Frustrating period for us at the moment, I agree we really need to start finding a settled side. But the positives are we're still second with a game in hand despite a bad run of form and lots of injuries.
I've heard a lot of doom and gloom recently but I think we need to get a bit of perspective most fans I heard at the start of the season said they expected a play-off finish to be a good season. Not many of us expected to have as good a start as we've had. After the start people seemed to expect we would walk the league but our squad isn't as good as people think for a number of reasons:
1. This is practically the same squad which took us down last season. Getting out of a losing rut is difficult. Let's face it, it was a pretty awful squad and we've lost our best player of the past few seasons
2. We only have 2/3 players who have alot of experience at this level or above (Chambers, Skuse and Judge although that was a few seasons ago)
3. We have alot of young players lacking experience (Woolfenden, Downes, Dozzell, Dobra, Kenlock)
4. We have many injury prone players who have played little football in the past few years (Keane, Judge, Huws, Bishop)
5. We've had alot of injuries to players this season or over the summer (Chambers, Sears, Nolan, KVY, Norwood, Garbutt, Nsiala, Nydam, Roberts, Lankester, Rowe, Judge, Folami, Morris)
6. We've relied on 2 strikers who've little experience at this level or above infact both have earned their moves following 1 good season in league 2.
Based on all these facts I think Lambert has done bloody well. I don't like rotation but actually I don't think he's had a great deal of choice due to injuries and fitness. If we had a fully fit squad I'd agree his rotation policy is ridiculous but we haven't all season.
I'm a big big fan of Sears and think him and Norwood or Keane could form a superb partnership as his movement is top class. Unfortunately we won't be able to rely on him this season. As I've said if in January we are still top 2 and are able to strengthen at CB and another striker I think we can have a very good season.
After the pessimism of over the summer think we need a bit of perspective on our situation and I bloody hope ME backs his manager. Lambert has done alot to improve us and the community surrounding the club, we're lucky a manager like him stuck around