Full Support!

We, the Sky Blue Sport team have decided to give full backing to the 'fans' initiative of a complete boycott at the forthcoming away match at Stangmore Park, against Dungannon Swifts, as a protest for the alleged racism chant by our fans, which never happened. We would also agree that on the night of the game we should all attend the Showgrounds and donate some money towards the fine that the club have to pay because lots of people were prepared to tell lies against us. We would also like to send our best wishes to 'our' (fat), player, Ormo, who has unfortunately broken his leg and wish him a speedy recovery. Now here's Omar:

After our Irish cup scare against Ards (and it was a scare), it'll be nice to get back to league action on Saturday (weather permitting). Here we are poised in 8th place with two thirds of what I like to term the 'qualifying period' over. We are in the situation where we can either move up into the top six or slip into the relegation mire. The top six would be nice from a financial point of view as both Linfield and Glentoran would have to visit the Showgrounds and as they strive for league points the club should reap the benefits. The one big drawback in my opinion is that they'll have to share the United 'home' stand due to the ongoing work at the old stand.

Of course there is one hitch that will have to be overcome if we are to progress and that's the team's penchant for shooting themselves in the foot. I don't know how many games we have thrown away this season from what looked like a winning position, but it's a statistic we need to change if we are to mount a serious challenge for a top six finish. Manager Walker has said that he'd like to sign a striker as back-up while Andy Smith serves his 6 game suspension (4 to go yet), but I think we have the players who can mount a serious challenge as it is, if we can only sort out our basic play. I refer of course to our throw-in technique which seems to be, give it to Lee Colligan and/or Mike Smith and let them throw it as far as they can or throw to a player close by who can 'boot it' up-field. I have no football coaching experience but I think there's one or two more tactics that can be employed.

Then there's our defending from throw-ins, we never mark the thrower, which means when he gets the ball back he has a free run at our defence. This should never happen, when we are defending a throw-in we should be the favourites to win possession, not the attacking team. These are basic skills, they're not rocket science, in fact they're just common sense. Then we come to corners: we can't defend them and despite having four tall players in our team we can't exploit that at the other end. Surely these are things that can be worked out at training, if we can get these basic skills right we have enough talented players to unlock any defence in the league, but continue to get these wrong and I fear we'll slip down the table or at best hold our position. If we want a top six position it is I believe up for grabs and we can get off to a good start at the Oval on Saturday, after that it's all in the melting pot!