Stress's Blogue

FOREST 0- 1 CHARLESTON

I think the healthiest thing to do after a disappointment like that is to deny it ever happened. The Denial Method, unlike, say, a lobotomy, has the benefit of avoiding some troublesome questions without mincing your brain too much.

There's no need, for example, to ask why Monsieur Lamouchi keeps making the same mistake of playing weakened teams against lowly opposition. I think he beats top teams like Brentford and Leeds and starts getting cocky about his ability to forge winners. Fat Man says that Hubris lets him down, but Hubris wasn't even on the bench. No, Monsieur Lamouchi made too many changes again, and this led to dislocation and defeat. Or it would have done if the match had actually taken place.

It didn't, thankfully, or else there would be serious questions about the performances of Jenkinson, Bong, and Diakhaby. Why had Jenkinson been drinking heavily? Why was Bong wearing somebody else's feet? Why did Diakhaby keep warping into another universe and coming back without the ball? Why did these three bargain buys wreck the cohesion and momentum of the entire team? These are questions which would demand answers if there had been a game, which, remember, there was not. And even if there had been, these three were not the only culprits. Other players, the manager, the recruitment bloke, virtually everybody at the club could be implicated in this blow to our confidence. Luckily, none of that applies, because nothing happened.

Well, not nothing, exactly. HS2 got the go ahead, because it would turn the entire country into London's commuter sluice. Some old dude from the Muppets won the New Hampshire corkers, whatever they are. Brighton got diseased again. The company which warned us that they were going to dig up our road and gardens to lay new gas pipes decided to go bankrupt instead, probably. The wind, which was supposed to be easing, blew a neighbour's dog over. The dog is a wonderful old character, 17 (119) years old, with three working legs.

I suppose if a hundred year old dog can survive being blown off his three feet, we can survive a humiliating defeat against Charleston. Not that we need to, because it didn't happen, as I've made clear many times now. Keep up.