looked thoroughly annoyed with himself at the final whistle.
There were some plus points. The way the team battled on and scored two goals showed spirit. One of those goals came from loan signing Ahmet
Brkovic, dubbed the Croatian Sensation by Luton fans, who adds some much needed experience with the loss of Brammer, Hackett, Brighton and Smith to injury.
Jamie O'Hara seems to be coming of age recently and is starting to show his class on the left-hand side of midfield. At least the new manager will have something to work with but the role needs to be filled within the next couple of weeks to give him time to turn the team's fortunes around.
The worry some supporters have is that the amount of loan signings we currently have mirrors the situation we were in when we got relegated from the Championship two seasons ago.
Looking at the opposition I'm pretty sure Leeds will get one of the two automatic spots available despite their 15-point deduction.
With 30,000 supporters behind them at home the vast majority of opposition players have never experienced playing in front of crowds this size. It seems to get to these inexperienced players and when they go a goal behind they start to make mistakes they would not make if they were playing in front of 6,000 fairly quiet supporters.
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