Pleasing to see the penny dropping among fans on players like O’Donkor and a handful of others. Not suggesting we want to be picking every player apart but it suggests a shift in standards and people now starting to recognise us as a club that isn’t content with sneaking in to the top 8 and operating as some sort of development centre that puts sentiment ahead of success. We’re slowly phasing out the mentality of being pleased with a draw if O’Donkor and Goodrham got good game time. This is healthy progress that we’re seeing where all players, regardless of age and ability, are being held to account for their contributions towards winning every week.
O’Donkor is (until recently) our second choice striker and therefore there isn’t any slack to cut him. He’s important and needs to contribute more than he has. It’s proven too much too soon for him so far and that’s OK, but we must park any sentiment and move on to somebody else. That doesn’t mean trampling on his development, it means try something else for him while we better ourselves in pursuit of going up.