Bottom End!

I have two matches to review in my column today, in which we haven't conceded a goal on the plus side, but on the negative side, we only have scored one. Let's concentrate on last Saturday's match at the Oval first shall we. We created three of four good chances, chances that should have been put away, but because we spurned those chances, our fate depended on the quick thinking of a former Glentoran player, Johnny Taylor, who had the presence of mind to wrap his thighs round the ball and allow Dwayne to come and claim it. But worse was to follow on Tuesday night against DC, when we created at least a dozen good chances and only took one and the whole time in the match I was praying that DC would not get a goal, for I had the distinct feeling if they scored, we would collapse, well maybe I'm slightly paranoid, but we been down this route so many times before, that its only a matter of time before we capitulate.

The draw for the Shield semi-finals will be made on Saturday and there isn't an easy match to look forward to, with Linfield, Crues and Chickenville all through and the odds must be stacked against us getting a home draw, but its the County Antrim F.A. that's doing the draw and stranger things have happened. Last season we played Chickenville in our first round match and they thought we were easy meat and played a weakened team, if we draw them again I don't think they will be that generous, but you just never know. Their manager Tommy Breslin in his preview of the league match against us, said they should get back to winning ways at the Showgrounds and he was proved right, but it was a close game nonetheless, hopefully then we have narrowed the gap, or am I being overly optimistic. They wasn't a vast crowd at the Showgrounds on Tuesday night, but crowds have been disappointing so far and I hope they pick up soon.

This Saturday we entertain newcomers Warrenpoint Town, for their first visit to the Showgrounds as a Premier league club, we played them last season in the Irish cup and they gave a good account of themselves in that match. Saturday's match sees United play the first of 3 matches, against two of the bottom four teams in the league, which includes ourselves, Ards, Warrenpoint Town and Ballinmallard. We entertain the Town on Saturday in Dankse Premiership, go the Ducks next Friday in the Dankse and play the Ducks again at home on Tuesday October 8, in the league cup 3rd round, a unique double header. We have already dropped points to bottom club Ards and we need to arrest this negativity which seems to beset our play when we come up against lesser opposition. We need to go out with the attitude that Warrenpoint are the league leaders and be determined to put them to the sword, that'll be the only way we can triumph, COSB

Poor Decisions!

It really was a game of poor decisions when United visited Windsor Park to play the IFA/Linfield last Saturday. The first 'poor' decision was in our team selection, why does our manager continue to select Alan D, when its obvious to us, the Sky Blue faithful, that he's struggling for form and then to cap it all he selected Gavin to replace the suspended Archie. We were down two men from the start and it got worse as the game progressed. Gavin didn't track back for the first Linfield goal, but then Tony Kane didn't make any attempt to stop the cross and Andy Waterworth was left with the easy task of giving the hosts the lead. I may have not been a brilliant footballer (bloody useless in fact), but I always was taught to try and stop crosses coming in.

When Gavin Taggart committed the first foul that he was subsequently booked for, the Linfield player he fouled, immediately got up and grabbed his shirt and should have got at least a booking and when referee Carvill didn't do this, Gavin couldn't help questioned Carvill's motives and was booked for dissent, but rightly or wrongly, Gavin should have kept silent, a poor decision on Gavin's part. Alan D's poor pass presented Linfield with possession from which they increased their league and there was hint of offside as Dwayne was out of position and Waterworth was level with the last United defender, Marky, but the linesman forgot about that offside rule, or he just didn't care. Then we have the penalty incident, I thought it was definite penalty but the Linesman at the city end of the ground was adamant, that it was no penalty.

He allowed that Waterworth took a 'dive' and Waterworth confirmed this later as he said he was 'going down' as Dwayne dived, in other words he conned the referee. Worse was yet to come for the Sky Blues, when our captain, Alan Jenkins, after the penalty was tucked away by Waterworth, berated the referee as to why he didn't listen to his linesman, who had a perfectly unrestricted view of the incident, but unforgivably he is 'alleged' to have called the ref a cheat and was promptly sent off for this truism. Jenkins is a veteran of Scottish league football and he must have come up against this sort of injustice many times before, but why did he call the ref a cheat, only he knows. That left us with a mountain to climb as we were down to 10 men, but we should have done it and we missed three makable chances and were denied at least one stone-wall penalty.

