Week Review
First things first sorry for anybody who has been checking back on here on a regular basis. I haven’t posted anything for a week because I’ve been a bit busy again! I decided it would be better if I just did a big blog about the past week rather than separate ones.
It has been a strange week in football. It has been dominated by 3 stories. Two in the top flight and one in the lower tiers of football. Firstly, Arsenals Aaron Ramsey came out of a 50/50 tackle with Stoke Citys Ryan Shawcross with a broken leg. A really unfortunate incident for the 19 year old who was beginning to work himself into Arsenal starting 11. Not something anybody wants to see in football but Shawcross didn’t go into the challenge with intent. Ramsey was just on the receiving end of some real bad luck. Secondly, again in the top flight, Manchester United won another Trophy. Despite being in debt by around £800 million they somehow are still allowed to play football. Unbelievable.
The third, and without doubt the most saddening news this week is that Ex Stags player and assistant Keith Alexander passed away at his house Wednesday morning. He was the current manager of Macclesfield Town and was said to be his usual self on the touchline on Tuesday night, when Macclesfield played Notts County. Now I wasn’t around when he played or helped manage us but his commitment and managerial expertise at this level was second to none. I have not seen one person have a bad word to say about him. Alan Marriott who played under Keith at Lincoln said “he was one of the nicest, most genuine and honest of people I have ever met in my life and in football”, to read the full interview click here. Tomorrow there will be a 1 minutes applause before kick off in respect of him. RIP big man.
Moving onto more lighter stuff and we managed to scrape a 1-1 draw with Hayes and Yeading last Saturday. Gary Silk poked the ball home after their keeper dropped the ball in the last minutes of the game to salvage us a draw. Not really inspiring stuff eh? We then hosted Luton Town in midweek who smashed us 4-1 earlier on in the season. I didn’t attend because I wasn’t very well but I was told it was very boring and we just cancelled each other out. Both games we could’ve done with a win in to move up the table but we will have to settle with 2 points out of 6…
During the Luton game Luke Jones was stretchered off with what looks to be an ankle ligament injury. It looks like his season could be over which means Scott Garner or Michael Brough will get to battle it out to partner Luke Foster at centre half. Hopefully he will choose Garner who was dropped earlier on in the season when Foster signed. He was a little unfortunate because he has been one of our best players since DH signed him last year. I believe we also still have ex Grimsby Town player Matt Heywood on trial at the club who is a centre half so DH may be persuaded to offer him a deal until the end of the season to prove himself. Who knows!
Tomorrow Salisbury City visit the Mill. I haven’t got the time to write a full preview on the match but after reading the message board it seems Salisbury are a team on form at the moment. They have lost just once in 12 games and DH seems to think they well come and play 5-3-2 against us tomorrow. In other words they will be parking the bus right in front of goal. I can’t see it being a high scoring match because of this. I don’t care if we play the worst football ever seen I just want the 3 points tomorrow to keep us in touch with 5th place.
Holdsworth is beginning to find himself under some pressure. We have slipped out of the play offs and are on the verge of losing touch with them altogether and fans are becoming increasingly tired of his direct style of play despite it clearly not paying off recently. I am currently still 100% behind him and will support his every move but he needs to improve our results sharpish. He has had the best support I have ever seen here from the Chairman and the board and they deserve something more back than a top half finish. Should we fail to finish in the play offs come the end of the season, then the majority of fans will want a change and it would be pretty hard not to agree with them. Although, there may be one little thing stopping this. A 3 year contract..
Belt up guys, it’s going to be one hell of a ride to the finish line!
Picture: Richard Parkes/MansfieldTown.net
