‘We are bottom of the
league, say we are bottom of the league’
I’ll start at the end: Andy dragging me out of the Euston Flyer to prevent a kicking. Cheers Andy. I believe Newcastle fans were involved, which may not be untypical. And me being involved, which may not be untypical.
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| Derby Day at t'Well |
I’ll start at the end: Andy dragging me out of the Euston Flyer to prevent a kicking. Cheers Andy. I believe Newcastle fans were involved, which may not be untypical. And me being involved, which may not be untypical.
Anyway, we got a result. In the 5th minute of 6 minutes of injury time, Conor Hourihane blasted home from 20 yards through a crowd of players after a corner was half cleared. Great finish – if only Slacki and Corey had seen it, having slunk out seconds earlier!
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| The away end |
In truth, we never looked like scoring, which was strange given we hit the woodwork twice and had a penalty saved. Hamill looked off-colour, yet still looked our best chance of a goal, putting in the cross for Winnall’s header which hit the post, as well as earning the penalty, cleverly delaying his touch and allowing the Blunt defender to think he could nick it. He couldn’t and went through Hamill. The pen probably wasn’t a bad one either, low to the keeper’s right, but, as ever, refs never pull keepers up for being off the line before the ball is hit.
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| Oh no, not again... |
Otherwise, we’d been losing since what felt like the 1st minute, but was actually the 16th. A corner was curled to the backpost and Basham headed in from 3 yards. Appalling. Could the keeper have come and claimed it? I have a feeling he was blocked off by numerous others. (Why don’t WE do that?) Still, no excuse for the lack of marking or muscle from whichever Red was meant to be preventing Basham from scoring (Mawson?) Cue crowing Blunts for the rest of the half, one of my least favourite sounds in the world. Mind, he who crows last, crows longest, eh kids?
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| Hourihane's penalty is saved |
A draw was problies a fair result, though Davies saved a couple of one-on-ones to keep us in it. Equally, that midget from Southampton missed from 6 yards in the 1st half, but from my superior vantage point in the East Upper, the keeper had made a connection with the ball which meant Isgrove couldn’t connect properly, so it wasn’t quite the chance most of our home end saw.
We are now bottom of the table, rudderless, yet sadly not managerless. How Johnson thinks Winnall is worthy of a start ahead of Toney the Loanee, only he knows. And it’s a good job he amends our lack of experience by bringing in a 24 year old Rotherham reserve player in place of George Smith. It’s been a while since I’ve seen someone lose the ball trying to shepherd it out. That should have been 2-0 right there. Yet once Smith was on, we pushed on down the pitch and the last 10 minutes were almost exciting.
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| The Blunts. No, it's not rhyming slang, don't be rude... |
It may look like ‘inspired substitutions’ but the only inspired thing about it was probably leaving Hourihane on (inspiration or luck?), cos any of our attacking players were worthy of being dragged off; Watkins, Winnall, Hourihane, Isgrove and even Hamill. In the end, Watkins and Isgrove bit the bullet, while Smith came on for White with 11 to go. Even then, Toney was forced to play 20 yards behind Winnall instead of being up with him. This manager has no clue.
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| Grove Street, yesterday |
*** This is difficult. No-one really stood out and there were a lot of poor or anonymous performances, but for saving the one-on-ones I’ll give it to Davies (Twitter MOTM) though he was far from assured on corners.
** Smith. What can I say? The 11 minutes (plus injury time) he played were far and away our best spell of the match. The previous left back had never got in their half, Smith was never out of it.
* Hourihane. Go on then, for THAT goal. Otherwise awful, missed a pen and his deadballs were abysmal. Tohellwithit. Toney. Does what our entire forward line CAN'T do.
Londontykes' Top 3:
1. Davies
2. Hammill
3. Toney of Newcastle
Despatches: I sat upstairs this week cos my dad didn’t come. I really enjoyed it, save for listening to the Blunts 1st half. My dad had said he wasn’t coming, cos he had something on Sat nite…but when I rang him yesterday, his night out had been switched to Friday and he just couldn’t be bothered. I think the early kick off didn’t help. Or the s*** football. I’d also fancied giving the game a miss, but since I had the train tickets….
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| The Ponty |
The players? Nyatanga was WOEFUL. At least twice the ball went over his head and by the time he turned around they were clean through (one of them, the Blunt – Sharp? – pulled it down brilliantly with one touch before Davies saved). Isgrove. What does he do? Technically plays wide midfield, runs about a bit, but doesn’t score, never sets anything up, isn’t defensive, can’t head (too midgety). Does he only get a game cos Little Lee likes little players? Winnall was fabulous entertainment, moaning his way to a booking and being the ball of positivism that he is. Does he ever stop complaining? What’s he like at home? Back to his diving-on-the-floor-looking-for-a-foul best. Never ever looked like scoring, and never ever looked like he could do all the other things that Toney does when he comes on (winning headers, getting physical, worrying defenders). Williams came on for the last 20 and he blended in straightaway with his anonymity. The one run he had, beating 2 players before slightly overrunning it, he ruined by not having the bottle to follow through his momentum, cos he’d have easily beaten their man to the ball and would probably have taken a kick in the process. I think I now know why he was declared ‘clinically fit’ in last week’s Chron, cos mentally, he looks in bits. As for Hamill, altho he threatened sporadically, in the first half hour of the 2nd half, the twice he took anyone on he was running towards his own goal, in his own half. We need to get him running behind their defence, not giving it to him with his back to goal, surrounded by defenders. Naturally, I blame Little Lee.
One advantage of a 12:15 KO was the ability to have post-match beers in the No. 7, but I could really do without having to get up earlier than I do for work. Thanks, South Yorkshire’s finest.
Crowd: 13,571 (away: 3939). Only about 4,000 down on last season. We can’t afford to sack Little Lee, apparently. We can’t afford not to, I’d say.
Drinks du jour: JD and coke on the train, Erdinger and Leffe elsewhere
The Damage:
34 train
5 taxi
2 fanzine
The Choons:
Favourite Worst Nightmare – Arctic Monkeys
Four Calendar Café – Cocteau Twins
Felt Mountain - Goldfrapp
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| The view from inside the East Stand |
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| The Reds clear a corner |
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| Action on the halfway line |
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