Half Empty!

I suppose I'm posing a philosophical question here, we're exactly half way through the league season, 19 games played, 19 games to play, but is the glass half empty or half full? That is the big question, I personally believe it's half empty. Here we are with a record of played 19 games, won 7, drawn 7 and lost 5, it's only really about average and 28 points is a poor return. In another 14 games the 'split' will occur and I think we'll need 50 points to be sure of being in the top half, so a vast improvement will be needed between now and mid-March. Not good news when you've just lost two of your best players, Gibbo with a broken foot, minimum 6 week lay-off and play-maker Nathan Hanly , for 2 games courtesy of miscarriage of justice, when he was wrongly sent off against Lisburn Distillery. Some people are going to have to step up and be counted over the next few weeks, but who it's hard to say.

Ryan Berry came off the bench last week and scored an equaliser for us and looks to be the obvious replacement for Hanly, but who partners him is another matter as Taggart was the man he replaced at halftime and he came off injured. Mo, who we at 'Sport foolishly wrote off a few weeks ago, played a major part in United's equaliser last Saturday and he may get his chance, as Rory Carson is still a couple of weeks away from full fitness. United's squad will be tested fully over the next few weeks, with 3 big league games coming up, away to Dungannon Swifts on December 11 and then home to the Glens on Christmas Saturday, before entertaining the 'scum' on Boxing Day. These of course are the times that define exactly what type of players we have in our side, are the quitters, or will they roll their sleeves up and get on with it, hopefully the latter will prevail.

Just thought in passing I must allude to the big event today when England lost it's bid for the 2018 World cup finals. The reason, they refused to 'grease' enough palms, believing that right was on their side. We in Norn Iron aren't quite as naive, take for example the meeting between the local Government and the I.F.A. today, as we seek to get some much needed funds from our Politicians while surreptitiously feeding cash to Linfield like it's going out of fashion. The I.F.A. claims to have struck a new deal with Linfield, which is allegedly better than the previous one. I'm not going to go into the perplexities of the deal, but here it is as simply as I can put it. At the minute Linfield get about £500,000 from the I.F.A. each season and they are responsible for small running repairs to the ground. In the new deal they'll get £250,000 each year, sole use of Windsor park where most finals are played and no responsibility for the upkeep of the Stadium, if that's not a good deal for Linfield, then Sepp Blatter's a saint!