With Coronavirus concerns decimating a large proportion of the National League schedule recently, including our initially-planned trip to Boreham Wood, there is a growing feeling that another curtailment in the future is not beyond the realms of possibility. However, for Dagenham, the season is beginning to feel like a non-starter in another sense. Following a summer where manager Daryl McMahon was afforded a healthy budget to put his own hallmarks on the squad, most notably with the addition of sought-after striker Paul McCallum, supporters would have been forgiven for expecting a little bit more at this stage to say the least. As the first month of the new campaign drew to a close, we sat rock bottom of the entire division, our joint-lowest league position in two decades. The new era appears to bear depressing resemblance to the old one. Indeed, at this very stage under Peter Taylor last year, we were three points and four goals better off. That eventual champions Barrow were also obscured in the bottom third of the table offers hope that a season can be resurrected after a poor start, yet this current Daggers outfit have offered little to suggest that they have the potential to be a successful side at this level. There are talented players within the squad, but as a collective there's little coherence, unity and fluidity. When McMahon first emerged through the door in January, he injected energy into a club that had been existing against a backdrop of misery for a long time. We seemed to have a system, a game-plan, a purpose when we moved the ball, and it led to some impressive performances. So why, when he has had the opportunity to bring his own players in to suit the particular system he wants to play, have things gone so spectacularly wrong over the first four weeks? Our problems cannot merely be attributed to a single source - it's a complex multitude of factors. Support for McMahon has naturally begun to waver throughout the past few weeks, frustrations also maximised by supporters' ongoing exile from grounds. Results have been awful, but what's worse is that we lack that same relentless desire to get at team's throats as we had when the new manager first came in. There's pressure on us now and it seems to be taking it's toll.
Many of his post-match interviews have revolved around condemning individual errors, however there was one thing he said after the Barnet game that really was striking. ''I feel like for the last two years, the club has been in a place where it has felt sorry for itself.'' - there certainly does appear to be a soft underbelly and ingrained sense of victimhood at the club stretching back to the point where Glyn Hopkin withdrew his funding. It's been a prolonged period of disappointment, only really broken by that magical two-month period at the end of 2018. Since then, everything even remotely exciting has been short-lived. Another unwanted part of our DNA nowadays is the persistent injury concerns we seem to always be plagued with. A season-ender for Harry Phipps before a single ball had been kicked set the tone for what is now a cramped treatment room, occupied most notably by our marquee signing Paul McCallum. Losing those two has been a crushing blow, though it still doesn't justify the position we find ourselves in. We're still putting eleven players on the pitch that should be good enough, and if they aren't then the buck has to stop with McMahon. Worries will escalate if we don't make a drastic improvement in our next batch of league games which, in keeping with the nature of this season, pits us against each of the current top three alongside notoriously-difficult opposition in Boreham Wood. Things may have to get worse before they get better.
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WRITERArchives
January 2024
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