Now that was a great game of football.
Finally Stan watched a sustained 90 minutes of – hard though it is to believe in this so far God-forsaken season – entertainment.
Dear reader, let's just linger on that sentence, or should I say single word, for a moment. Entertainment.
For that is why, allied yes to loyalty, we actually go to watch our team rather than simply follow our team. A word, frankly, Stan could not have used to describe much of what he witnessed under the previous regime.
Give Stan something to get him out of his seat; give him something in return for his money.
Yes, it was a derby. But still Stan was out of his seat today more times than he has been in all of this season's previous games put together.
Stanley finally had something to scream about in both frustration at missed chances rather than no chances to miss; if only Hartson's shot at 2-2 had gone in; and in joy, what a sublime equaliser from Jamie.
So for that alone Stanley welcomes Roeder's arrival with a broad grin and open arms.
Now some of you reading this might be raising an eyebrow at this point and jabbing a finger at the screen saying ?Hold on Stan, old partner, you said a couple things which don't quite tally up with this…?
Yes, Stan did say before the game: ?If we can't get ourselves going enough to win this game than we aren't going to get going enough to win any…? And, yes, Stan did say at half-time: ?We are as good as down…?
So let Stanley explain himself. Firstly, yes, we didn't win but we showed some real fight in the second-half, plenty enough for Stan say this Canary isn't dead yet. Jeez, Glen doesn't even have to nail it to the perch just yet.
Second, yep a shock as it maybe, Stan got it wrong – the players did have it in them to come back from the dead and get something out of the game. The players deserve credit for that.
Guts-wise that's the first time this season that Stanley has seen enough fight in the team to make him think that relegation could be avoided with more than something to spare.
Taylor looks a good signing, a big old unit at the back – wrongly denied the first City goal – with that all important physical presence in both boxes.
The midfield, in the second-half, imposed itself upon the game. This was the all important basis for City's second-half comeback. Whether the Russell-Brellier combination can do that for the full 90 minutes of a match remains to be seen, but Roeder needs that area of the team to start producing for 90 minutes every match not just for one half, once in a blue moon.
Hartson once again looked what he is – a class act desperately over weight. Glenn tie the big fella to a treadmill for two hours a day and ban him roast dinners until May.
Whatever it takes to shift two stone off him, do it because a fit John Hartson will keep this club up. The boy is a class act.
So this weekend's result is a turning point in the season then, is that what your saying Stan?
Stan can't say that for certain, but he does hope that the low point of this season may just have been and gone. Hopefully half-time was when our frightening decline finally bottomed out and Taylor's header is the first step on the long march back into the light.
Whether or not that is the case we will know a lot more after the Coventry game. We should begin then to have a clearer idea of the answers to the key questions that will shape the destiny of our season.
Can, as Roeder alluded to after the game, the players replicate the kind of intensity they played with in the second-half on a regular basis? Play like that at Home Park and fear of relegation will be a distant memory by Christmas.
Will Roeder be able to come up trumps again with a loanee, to replicate in midfield and at left-back the impact that Taylor had at centre-half? Can the likes of Russell, Brellier, Chadwick and Lappin perform consistently at the level they played at during the second-half?
Whatever the answers to these questions one thing has changed following today's game, Stanley can't wait to get back into his seat on Tuesday so he can spend 90 minutes getting out of it. Come on, Glenn, you can do it!
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