Honest Accounts!

After our visit to the league champions last week, where I thought we gave a good account of ourselves, I was astounded to hear the report of the game on Radio Ulster, our local station. I couldn’t believe my ‘ears’ when I heard the two Radio Ulster commentators say in their summing up, that Linfield always looked in control and were always going to win the game. Were they at the same game I was at I wondered? Or were they sampling the hospitality available at Windsor Park and forgot to keep an eye on the action? Do these individuals not realise they are providing a service for those people unable to attend games and who want to get a proper account of what takes place? I have no record of the statistics of the game, but I’d hazard a guess that we enjoyed the majority of the possession, especially in the first half. They also stated that United had obviously come to Windsor to defend, but I personally could see no evidence of this, as we played with our usual formation, 4,4,2, which though not as attacking on paper as the home team’s 4,3,3 allows, in my opinion, the team to play a brand of decent entertaining football. We also played with two genuine wingers, which I never knew was typical of defensive football, but then when David Jeffrey writes your scripts, anything goes. Linfield, on the other hand, did (and always have done), employ a sweeper at the back, so what formation was the more defensive minded I wondered. In the end of course this made no difference as United lost the game and the 3 points on offer as well. But they lost them to a hotly disputed penalty and a defensive clanger in injury time by United keeper Paul Murphy. Linfield have I believe 6 fulltime professionals on their books and if I was to judge them on last week’s performance, I’d have to say they’re giving poor value for money. Having said that I can’t deny that they appeared to be fitter than our players (but who doesn’t) and exerted pressure on us at two crucial stages, the last 10 minutes of each half. But and I emphasis the word but, their football left a lot to be desired, well maybe I should say their lack of football, as they tended to just ‘hoof’ the ball at every opportunity. United on the other hand played a bit too much football for my liking and they seem to have lost that will to win which is so vital an ingredient in today’s games. Maybe we gave them a little too much respect and maybe the reporters picked up on this as we tended not to go into all out attacking mode, but with officials like we had last Saturday it was probably wise to err on the side of caution as all Linfield players seem to have trouble staying on their feet. So lads, don’t just say what you think the ‘fat controller’ wants to hear, he can ‘paper over the cracks’ if he wants, you on the other hand should tell it as it is!

Time Wasters!

So the Irish league played a game against an English league eleven on Tuesday night at Mourneview Park Lurgan? Well that’s what it said on Teletext and Teletext never lies, does it? This so called English eleven bears very little resemblance to any English eleven which we have played before. Not only was it not a Premier league eleven, it wasn’t even a Championship eleven (old 2^nd division), nor was it a current 1^st division (old 3^rd division), nor a current 2^nd division (old 4^th division). In fact it was a representative side from what used to be called non-league football, but is now referred to as the football conference. In my opinion you can dress things up as you wish, change their names, but at the end of the day as the old saying goes, ‘you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear’. Put in layman’s terms this simply means, no matter what way you package it, dross is still dross. Irish league manager, David (the fat controller) Jeffrey, said it was a good victory for our lads. Who does he think he’s kidding, we all know it was a foregone conclusion from the start? If an Irish league team, made up almost exclusively from Linfield and Glentoran players, most of whom are full-timers, can’t beat the equivalent of our own 1^st division, then Irish football is in a real bad way. If the English weren’t prepared to send a team representing their current 1^st and 2^nd divisions, surely we should’ve turned to our Scottish friends and asked them to send a team from their 1^st division. With the apathy of Irish league fans reaching critical level, the last thing fans need is to be duped into attending representative games, which are at best sub-standard and at worst a take-on. The fat controller did his best to convince us that this was an English under-21 side, but I’d hazard a guess that very few of these players will ever don a full England jersey, at any level. It was interesting to see also that Jeffrey selected current top scorer Gary Hamilton and his own Peter Thompson. Why pick two players who are as alike as two peas in a pod? Both are poachers, surely he needed someone like Smart of Portadown or Parkhorse, to play alongside either of these two strikers. Yes these are the best two strikers in the league, but they feed off a different type of player than themselves. But then again it was only a ‘paper exercise’ after all. Please try in future to give us something worth looking at, otherwise you’d best just forget about it!

