I’ll start with the positives. My season card worked for the first time this season, we scored a goal and I was home before midnight. Oh, and Gangway 12 has a hot new steward(ess). Right, enough of that.
This season gets better and better. Tonite it’s the turn of bottom of the table* Nottingham Forest to tear us apart (again). Even with a headstart, we can’t beat a team who’ve been beaten all season. I couldn’t care less they have a new manager (who seems a bit of a media darling; various outlets appear oblivious to Steve Cooper’s inability to get his Swansea team to promotion, despite parachute payments, or that he walked out on them the minute the money stopped rolling in). Still, I’m sure he’ll make every success of the managerial graveyard that is the City Ground.
* if it wasn’t for Derby’s pts deduction
Start as you mean to go on. Benson, named in the starting line-up, mysteriously disappears before kick-off. The evidence still exists here https://www.barnsleyfc.co.uk/news/2021/september/team-news-vs-forest/ Are our players even incapable of warming up properly? Still, it gave Jordan Williams a runout. I’m of the opinion that if a player of his quality can’t get a game, we MUST be a decent team. Mustn’t we?
The only chance early doors was when Collins came out of goal and miscued a clearance straight to a Forest player, wide left. Stoke City 2 years ago, all over again – ‘cept the Forest player meekly kicked wide. Open goal, 40 yards out. Useless. Then, out of the blue, we scored. We’d created nowt and yet we were ahead, Cauley Woodrow’s sleight of foot beating the defender, before he was clipped. (‘Cauley Woodrow’ and ‘sleight of foot’….a name and phrase ne’er before written.) Time stood still. Cauley had time to hit the floor, turn around while sat, and give it the usual spreading of the arms towards the ref. The ref looked at Cauley…looked at the linesman….read the Encyclopaedia Britannica….then pointed to the spot. No problem. If there is one thing Cauley can do, it’s take a penalty. Someone in the Ponty let off his smoke bomb which he’d been saving since August.
There’d been the odd warning sign first half, but Forest’s pace on the break destroyed us, second half. Before they’d even scored, Collins saved a one-on-one and Kitching saved two certain goals with last ditch covering tackles. So it came as some disappointment to find Forest 10 yards clear with one pass. SURELY offside? Looked a mile off…but TV replays show the linesman was spot on. A few minutes later a virtually identikit goal, as a static defence were split by quick passing and pace. Any comparison to what we have in ‘attack’ doesn’t bear study. Forest rounded it off as one player skinned both Moon and Brittain before crossing it low for Grabban to tap in at the back post. Only the masochists stayed, as the away end waved the home fans bye bye. Depressing.
Onwards and upwards!
*** . Kitching. I know. We concede 3 and I’m giving it to a centre half. But for Kitching, it woulda been worse.
** Collins. Made a few saves, unlike his opposite number. Is 1-3 to Forest ‘keeping it respectable’???
* Woodrow. By half-time he’d got a penalty, scored it, and helped constantly in defence. If Bogart and Bergman will always have Paris, Cauley will always have that first half at home to a side 2nd off bottom.
Londontykes’ MOTM: 1. Collins 2. Kitching 3. Woodrow
Official MOTM: None. Too embarrassed, obvs.
Despatches:
If Oliver Twist had been there last night, he’d have been asking for less, not more. Dreadful. Half the fans left after the 3rd goal. They missed nowt. Oh, we had an 18 yard header well saved (Iseka?) but what keeper gets beaten by 18 yard headers? My cat, obese as he is, has also caught as many mice this month as the Reds have scored goals. And there’s only one of him. (Mind, he’s capable of creating his own opportunities, unlike anyone in our team.)
Given memories of Steve Cooper’s Swansea City in the play offs last season, I’ll give you my own personal highlight. A Forest player went down injured and Cauley put the ball in the net. Physio comes on, the Forest keeper ignores the ball, goes off chatting to the injured player / ref / coach / anyone…and with the injured player up and ready after a couple of minutes, he slow walks back to the goal to fish the ball out and place it for a free kick. Is this level of ‘professionalism’ taught? Or does it come naturally? Either way, I guess nobody of a Reds’ persuasion was vaguely bothered, as we weren’t going to get another goal.
Oh, and we now have those bloody irritating rolling digital ad screens behind each goal. 2 other Londontykes profess to being ‘impressed’ and they’re ‘mint’. I am embarrassed for the pair of them. In the meantime, the official scoreboard lacks any working lightbulbs, meaning I have no idea how much more of this s*** I have to watch in the 2nd half.
As for the elephant in the room that is our manager….it’s a good job Reds fans are such an apathetic bunch. They’ll moan, they’ll leave early, they’ll compare Schopp to Jose Morais on social media, but do we consider it rude to call for the manager’s head out loud? If (when?) we lose Satdy, Schopp’s gone. With the international break, a defeat would surely make his position untenable. 10 matches, 8 points, 7 goals scored. Without looking, I think our forward line have scored 2 (1 pen), 1 and zero between them. In TEN matches. It’s simply not working and we can’t wait until division 3 (although I did enjoy it last time). Gotta leave on a positive!
Drink du jour: FA. Straight to ground.
Away: 2,158 (Att: 13,657) ‘We’re Nottingham Forest, we’re taking the p***.’ Quite.
The Damage:
£3 programme
c.£15 petrol
= c.£18
The Tunes:
Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not - Arctic Monkeys
BBC 5live
BBC 6Music
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