It ain’t easy to soldier on.

By: Luka | October 15th, 2009

It’s taken me a while to get over last week’s result. Cruising at 1-0, we emerge from the second half without any conviction, belief and drive to actually push on and secure the game. Rather, we assume a mindset that can only be described as an inferiority complex. I had initially thought this was the doing of previous coach Roberth Johansson. Regardless of its origin, it’s safe to say that Conny Karlsson has failed so far to vanquish it from the players’ minds, for this phenomena has continued to rear it’s ugly head, not least so in the derby immediately following Karlsson’s appointment – we took the lead against Confused Assyrians FC within minutes of kick off and continued to dominate the first half, creating a few chances but crucially failing to extend our lead. We then spent the vast majority of the second half hanging on for dear life to the narrowest of margins, just clinging on the hope that our heroic keeper and unequivocal player of the season Oscar Berglund would lead us to victory by repelling the uncomfortably frequent barrage of shots on our goal. The half-time break is quite simply our arch-nemesis and source of our self-destruction.

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Back to the Ljungskile game – we emerged from the half-time break and (again) simply stopped playing football. It was just a matter of time until we conceded the equaliser. In the end we were utterly lucky to even leave with a point, for Oscar did what Oscar has done all season – save things. [note: Lamine Conateh, I never want to see you in an Assyriska shirt again].

Some hope/Clutching at straws/The outlook:

Other results in round 27 of the Superettan have given us a glimmer of hope (or for the cynic in us all – have continued to tease us by dangling the cherry of 2nd & 3rd places above our heads). I speak with respect to this result mostly:

GIF Sundsvall* 1 – 2 Väsby United

*An Aziz-less Sundsvall I should add.

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Struggling Vasby managed to win and lift itself out of the relegation zone against a team which looks (in hindsight) totally useless without Assyriska’s mid-season gift Aziz Corr Nyang. Atvidabergs on the other hand are just as inconsistent as we are, so there’s a ray of hope as well.

Round 29 fixtures (all to be played at the same time on Monday morning AEDT):

Assyriska v Landskrona

GIF Sundsvall v Ljungskile

Vasalunds v Åtvidabergs

As it stands, Assyriska are on 47 points, as are Sundsvall but we have a vastly inferior goal difference, and Atvidabergs are on 51 points. Ironically, it is Atvidabergs who may be in the greatest trouble, as they face a desperate Vasalunds who (like Vasby) are fighting to stay in the division, and then end the season against terrifying Superettan leaders and perennial winners of games Mjällby. There is hope.

I’ll write a preview for our game tomorrow. I’m still displaying some symptoms of post-traumatic result stress, a common ailment found existing in long-term Assyriska supporters.