Best Policy!

Another round of International friendlies has passed and what did it prove, well as far as I’m concerned the answer is Sweet F.A. Norn Iron and Wales fought out a goalless draw at Windsor Park and players seemed to be almost apologetic when they had a shot at goals. Even the antics of Craig Bellamy, booed almost every time he touched the ball, could lift this game from the depths of mediocrity. That game was played on Tuesday night and then on Wednesday night, England, the biggest chokers in Europe, took on the team who promise much and deliver nothing, Spain. This game had nil, nil, written all over it from the outset, but suddenly there was a flash of brilliance (or was the keeper too far off his line) and Spain scored the only goal of the game. Managers trotted out the usual claptrap, making statements like, ‘it was a learning curve’ and ‘we gained loads of positives from it’, but I’m sure deep down they’re saying to themselves ,’what a bloody waste of time’. The Republic also had a game on Wednesday, not a friendly this one, but a European qualifier against the worst team in Europe, San Marino. To say the men from Eire didn’t cover themselves in glory is to make a vast understatement, but as manager Steve Staunton said, at least they won and winning is what it’s all about after all. Being at a loose end on Monday past I took in the U17 friendly between Norn Iron and Scotland, well admission was free and it’s been a few years since I last visited Taylors Avenue. What a boring and predictable display from the lads in green, as they displayed the same predictable tactics as United also did under Kenny Shiels’s management. Once Scotland realised they just had to wait for the Irish boys to play into their hands, the game was over as a contest. I never heard Kenny’s comments from the game, but I can imagine him saying, ‘it was good learning curve for us’. The heaviest defeat in this round of friendlies occurred when the Norn Iron U21’s lost by 4 goals to nil against the Wales U21’s. Norn Iron’s manager Roy Millar actually said, ‘we got a lot a positives from the game’. Who are you trying to kid Roy, just admit it, you were crap, your team was crap and you rightly got the crap kicked out of you. Its time to start calling a ‘spade a spade’ (no racist comment intended), lets forget about all this positive thinking, sometimes there’s nothing better than a good dose of the truth!

United Backs!

The ‘mad. month of January is now over, the ‘January’ sales have finished and its debatable if this transfer window is ever necessary. Admittedly if a player suffers a long time injury, a manager may be able to strengthen his panel at this time. But from a personal point of view I have rarely found that anything positive comes from signing players during this time. Gavin Melaugh, signed by United at the beginning of January, may be the exception that makes me sit up and appreciate this opportunity. Thirty minutes into his full debut last week, he was thrust into a positional change with the injury to Gary Haveron. He performed admirably in this role and even though we eventually lost, he was blameless, as he was left isolated for the solitary goal that caused our downfall. Our manager, Tommy Wright, was fairly active during this window, signing another two players, defender Simon Kelly and midfielder Stephen Lowry. In fact if you listened to the media or watched Teletext, we were linked with almost every player who became available at this time. Our defence has been a bone of contention with our fans all season, as we have a bad habit of hitting the self-destruct button, time after time. But where would you start to change it and in fact you might have to change everybody in it? Goalkeeper Paul Murphy, despite our manager’s glowing praises, continues to cause anxiety among the United fans, as he has us as nervous as kittens, especially when he’s faced with a back pass. Both fullbacks seem unable to clear their lines and their attempts at volleyed interceptions are a comedy of errors. Then there’s team Captain Albert Watson, it’s easy to forget that Albert is just 21 years-old, he’s been around for so long. He has been improving every seasonup to now, but suddenly he’s looking fairly ordinary and it was alarming to watch Vinny Sweeney give him such a hard game last Saturday. Is the burden of being team captain wearing too heavily on Albert’s young shoulders I wonder? Gary Haveron, who unfortunately got injured on Saturday, tends to blow hot and cold. One day he looks unbeatable and then the next he looks uninterested. Maybe manager Wright will be able to experiment when Simon Kelly is available for selection. One things for certain, United can’t go on shipping goals at this alarming rate and have any success, it’s now time to plug the gaps, or slither into insignificance!