Adkins.Baraclough.Daws.Knill.The Season so far.....Part 2

Alan Knill,the former Iron defender,was the man the board wanted from the minute that Baraclough left. The only problem was he was doing well with a Bury team that was flying high in League 2. The board wanted him straight away to give him time to look at the squad, to prepare them for what looked like a inevitable drop into League 1. It seemed at the start that Knill was happy to wait for the opportunity until the end of the season. But the Iron managed to persuade the Bury board to let him leave for an undisclosed sum, i hate that word that has slipped into football, UNDISCLOSED, a stupid word, but at least it lets both sets of fans think they have got the upper hand in negotiations ! My memories of Knill were that of a no-nonsense defender. If the balls in danger, get rid of it, simple really. That's exactly what you got from him as a player and thats how we needed him to be as Manager.
His first game was Norwich away. Not the easiest match for your first in charge. To be fair to Knill he couldn't take much blame for the result. 6-0. 6-0. 6-0. Having watched the team in training myself on the Thursday it was Tony Daws and Lee Turnbull that had took the training and Knill and his Assistant Chris Brass took a watching brief. The result though couldn't really be blamed on anyone to be honest with you, Norwich were on top form that day, i weren't there but it sounded embarrassing on the radio. I was a little bit surprised to hear Knill come out and say what he really thought, that some of the players weren't up to it.
To make things worse that was followed by the visit of Champions elect QPR to Glanford Park. The feel around the ground was very similar to the day the Iron went to Blackpool in our League One Championship season. There were more Scunny fans there that day than i can remember. All decked out with flags, scarves, inflatables with faces painted. It was like we had taken over ! We were over confident and got beat, much the same as QPR would on this hot spring afternoon. Going 1-0 down after less than 10 minutes you'd have been inclined to think we'd fall apart, much like we had on more than one occasion this year. But this was Knill's team, we looked fantastic.We looked confident, we looked like we could score as many as we wanted.  Our attackers were allowed to attack, whilst our defenders were set to defend.Michael O'Connor showed what we had been missing for so long with an outstanding performance in centre mid. He ran the show and scored a screamer of a goal form outside the box,on what was a bad day all round for the team destined for the Prem. After beating them 4-1 Neil Warnock himself praised how good we were whilst stating how bad his own team were in his own Warnock way. You could only imagine what Nigel Adkins would have been like after a result like that, he'd have been bouncing off the walls, but Knill is different. He praises good performances, whilst not being afraid to let certain people know they're not good enough. Calling a spade a spade is what was needed as a wake up call for certain players ! After that confidence must have been high, but surely we were too far behind to stay up ? Saying that though, with winnable games against Palace and Coventry coming up, some in the camp and at Team Telegraph (myself included) were confident that a victory at Selhurst Park would see us well into the Easter schedule. If we could come away only 3 points behind the Eagles than you had to be confident that we had the momentum needed to push our relegation rivals all the way to the end of the season, whilst a defeat would leave us with too much to do and needing a miracle !