Penney tossing

IT'S desperate times.
We've changed our manager.
We've changed our team.
We haven't changed our collision course with relegation to League Two.
And now it seems the cry is going out for us to change our manager - again.
Dave Penney's first 12 games in charge have hardly set the world alight.
Played 12, won 2, drawn 2, lost 8.
I'm sure in his wildest dreams he would have expected to do a lot better.
After all, he's been allowed to bring in new signings (most of them on loan) and had time to stamp his own philosophy on the team.
I must admit that I approached Tuesday night's clash with Colchester United at home with some confidence.
We'd stemmed the tide of goals conceded, having beaten Oldham 1-0 and then gone down to an unlucky 1-0 defeat at Brentford.
But on a pretty cold night at the Mem, the Gas never managed to raise the temperature and lost to a comedy goal when new keeper Conrad Logan kicked the ball against the back of one of our defenders and a stray Colchester striker reacted first to thump the only goal of the game.
Pride of Bristol 0, Pokey little town in Essex 1
And I find myself asking: Where do we go from here?
I felt the attitude - certainly from most of our players - was right, but unfortunately there didn't seem to be any sort of game plan in place to break the opposition down.
At times we tried to get up a head of steam, only for the final ball to be woefully lacking.
And I find myself clutching at straws now, trying to see a way out of what is becoming a pretty desperate predicament.
I guess it's this way for all fans when their teams are staring into the relegation abyss.
Your thoughts start turning to cold Tuesday nights in the northern outposts of Morecambe, Accrington and Bury where football journeymen hoof the ball into the night sky and it seems to take an age to come down.
Where the muscle men thrive and the skillful players struggle to survive.
And where, if you go into it thinking you are going to bounce straight back up again, you can have a pretty rude awakening.
Still, is it really worth going back to the drawing board and chosing ANOTHER manager?
I believe our new man was handed a bit of a thankless task, and some of his signings have just been to paper over the cracks and bring our squad up to a decent size to compete and cope with injuries and suspensions.
He says his aim is to play pressing football in a 4-4-2 formation with two wingers, defending from the front.
Well, the only winger we have at the club at the moment is still too inexperienced and lightweight to command a permanent place in the side.
Hopefully Ben Swallow will get better with time, but playing in a perpetually losing side can't help him or his confidence.
Penney might have used his time in the loan market to seek out wide men, but he had more pressing issues. The fact that we were conceding goals at an alarming rate meant he first had to look at blocking up the defence and providing them with a decent shield in midfield.
Recent results - only having conceded two goals in the last three games - suggest he has managed to do that to a fashion, but at the expense of attacking ambition.
Clubs can keep changing their managers, but what good does it do? It tends to be the clubs that keep tinkering at the top who end up on a helter-skelter nosedive towards oblivion.
I don't think Penney can save us from the drop now.
But until we see the team moulded the way HE wants it - not just one that has been patched up to solve the myriad problems that existed before - it's too early to judge his real abilities.
As Gasheads we can moan all we want about the horrors of relegation, the indignity of it, the frustration.
Yet to heap all the blame on a manager who has had barely two months to assess the true scale of our plight seems just a tad bit unfair.