What’s going wrong at Colchester United? – Opinion

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What is the worst job in the EFL? The one that no one in their right mind should take? Watford? QPR? Charlton? Well in League Two, I’d like to throw Colchester United’s name into the mix. They currently sit 22nd in League Two this season, have lost 13 of 21 league games and only even more dismal form from Sutton and Forest Green are preventing them from sitting bottom 2. So what on earth has gone wrong down in Essex? Why are they once again fighting relegation to the National League, a level they’ve only played at for 2 seasons in their history?

Stable

Colchester have throughout their history typically been located in the bottom 2 tiers of the EFL, bouncing between the 3rd and 4th divisions between 1959 and 1990. 2 seasons in the conference followed, but they quickly got back into the league and 2 promotions came in 1998 and 2006 to reach the Championship for the first time in their history. It was also around this time that Robbie Cowling took over as owner.

Whilst they did drop-down back to what was then League One in 2008, they stabilised there for 4 seasons there, finishing in the top half in each. It was also at this stage that manager John Ward left. He had taken charge of 111 games and it ended a run of steady appointments from the board. Between 1995 and 2012, they had only had 8 different managers, with 5 of them taking charge of over 100 and 2 more of them, Aidy Boothroyd and Paul Lambert being poached by other clubs. They were sitting steady in the 3rd tier, had just moved into a new stadium, were getting their managerial appointments correct and looked good.

The slide

After John Ward left in September 2012, they brought in former player and long-time coach Joe Dunne as manager. He lasted less than 2 years. Tony Hume was next and he was there for 15 months. Kevin Keen lasted 4 months and they were relegated to League Two for the first since 2004. In a similar run to their return to League One, they had 4 seasons of stability in League Two under John McGreal, with him being their first manager since the 90s to take charge of 200 games.

But things took another turn for the worse as Covid entered the frame.

A turn for the worse

COVID-19 affected teams in many different ways. For Colchester, it was a disaster. 5 different permanent managers have come and gone, with them taking charge of an average of 27 games between them. For a team that for the longest time prided itself on smart appointments and patience with their managers, Cowling and the board are now very trigger-happy.

That instability has fed into issues on the pitch and it’s become a vicious cycle downwards. In 20-21, they were 22nd with just 5 games left to go, but a late revival saw them eventually finish 20th and 6 points clear of danger. In 21-22, they were once again 22nd after 24 games but went 9-7-7 in the final 22 games to once again give hope that better days were ahead.

Last season though was just as bad. They were 23rd after 21 games and went 9-8-8 in the 2nd half of the season to see them finish 20th. This season, Ben Garner lasted until mid-October and now Etherington will attempt to lead another mid-season turnaround.

Issues off the pitch

When you scan back over the tenure of Cowling as owner and chairman, it doesn’t make for good reading. Since the departure of John Ward in 2012, his managerial appointments have been mostly terrible. 8 of the last 9 managers appointed have not even passed 100 games, which isn’t that high a barrier to clear. They have gone internal a number of times and only McGreal has worked out. They’ve gone for former players Hayden Mullins and Wayne Brown. They tried external candidates in Bloomfield(who did work out before being poached by Wycombe) and Garner. A number of different options have come in with little to no success.

Then there is the issue of how quickly they dismiss these managers. Sure, a lot of them have been when the club was in poor form, but for a club that were often patient with their managers, to see them pull the trigger after 20-30 games is bizarre. It shows a lack of belief in their own decisions, a lack of patience and a lack of proper processes when bringing them in in the first place.

The club is losing vast sums of money, with the amounts owed to Cowling by the club being around £30m if the latest accounts are anything to by. Whilst there isn’t any suggestion that when it comes time for Cowling to sell the club, he wouldn’t forgive that debt, but it’s still an eye-watering amount of money for a League Two club to owe. They lost £2m in the 21-22 financial year, another staggering amount for a small L2 club.

It raises serious concerns over how much longer Cowling can continue to absorb losses and more importantly, what on earth are they spending their money on to lose £2m in a season and not see any meaningful success for it.

One possible area where they are likely to be in deep is in their academy. They operate a Category 2 academy under the EPPP system. Only they, Fleetwood and Crewe Alex do as small lower league clubs. Whilst they’ve had some success at producing players in the likes of Sammy Szmodics, Frankie Kent, Alex Gilbey and Junior Tchamadeu, they don’t seem to be able to put enough graduates on the field at any one time.

