Colchester at home – this is the day. This is the day that the season will take off. I am convinced. I may be deluded. Lending weight to this belief is the fact that Colchester are in a state of turmoil…. Their manager and coaching staff have all upped and left and two of their best players have also departed, all since the season started. One of those players is of course, Dean Hammond who will be wearing the red and white from now on. The negatives (as far as SFC are concerned) are that they have had a decent start, winning the first game 7-1 away from home for example and also, they have a new manager, Aidy Boothroyd, who is the embodiment of a lot of what I hate about Championship and League 1 football. If it moves – kick it, if it’s a ball – kick it harder. Against Boothroyd teams over the past few years, Saints have an average result of a 3-0 defeat. Today was going to be different though.
A major reality check came in the fact that this game was being played at all. It was international weekend but we’ve fallen so low now that our games are not called off which means that if you do happen to have to have any internationals, then they will be missing. Hence, Saganowski was away with Poland and Paterson was back in the team. With Rasiak having been sold to Reading, we had no striker on the bench. Our two new signings, Jaidi and Waigo were still in work permit limbo so other than Paterson, we had the same side as last week. Waigo was introduced to the crowd but thankfully, I was in the bog and missed the first showing of his celebratory ‘goal’ dance. Save it for the real thing sonny….
Away we go and Saints are playing ok, passing the ball about and looking threatening. Paterson has a stabbed chance cleared off the line and Lallana is looking particularly on form. It’s always interesting to see what sort of referee you get in League 1 because the standard is consistent… they’re all shite. This bloke seems like a complete bell end wouldn’t know a foul if it bit him. Rickie Lambert was persistently fouled in the first 20 mins but not one free kick and a similar story for Clive Platt, up front for Colchester who was being Trotmanned – look it up – it means “assaulted without the ball being anywhere near”. Dean Hammond was lucky to get away with no sanction for throwing the ball in the stomach of a bloke who was a team mate a week or so ago but I like him – he wants to win and it shows…. Hopefully in time, this will rub off on the ‘oh so soft’ academy players we have brought through.
Colchester looked like a team that hadn’t had Boothroyd in charge for long as they were at least trying to play on the grass but then it all changed as Kemal Izzet stupidly decided to take a big hack at Lallana, who was in a dangerous position out by the corner flag with his back to play, and even this ref couldn’t miss that and he got a straight red.
Whilst fans are delighted at a red for the opposition, I never am because it means that we will be playing against opponents who will shut up shop and it will take a bit of guile to break them down which means stretching the play out to the wings. Saints have no wingers and haven’t had a decent one for years which means that whenever we are presented with a team that shuts up shop, we run out of ideas and end up just hoofing it. Whilst this is going on of course, you have to defend against the hoof forwards from the opposition and on one occasion we didn’t and Platt hit the bar. In the ensuing panic, Trotman tried to clear it over his shoulder and succeeded in just hoofing it for a corner. Comedy gold. It’s all gone Hoofroyd and it’s 0-0 at half time.
Dumb and Dumber, who sit behind me, had been joined for this game by Dumbest. So we have one who just states the obvious, one who thinks he’s funny and one who just hasn’t got the faintest idea about anything and has nothing to say, so he talks complete bollocks. Match the moron to the sentence….
Sentence 1. “Saints need to get a goal here”
Sentence 2. “Izzet a red card, Izzet a funny name”
Sentence 3. “Where’s Rasiak today?, we could do with him”
In the concourse, another reminder that things have changed… you can get to the bar with missing any of the second half and you can also get to the bog without queueing for ten minutes and wondering if the guy in front would notice if you peed in his pocket.
Joseph Mills on at half time for Jacob Mellis who I have not mentioned so far… this is because he did nothing and is a lightweight ponce. After 5 minutes it became obvious to the more cynical of us that we weren’t going to score which is kind of depressing when you have 40 minutes left to play against 10 men at home. Thomson came on for Paterson to try and give us some width on the right but he was completely useless in this and any other respect. The removal of Paterson of course meant we only had Lambert up front and he was getting no service below 9 foot in the air and no joy at all from the referee despite being battered every time he went near the ball.
We’d been drawn into a hoofing war again and were not getting anywhere with it. Balls flew across the box with no Saint near them and when occasionally there was one, a Colchester defender flung a body part in the war. Credit to them, they did defend very well. Schneiderlin came on and actually passed the ball but as usual, he was light years ahead of his team mates in both thought and deed so invariably, he’d sweep a 50 yard ball out to the wing, where the winger would mis-control it out for a throw.
Final whistle, 0-0. boooooooooooooooooo!
Positives – Clean Sheet. We can defend against hoofball. We couldn’t do this at all last year but we can now. The lump up to the big man (Platt) who flicks it to the little man (Lisbie) was dealt with easily by Trotman and Perry, ably supported by Thomas, Harding and Davis. With Jaidi to come in as well, Pardew has built from the back which apparently he didn't do when manager of Charlton.
