Clean Sheet!

As I was making my way to the car park on Saturday after our victory over the Mallards I fell into conversation with a fellow Sky Blue fan (I'd like to tell you his name, but I don't know it), as I do at most home games. We both gave our opinions on the game and we were in agreement saying, it wasn't an enjoyable game, but my fellow supporter chimed in, at least we got a clean sheet. I have been thinking of that conversation since and I think it sums up my feelings about last Saturday's game, we got a 2-0 win and a clean sheet. If you had said to me before the game, 'would you settle for a 2-0 victory and a clean sheet', my answer would been yes, but in truth I was a bit disappointed.

A lot of football men talk about winning 'ugly' and United it could be said won ugly on Saturday, but the phrase has never stuck well with me. I admit I'm a perfectionist, I want to see us show a bit of class and a bit of football, in short I want to be entertained. I freely admit that there are times when a team has got to dig in and grind out results and we have done that a few times this season. But we were on a three match unbeaten run, we had already thrashed our opponents  less than seven weeks ago in the League cup and we had a decent crowd in attendance. That was not the time for grinding out a result, that was the time to entertain and maybe give some of our fickle fans a reason to come back to the fold.

Ally Teggart being unavailable meant we had to shuffle things a bit, but our management team had known he wasn't going to play for a couple of days before the match, so that's a lame excuse. But what did they do, they promoted a striker, Mario Dolan, to play in Ally's place and we suffered as a result of this, no pace in the team. I have to say on Mario's behalf that he acquitted himself quite well in his unaccustomed role, but he was guilty of a glaring miss with a header near the end of the first-half, but he did score our insurance goal, or got in the way of a Cush corner. Cush, had not one of his better games, his corners were of the highest standard, but his play was not what we have grown to expect of him.

Similarly, Gary Thompson was not his usual self and Tony K and Sparky were left to keep the engine room running. JT, in defence was not up to his usual standard, but the word on the grapevine is ,'he was taking it easy'. Such claptrap I've never heard in all my born days, he seems to have gone off form and he best get sorted sooner rather than later for our next three fixtures will pit JT against the best strikers in our league and he better be ready for them. Captain Jenks had a good game and led the line superbly and Archie looked assured at leftback. Cookie Munster played the second half with a suspected broken toe, so he may be doubtful for the next match away to Portadown.

Marky looks steadier at rightback, but I'm always waiting for him to get caught out, I haven't learned to trust him yet, but he's growing on me. The same could be said for Stuarty Addis, he's playing better than he did when he first graced a Sky Blue jersey and he took a serious knock to the head on Saturday by the Mallards forward Leckey, but he carried on as normal, more power to him. We face a tough task this week when we take on 5th placed Portadown, but hopefully we'll rise to the occasion, come on Sky Blues. Remember to read the second instalment of the Norman Clarke interview, next Tuesday, 10 December, the Ballymena Boy gives freely of his opinions and it makes for superb reading!