Today just felt wrong
It was a Friday match-day, Paul wasn't wearing his lucky socks, Pete didn't have his lucky gloves and Marco wasn't turning up at all
To top it off, Eloise had COOK printed across the back of her shirt today so there were just lots of omens against us
The rest of the crowd clearly hadn't spotted all of these obvious signs as we started with the longest rendition of "Barmy Army" that I can remember
After some early AFCB pressure it was Lee who had the first shot of the match from the edge of the box on 5 minutes but he dragged it harmlessly wide
He'd been given way too much time on the ball and I felt that the defence were too worried about the giant Nuhiu and so were slow to react to the threat at hand
Five minutes later AFCB had their first chance as a long ball caught the Owl's defence napping and Grabban ran onto the ball (one of the few occasions he wasn't caught offside)
He cut the ball back to Ritchie but his weak shot was easily saved
On 11 minutes Grabban added to his already unbeatable record of 1 on 1 failures as he was sent through and smashed the ball at goal only for the keeper to pull off an excellent save
To be fair to Grabban most of his 1 on 1 shots are on target but he's yet to perfect the "missing the keeper" part of the equation
The save was all the more impressive as Kirkland was clearly suffering from some sort of hydration problem which is why every time he had to take action he had to throw a water bottle back into the goal
He surely wasn't doing that to waste time ....
On 15 minutes we witnessed the defining moment of the game, for me
Cook had the ball and under pressure, panicked
First he got the ball caught between his feet and then committed the biggest schoolboy error ever - he blind passed the ball across the box and there was Nuhiu
Despite having the pace of a pregnant tortoise, as NO-ONE was expecting that ball, he had all the time in the world to look up and smash the ball into the bottom left corner
It was a great finish on the back of an absolute defensive howler
You may ask why it was the defining moment in my eyes, especially as AFCB scored the next goal
The reason is that this one second seemed to send shivers throughout the previously impressive back 5 and turn time back to the beginning of the season
Time and time again, instead of the ball just being cleared, the ball was allowed to bounce to cause so many more problems
Worse than that though is once the ball bounced between 2 AFCB players, neither would go for the ball
There were no communications and no leadership and so often one attacker would get the better of 2 or more AFCB players
This is what needs sorting before Ipswich on Monday
It could have been even worse just a minute later as Cook attempted to pass the ball back to Camp but only managed to chip the ball up right into the attacker's path
Luckily this time he was far enough away from goal for Cook to show a dazzling turn of pace and get back to slide tackle the ball to safety
Cookie wasn't dead, he'd just been hiding....
AFCB came right back at Wednesday then and had the majority of possession but to continue the time travelling analogy we looked good, without looking threatening
Then, on 30 minutes, we suddenly remembered what we had to do and had done so well pre - Yeovil
Some clever work down the right had the ball chipped into the middle of the box and there was Pugh to head home from close range to make it 1-1
How the AFCB faithful enjoyed the next 90 seconds
That was how long we had to rethink those bad thoughts of how we only do well when we are confident and we only have confidence when we score first
This time it was a long throw in on the right, that trickiest of all set pieces, that was to be our undoing
Over it went into the box, flicked on despite being outnumbered 2 to 1 and headed in by Hutchinson
The game then turned into a match up of pace against muscle and unfortunately for us it was the muscle that was winning
So many pushes and grabs went unpunished the only decision I truly believed was when Grabban was caught offside again and again and ...
On 38 minutes Grabban could only hold his head in disbelief as his half volley from 6 yards out was launched into the car park
It followed a flowing move down the left and the ball was crossed over all of the defenders right to his feet - bang went my theory of him being better when he didn't have time to think about it
With just 2 minutes to go, AFCB almost drew level
Kermorgant headed the ball on to Surman and he surged forward
Seeing the gap on the left he opened his body up and curled a left foot shot to the bottom left of the goal and thirsty Kirkland pulled out a top drawer save to deny him
Half Time : 1-2
Ten minutes into the second half and the sides were level
The pressure was all coming from AFCB and this resulted in a series of corners
One such corner, on the left, had Harte trotting to take it
As I was debating whether it might have been better to have a right footed player take it from that side - over he smashed it
I've said it time and again but it's worth repeating - you just can't fault his delivery
Kermorgant certainly won't complain as it landed on his forehead like a rocket and he powered it past Kirkland as all defenders looked at each other posing that important question - "who was meant to be picking him up?"
At this point I fully expected us to step up a gear and win
What actually happened was a series of bad decisions - both on and off the field
For AFCB - time and again we tried to pass the ball through the eye of a needle or pass 50 yards across field when there were 6 easier / shorter passes available or pass the ball early when there was acres of grass to run into
Then it was Howe's turn, bringing Fraser on for Ritchie
I think Fraser is great but Ritchie was at the centre of most things going well whereas having him on the right and Fraser on the left gives us pace to burn and a directness that opposition teams hate
Not wishing to feel left out of the poor decision making Hutchinson decided to get in on the act by tripping Kermorgant and getting his second yellow - surely a win was in the bag now even with that dodgy substitution...
Howe wasn't to be outshone though and took Harte and Pugh off for Smith and Pitman
The initial sub made the team slightly worse, the second gave us more pace but less delivery and unless Pitman was replacing me, well, I thought we were trying to win the game
Sandwiched in between the latter 2 subs Kermorgant had a 25 yard free kick curl over the wall, thump against the bar and hit Kirkland on the back and yet it STILL wouldn't go in
Then, with 5 minutes to go the ball bounced out in between O'Kane and Surman
Mimicking the defensive indecisiveness, neither went for the ball and a midfielder nipped in and the Owls were on the break down the left
Out came Camp to make Antonio's target smaller and he chipped the ball over the keeper and the ball bounced off the bar
There was a collective sigh of relief for that and the fact that the ball fell to Best....
He controlled the ball, ambled about a bit and then just passed the ball into the goal
No-one will be more disappointed than Camp that it went in at the near post but at the time, I reckon I was a close second
If he puts it into the far corner fair enough, but to be beaten at the near post - it's something that's happened a few times this season
Don't get me wrong, Camp has been outstanding this season and has saved us far more points than he's cost us
The players heads all went down and the home crowd went quiet - until they held up the sign saying there was to be 7 minutes of injury time
Let's throw the kitchen sink at them !!
Orrrrr we could watch a team very professionally run the ball into corners and generally frustrate the numerically superior team
Actually, scrub that, let's really get the salt rubbed into the wounds
Kermorgant was sent through to chase the ball and was tripped as he ran onto it
Obvious to me and everyone else, except of course the linesman and referee
As we all stood round clearly not playing to the whistle, off they broke again down the right
A low cross found Maguire on his own in the middle and he cleverly dinked it over Camp to complete the scoring
Final Score 2-4
Summary : Better tempo than last week but the poorest defensive display I've seen us put in for months
Cook had a game to forget and that seemed to affect everyone around him
Players weren't prepared to take the lead, opting to pass rather than shoot and were all too often beaten to the ball through hesitation
Going forward we still attacked with pace but the irony for me was that once we'd thrown the final dice by bringing Pitman on, we seemed to stop crossing the ball
The dream of the play offs may have drifted (although still possible) but it's still been a great season
What today showed me is that the quality of the squad is still too thin as we didn't have anyone on the bench that could make a difference
Hopefully this season's exploits will encourage Max to open his cheque book
Finally, IMO , if Arter hadn't been such an idiot against QPR, I think we'd be sitting in 6th right now
Star Man - Kermorgant - powerful in the air and held the ball up well to allow attacks to build by bringing the midfield into the game
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