Negatives – the witless and guileless way we attempted to break down a massed defence. Hoofing the ball high to Lambert is pointless and especially so without someone to run off him. It isn’t going to work and we’re not going to climb the league any time soon playing like that. Maybe the man Papa Waigo can create some reasons to have a little dance....
A major reality check came in the fact that this game was being played at all. It was international weekend but we’ve fallen so low now that our games are not called off which means that if you do happen to have to have any internationals, then they will be missing. Hence, Saganowski was away with Poland and Paterson was back in the team. With Rasiak having been sold to Reading, we had no striker on the bench. Our two new signings, Jaidi and Waigo were still in work permit limbo so other than Paterson, we had the same side as last week. Waigo was introduced to the crowd but thankfully, I was in the bog and missed the first showing of his celebratory ‘goal’ dance. Save it for the real thing sonny….
Away we go and Saints are playing ok, passing the ball about and looking threatening. Paterson has a stabbed chance cleared off the line and Lallana is looking particularly on form. It’s always interesting to see what sort of referee you get in League 1 because the standard is consistent… they’re all shite. This bloke seems like a complete bell end wouldn’t know a foul if it bit him. Rickie Lambert was persistently fouled in the first 20 mins but not one free kick and a similar story for Clive Platt, up front for Colchester who was being Trotmanned – look it up – it means “assaulted without the ball being anywhere near”. Dean Hammond was lucky to get away with no sanction for throwing the ball in the stomach of a bloke who was a team mate a week or so ago but I like him – he wants to win and it shows…. Hopefully in time, this will rub off on the ‘oh so soft’ academy players we have brought through.
Colchester looked like a team that hadn’t had Boothroyd in charge for long as they were at least trying to play on the grass but then it all changed as Kemal Izzet stupidly decided to take a big hack at Lallana, who was in a dangerous position out by the corner flag with his back to play, and even this ref couldn’t miss that and he got a straight red.
Whilst fans are delighted at a red for the opposition, I never am because it means that we will be playing against opponents who will shut up shop and it will take a bit of guile to break them down which means stretching the play out to the wings. Saints have no wingers and haven’t had a decent one for years which means that whenever we are presented with a team that shuts up shop, we run out of ideas and end up just hoofing it. Whilst this is going on of course, you have to defend against the hoof forwards from the opposition and on one occasion we didn’t and Platt hit the bar. In the ensuing panic, Trotman tried to clear it over his shoulder and succeeded in just hoofing it for a corner. Comedy gold. It’s all gone Hoofroyd and it’s 0-0 at half time.
Dumb and Dumber, who sit behind me, had been joined for this game by Dumbest. So we have one who just states the obvious, one who thinks he’s funny and one who just hasn’t got the faintest idea about anything and has nothing to say, so he talks complete bollocks. Match the moron to the sentence….
Sentence 1. “Saints need to get a goal here”
Sentence 2. “Izzet a red card, Izzet a funny name”
Sentence 3. “Where’s Rasiak today?, we could do with him”
In the concourse, another reminder that things have changed… you can get to the bar with missing any of the second half and you can also get to the bog without queueing for ten minutes and wondering if the guy in front would notice if you peed in his pocket.
Joseph Mills on at half time for Jacob Mellis who I have not mentioned so far… this is because he did nothing and is a lightweight ponce. After 5 minutes it became obvious to the more cynical of us that we weren’t going to score which is kind of depressing when you have 40 minutes left to play against 10 men at home. Thomson came on for Paterson to try and give us some width on the right but he was completely useless in this and any other respect. The removal of Paterson of course meant we only had Lambert up front and he was getting no service below 9 foot in the air and no joy at all from the referee despite being battered every time he went near the ball.
We’d been drawn into a hoofing war again and were not getting anywhere with it. Balls flew across the box with no Saint near them and when occasionally there was one, a Colchester defender flung a body part in the war. Credit to them, they did defend very well. Schneiderlin came on and actually passed the ball but as usual, he was light years ahead of his team mates in both thought and deed so invariably, he’d sweep a 50 yard ball out to the wing, where the winger would mis-control it out for a throw.
Final whistle, 0-0. boooooooooooooooooo!
Positives – Clean Sheet. We can defend against hoofball. We couldn’t do this at all last year but we can now. The lump up to the big man (Platt) who flicks it to the little man (Lisbie) was dealt with easily by Trotman and Perry, ably supported by Thomas, Harding and Davis. With Jaidi to come in as well, Pardew has built from the back which apparently he didn't do when manager of Charlton.
Negatives – the witless and guileless way we attempted to break down a massed defence. Hoofing the ball high to Lambert is pointless and especially so without someone to run off him. It isn’t going to work and we’re not going to climb the league any time soon playing like that. Maybe the man Papa Waigo can create some reasons to have a little dance....
Slowly but surely we are getting towards 0. Still -6 though and 6 games, 0 wins.
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