Fuller Flavour: Celina's goal made my day, but plenty of concerns remain

Two games since my last column and if I wasn’t feeling down after the Sunderland defeat, I feel like I am now. Down but not out, however.

The way the Rotherham game played out spoke volumes where we really are at. When we were not winning games earlier in the season, I was at least telling family and friends that the football was better.

But last Tuesday night was a real throwback to any moment to encapsulate us over the last two seasons or more. It was men against boys and we were shown to be so far off the standard required to get out of this league that it was just painful to see.

And the most damning aspect of the performance and the result was that nothing surprised me. Everything that I thought would happen occurred and we were totally outplayed.

Who would have thought that when we fell through the relegation trap door at the end of 2018/19, we would have been so far off the pace in League One?

And that was taking into consideration the squad we had back then.

But as I say, as much as I felt down, I’m still not out in the long run.

Macauley Bonne covers his head at the final whistle, after going close in the dying moments. (Image: Steve Waller)

Firstly, because the fabric of being a true football fan is that somehow, you find it within yourself to move on and believe that the next game is where it will all turn around when in truth, it never does.

Secondly, I will go on trusting the process until it gets to a stage where it just gets too much to take as it did in the end with messrs Keane, Jewell, McCarthy, Hurst and Lambert.

Maybe I wasted too much mental energy wanting each of those managers to go that I simply do not have any in reserve to even start to believe that things are not going to happen under Paul Cook.

Maybe my answerless question is what next? I want Cook to succeed but if we had the news anytime soon that our owners have decided to part company and get a new man in, would I really be overly bothered?

Town manager Paul Cook unhappy with the linesman. (Image: Steve Waller)

I think in all honesty, I feel like sweeping our deficiencies under the carpet and not worrying too much about it. But as always, another part of our fabric is that we care too damn much.

Any win helps lift the mood, whatever folk may want to say otherwise. And I am just grateful that the weekend came to an end in the knowledge that we managed to beat bottom of-the-table Crewe.

The performance was not much to write home about though. Yes, I got frustrated with our continuous urge to get the ball going backwards more than forwards, and yes, we missed a few chances.

But in my view, that was a simply must-win game, as so many will be now to get anywhere near a play-off place.

I had the pleasure of taking my daughter Angel to her first game of the season and for a change, we took a place up in the Upper Cobbold stand where the view gave me a much better perspective than my usual Row B seat in the Sir Bobby Robson lower tier.

I came to the same conclusion though, that at times we certainly are not running into adversity as demanded by those running our club nowadays.

But what a stunning goal scored by Bersant Celina. When he trapped George Edmundson’s long-ball dead, I gasped at that alone. When his exquisite lob found the top corner of the net, Angel and I simply looked at one another in amazement and it was a magic moment to share.

It was one of the best goals I have seen us score at Portman Road and that moment alone made the day.

I left the ground wondering if we would have won that game against really good opposition. Our four home wins have now all come against struggling opposition.

On the night though, it really didn’t matter. We had won. Long-term however, I remain concerned as to how far we can really go with the way things are currently.

Time will obviously tell.