We've had a break from the Dale because of the FA Cup and a postponement so I've put down some thoughts on where we are as a club at the minute.

I can’t promise this editorial will make positive reading but in the absence of the Podcast, part of me has wanted to get my thoughts down on virtual paper. There is a part of me that thinks bollocks to it, it’s not worth it but here we go.

This season has been nothing short of an absolute disaster and we are in very real danger of losing our impressively long-standing Football League status. It’s human nature to compare and I can’t help but think of previous Dale sides and managers. I’ve been watching Rochdale for 30-years this season and I’ve seen us play under 15 permanent managers with a few caretaker roles thrown in. I am genuinely struggling to find a time where I was so genuinely worried that we’ll get relegated into non-league. Even under Barrow, where I went through a stage where my Dad wouldn’t take me because it was that bad, I didn’t think we would actually go down. Whether it was because I thought we had enough quality in the squad or because thankfully, other sides were considerably worse, I never felt like we were staring down the barrel and now I do.

In any negative situation, we look at who or what we can pin blame on, is Jim Bentley getting the most out of the players at his disposal? Is the squad good enough? Originally, I was fairly optimistic about the January and summer recruitment. I thought that we could push on and move forward. I even went on BBC Radio Bolton one evening and said how optimistic I was and believe me, optimism doesn’t come easily to me. But now I see a squad completely devoid of quality, character, fight and, well, anything to suggest we can turn things around. The one person I don’t think we can pin blame on is Jim Bentley.

We know all too well how much the off-field shitshow impacted us on-field last season. Robbie Stockdale had about two weeks to put together a squad. It wasn’t perfect at all, but optimism was quite high having got rid of former directors and fighting the hostile takeover and it became obvious that January would be massive. And it was! It was a disaster. We lost top goal-scorer Jake Beesley to Blackpool, Aaron Morley to Bolton Wanderers and Corey O’Keeffe went back to Mansfield (although he came back until the end of the season when he ran out of better options. We probably spent the best part of £200,000 on three players. We needed forward options and a midfielder as an absolute minimum and brought in Tahvon Campbell from Woking for a rumoured big fee, Luke Charman from Darlington and James Ball from Solihull, both also for transfer fees. Taking off the blue-tinted specs and maybe with hindsight, spending so much on three players, all from non-league was a risk. We’ve seen it before, countless times, for every Craig Dawson and Scott Hogan, there’s a Jon Boardman and Jon Shaw. Tahvon Campbell came in having been one of the top goal-scorers in the National League up to that point and it looked like an encouraging signing. Unfortunately for us, and through no fault of his own, he has only played 15 times in all competitions in almost twelve months through injury. Luke Charman had been in blistering form for Darlington in the National League North. He was from Stockdale’s neck-of-the-woods too so big hopes were put on him. He’s now back in the National League North with AFC Fylde having only managed to score twice in 20 games for Rochdale. He only featured on the opening day of the season and then disappeared before he was sold. Jim Bentley said he had no choice over the matter, but it seems he wasn’t up to the standard we required anyway. The last of the signings was James Ball from Solihull Moors. He’s still here but opinion is very split on his among the fanbase I think it’s fair to say. He’s chipped in with goals but a few odd gestures towards supporters and some below par performances have seen him come in for criticism.

We limped on to the end of the season and finished safe but not by a great deal.

This season, the pressure was on Stockdale. It was his squad and his own additions, with time on his side at last, to be able to bring in players he wanted to push for the playoffs. His recruitment split opinion I think. Most of us were delighted to welcome back Ethan Ebanks-Landell while the signings of Richard O’Donnell, Cameron John, Femi Seriki and Dale’s all-time leading goal-scorer Ian Henderson were met with very positive reactions. We saw mixed reactions with the signings of Devante Rodney and Toumani Diagouraga but I certainly gave them and Stockdale the benefit of the doubt. I did think signings were made to fit a very specific system though which could limit us.