Spike and his management team have to make the correct selection on Saturday, they'd best get it right from the word go. I'm not going to try to second guess Fergie, but I wouldn't be surprised to see Alan D starting again, in the absence of Jenks, but I would imagine it has to be the last chance for him, if he reaches out and grabs it, he may safe his United career, if on the other hand he gives another lack-lustre performance, I fully expect him to disappear for a long time, maybe permanently. Archie looks primed to come back in midfield and as Taylor picked up his 5th booking on Saturday, Archie will maybe get a run-out at central defence in the Shield match against DC next Tuesday, if the bold Johnny is suspended. Referee Colin Burns, who is by no means the worst, takes charge of Saturday's game against the Glens and we can only hope he and Spike, gets the big decisions correct!

Red Light!

When we came from behind to beat Portadown 9 nights ago I foolish thought we were building a home record, but alas we came up against the 'red light' that is Chickenville these days. I don't know why our defence is open to the long ball, but it most definitely is and unless our management can do something about it, we are going to concede a pile of goals from that very same play. Bruce Balmer asked the question in his match report, 'how did we leave our two central defenders isolated on two attackers so early on in the match'? It wasn't the case of last time when we played Chickenville at the Showgrounds, we weren't mesmerised by their football, it was a long clearance from their goalkeeper and we couldn't deal with it. But where was the cover from our midfield or our two fullbacks, non-existent if you ask me and it is something we need to sort out, sooner, rather than later.

There was some pleasing parts of our play after this silly goal, but we couldn't turn possession into goals or chances and we lost by this solitary goal, which should've been prevented. Admittedly we did have two 'gilt edged' chances in the 2nd half, but they fell to the wrong people and I for one can't understand Fergie's subs and positional changes, or was Gawley injured, even so the bringing on of Liggie and MM moving to the wing just didn't make sense and then MM went off and I for one thought our chance was gone with him. My one regret is I was right and we lost our sense of urgency after that and who replaced him, Alan D, a man who's completely off form and I think he was more of a hindrance than a help. With the stupid sending off of Archie, committing a tackle from behind just 10 mins after he got a yellow card, we were we up against it and Fergie brought on Duffin with 7 mins to go, but it was too little too late.

With a trip to Windsor Park this Saturday, Spike will have changes thrust upon him, with the unavailability of Archie, suspended, he will have to promote someone from his bench and hopefully a tackler and if Gawley is carrying an injury he may have to bring another attacker in. Is it too much to hope that Liggie is ready to step up to the plate? When he came on at the Crues and scored our winner and I foolishly thought that was his confidence booster, but two days later he was a virtual passenger in our match against First division side, Ballymoney United. He wasn't the only one who had a 'stinker' that night, but he was the only one with the skill to turn the game, but alas he wasn't up for it. He'll need to be up for it on Saturday and in fact, the whole United team need to up for it, for the Linfield Blues have got a couple of wins under their belt and they'll want to make it three in a row but we have to stop them.

I feel I must say a word about the bloody mess that the IFA have got themselves into. Any readers of my column will know my feelings about them, I think they're a bunch incompetent twats and I don't think they could run a two-man business, let alone a football association. They appointed a new company, NIFL, to run the day to day business of the league, but compromised the grant to develop Windsor Park (which I still think is a white elephant), by appointing a director who the government have said that he's to have no part of the IFA set-up and they made him deputy President. I'm beginning to think that they have come around to my way of thinking and are only going through the motions and looking for somebody to blame. Why on earth would you go down that road knowing that you be running the risk of jeopardising the funding, unless they wanted the funding to fail, answers on a postcard, to: Ballygobackwards!