My own team, Crewe Alex, were able to field golden generations in 2011-12 and 2012-13, then again in 2019-20 and 2020-21. But Colchester’s production line seems scant. They produce decent midfielders, but they seem to struggle for much at any other spot.

Another issue is their stadium. The Colchester Community Stadium, or whatever sponsor name it currently sports, is a bland and uninspiring place to play football that lacks ties to the community. Whilst they needed to replace their old Layer Road, it was in a better location than their current home and it had character. The players over the seasons haven’t settled in either it seems, with them sporting a measly 39.3% win ratio at home. Only 5 times have they recorded more than 9 wins at home in a season and only 3 times have they won more than they didn’t.

The fan base seems to declining as well, which will be a huge worry. For the first 5 years they played in their new home, they pulled it 5,000 fans on average. These days they regularly drop below 3,000 and got just 3,132 for their last home game with Crawley. Those are averages since the dark days of the last 80s and early 90s.

On the pitch

Those off-the-pitch issues with management, investment and player production seem to hamper anything they try and build on the pitch. Their transfer approach seems wildly scattergun. Over the last 3 seasons, they’ve signed 69 players(44 permanent, 25 loan) and whilst a number of those were U21s level players, nothing they’ve seemed to in the transfer market has worked. Young players released by Premier League teams. Proven L2 experience. Players from the Non-Leagues. Hotshot loanees. You name it, they’ve signed it.

And yet all that player investment has seen them finish in the bottom 10 of L2 three seasons in a row, with a 4th all but nailed on at this point.

To focus on why this season has been a disaster, you don’t have to look far to find the reasons why they are struggling. They are far too young as a group. CB Connor Hall is the only player over 30 to have made any sort of meaningful contribution. He’s also the 2nd oldest player in the squad behind John Akinde. There seems to be a real lack of experience and leadership throughout the squad.

They’ve used 28 players already and we’re not even into the January transfer window, where more changes are likely to be made and more new players brought in. Their defence is a hot mess, conceding 42 goals in 21 games. They are on pace to concede over 90 by the end of the season. Their xG against of 34.7(per FotMob) is 2nd highest behind only Swindon. This season play a wide-open style which does see them create plenty of chances at the other end, but their game management is clearly an issue. They don’t have more than 50% possession in the majority of their matches and rank poorly in a number of different metrics.

They have taken the lead in 13 and only won 6 of them, dropping 19 points from winning positions. They’ve had 56 yellows so far this season, the most in the league. They are joint 2nd for red cards. They lack discipline and keep chopping and changing between a 3 and 4-man defence, showing they don’t seem to know what their best team is.

It shouldn’t be this way though. They have very talented players in Samson Tovide, Jayden Fevrier, Bradley Ihvionien and Noah Chilvers. Only Michael Mellon has more goals than Joe Taylor at a younger age this season. They have the core of what should be a decent team. But there are clearly team cohesion issues and the aforementioned lack of experienced heads is looking like a huge problem.

Conclusion

There are plenty of reasons to be concerned about the current direction of the club. Fans have already started to turn on Etherington after a run of 5 league games without a win and exits in both the FA Cup and BSM Trophy. Would Cowling make such a quick change after only appointing him as permanent manager less than 3 weeks ago? Regardless of what, what magic can they pull off in the transfer window to give this side a shot at staying up?

The cold reality of the situation is, that Etherington if he’s leading the way on transfers will be behind in his planning. If it’s the club’s hierarchy, will they sign players Etherington wants? Or who do they want? Who can they even bring in given their perilous position that will make a difference? If the results under Etherington continue to slide, who will they bring in? What quality candidates will want to take the job knowing they’ll likely not have a good crack at the January transfer window and might not want to work in the current set-up Cowling has?

That’s not to mention a brutal remaining December schedule that sees them play Wrexham, MK Dons and Wimbledon. Should FGR or Sutton pick up at any point, then the situation will become critical.

It’s not all doom and gloom. The 2nd half of the season is when they usually shine, as they have done for the past 3 seasons. A solid January window with some veteran help signed might help turn the tide. They also have the quality in the young players currently in the squad to drag them out of danger. Their transfer needs are also quite simple: Older experienced heads.

But it’s a worrying time for the U’s and I’m not sure they have the man in charge in either the boardroom or the dugout to see a lasting improvement. It feels like they are circling the drain and unless something drastic changes both on and off the pitch, it feels like a matter of when, not if, they fall out of the EFL.