I was pleased that in signing three centre backs (Ebanks-Landell, John and Ben Nelson on loan from Leicester), it seemed like we had addressed a major weakness. We also made the utterly baffling decision to offer a new contract to defender Max Taylor who just hasn’t featured this season. I didn’t get that. But anyway, surely, we wouldn’t have to see Jim McNulty and Sam Graham play. Wrong! Sam Graham started the season and to his credit, he’s been one of the steadier performers this season. Jim McNulty has played 12 games this season, 12 more than he should have, b we pretty much had six centre backs on the books and the squad looked a little bit unbalanced to me. A lot of hope and expectation was placed on Ian Henderson at the age of 37, which was always going to happen. I love Hendo, he’s one of my favourite ever Dale players but it’s just not worked second time around unfortunately. Devante Rodney has shown glimpses but let’s face it, the one player who’s been able to find the net so far with some sort of regularity is Scott Quigley and he is only on loan. He’s our top goal-scorer despite only joining from Stockport in September and was injured for a few weeks as well. Richard O’Donnell has been our best player so far this season by a street and without him, I suspect we would be rock bottom and cut adrift.

Stats never tell a full story but when you look at the output from this squad, it’s just not enough. Abraham Odoh has zero goals and zero assists from 19 games, Devante Rodney has 3 goals in 20 games, Ian Henderson has 2 goals in 18 games. If you include Quigley our strikers, even if you include Charman and Campbell, have 9 goals between all 5 of them! When that is the kind of output we’re getting, things like XG and distance covered matter very little.

Stockdale’s squad was failing and failing spectacularly. He was sacked with Dale absolutely rock bottom of the football league and looking like absolute cannon fodder for everyone else. It screamed Scunthorpe and Oldham to many fans and looks where they are now.

Bentley has come in and results have improved but a 4-1 hammering at the hands of relegation candidates Harrogate Town, at home, seemingly sums up where this squad is at currently. Yet again, as it seems to be every bloody January, we face an immensely important transfer window. One that will probably decide whether we stay up or go down. And with rumours circulating about poor finances, it makes me wonder what we’re actually going to be able to do in January and what room for manoeuvre there is for EBJ. I don’t think Jim is under any illusions that he is going to get a big pot of money to bring players in but, he’ll know, and we know that we need reinforcements.

We owe a huge amount to the current board of directors, of course we do. They’ve saved our football club, along with the supporters and a host of other people in the horrendous fight against the Southalls, Bottomleys and Currans of this world. They stepped up and they’ve got to work on making some hugely positive steps off the field. Not only have they put the work in, but they’ve put their own money in and lots of it. We will, and should be forever grateful to them, but they aren’t immune to criticism either. There are questions that can be asked of them. Why have so many two-year deals been given out? Why have superficial upgrades been done like the reception area, Studds and the nice new Ratcliffe Arms sign when we seem to be potless? I mean they look good, and they may have been necessary but having a nice reception area won't mean much when it's Dorking and Solihull visiting. Why the reported big fees for National League players? What on Earth was the thinking behind Max Taylor’s extension at the beginning of the season when he couldn’t get in the team anyway? No disrespect at all to Jim Bentley because I’m 100% behind him but why couldn’t we get our first options, the likes of Alexander, Askey and Artell? They were heavily rumoured at the time. Are they going to get every decision, right? Well of course they bloody aren’t. Chris Dunphy made the horrendous mistake of giving Keith Hill a 5-year-deal and that cost us massively. But in the position we are in now, we don’t have the option or time for poor decisions. We have to get it right because like I said, we are staring down the barrel of non-league football. Something this club has never seen. And to make it worse, I can’t help but think the previously mentioned villains would be laughing their cocks off at us and taking great pleasure in our demise. A huge 2-fingers to us and that isn’t an image I can cope with.

I’ve never been as scared as I am now of relegation. And it’s going to take a special effort to avoid it I think. Relegation for a club like ours could be a black hole. We know how much money is floating around down there and we don’t seem to have it. There are dozens of examples clubs who have failed to come back having dropped, Halifax, Torquay, York, Kidderminster, Yeovil, Chester etc etc. The clubs like Darlington, Macclesfield, Rushden and Hereford are the ones that worry me more, some have gone out of business and as much as we have some great people behind the scenes and in the boardroom, the same happening to us isn’t beyond the realms of possibility.

That sounds dramatic and we may turn it around. I may be over-thinking and catastrophising the situation, but I can guarantee that if I’m thinking it and asking these questions, other supporters are too.

The supporters deserve more. We have fought too f***** hard to see it go to waste.

We’ve done our bit.

Up the Dale, Not for Sale

Photo: Action Images

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