Today's column is a collection of not altogether related ramblings. "What's new?" I hear you say.

Firstly, I'm as frustrated as anyone else at our current inconsistent form. I'm not however surprised,or am I calling for Paul Jewell's head. That doesn't mean to say I think he's always got everything right but then who does? We football fans are curious, fickle creatures aren't we? We're only truly happy when we can bask in someone else's reflected glory when our adopted team is doing well. When it's not, we expect everyone and everything at the club to be just perfect. Life's not quite like that though, is it?

For one thing, the Rams are very much still in a state of rebuilding. When we can field our strongest team we're competitive, when we can't we're often not. There shouldn't really be any surprise there but football fans being what they are, it often seems to come as a shock. The transfer window system doesn't help. At one time, clubs were able to attempt to improve their squad throughout the season. Now, all transfer dealings have to be artificially squashed into two short periods. We need to strengthen the squad but we're forced into playing half the season with one that's not quite up to it.

In any other walk of life if you had a problem, you'd try to do something about it right away. In football though, you artificially hamstring yourself. Having said that, the emergency loan system makes a mockery of the whole darned thing anyway. As far as I can see all the transfer window does is to push prices up.

And while we're on the subject of not being able to put our best team out, what's all this about Paul Green being out for up to a month with a couple of broken fingers? Heck, at the back end of last season my own daughter, then just seventeen, broke a finger playing football.

Did it stop her training? No. Did it stop her playing? No. In fact she was on a sports science course at college at the time and she just kept on with all the activities that were part of that course. She had to. It was either that or get behind with all her work and possibly not complete the course.

Now I'm not suggesting Paul Green is a wuss but footballers really are mollycoddled by their clubs these days. We need Green out there on the pitch right now. He's been one of our better players this season and we can't afford to have them kicking their heels on the bench for no good reason. He's not Rory Delap, his throw-ins aren't a central part of our game. Strap him up, give him a couple of Ibuprofens and let's get on with it.

And then we come to the Liam Dickinson affair. I don't know what the situation is in terms of him not pulling on a white shirt because of a "non-football related matter" and I wouldn't necessarily expect the club to go public with it but whatever it is, surely it can be resolved? Dickinson is clearly capable of scoring goals at Championship level because that's exactly what he's doing. The only problem is he's not doing it for the Rams. Let's have him back in our squad in January. That's one less transfer fee we'll need to pay out.

Photo: Action Images

Colchester United Polls