Sometimes I love writing this blog. Not just when we've won and I'm all fizzing with expletives and metaphors for how good we are but also sometimes when we've lost and it's a cathartic way to sort out what I've seen and move on to the rest of life. Occasionally, it's a right pain in the arse and feels like walking through treacle. Today is one of them. Why do I have a fucking blog anyway and why do I feel like I need to write a game up like my opinion matters? Is it just an extended version of a call to 606 except Chris and Robbie can't cut me off? Who the fuck rings 606 anyway? Seriously? Why would you? Why am I doing this? What am I doing with my life? No one has a blog anymore do they? Fuck's sake MCLF. What even are you? Anyone want to buy a book? No, didn't think so.
It's hot. I don't cope well with heat.
Hopefully the players will do better.
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I can't remember the game very well (fucking great start for a blog about the game) but we started ok and then trailed off.
Swansea are passing. Passing. Passing. Passing. "FUCKING GET INTO THEM YOU CUNTS" shouts a bloke who doesn't seem to have noticed that it's a million degrees.
Swansea aren't very interesting. Their manager has a name that sounds like a celebrity hairdresser and from here, in his all black outfit, he looks very much like one too. Appleton looks like a bloke who is brooding on something. His manner on the touchline gives me the feeling he's got a sense that he's forgotten something but he isn't quite sure what it is. He rubs his chin a lot. He looks on, slightly aloof from what is happening. It's possibly what people would call 'studious' if he was Arsene Wenger but to me is like the look I think I have when I've put on a boiled egg, but I'm not too sure how long to cook it for and am deciding whether or not to risk cracking the shell.
Jerry and Bowler do one of their 'to me to you' runs and Bowler lifts the ball at the goal, but the keeper makes what looks to be a good stop with possibly a flying foot. That was something.
Carey has a go at spinning. He loses it. They pass some more. At some point, they skim the top of the bar. Grimmy makes a save, it was offside anyway, but it's none the less a really, really good stop. Then Grimmy makes a really fucking incredible save as they shoot, the ball hits a defender and he defies time and space to pivot in the air and throw a hand down low and get a whole palm to it. It's fucking sensational but we're all too hot to really give it the credit it deserves.
Connolly is not a right back. I repeat. Not. A . Right. Back. No matter what the big boss man with the hedge fund says, he's not a right back. He's a good player, he's a wholehearted player but he should not be doing the delicate work of trying to shepherd the ball up the touchline and overlapping when his main quality is chucking himself around in a disruptive and energetic way in the middle of the pitch. This is a long winded way of getting to the fact he's just kicked the ball out of play.
The Mountie controls the ball. He puts his arms out for balance. It looks worryingly like he hasn't done this before. He looks up, spots a run and... puts the ball out of play.
Jerry runs down one of their defenders. They pass it round him. Jerry turns to the rest of the team and gestures as if to say "eh? where the fuck are you?" Ten minutes later, Dougall, who is playing quite well, is the highest player, pressing with Jerry and has exactly the same message for his team mates. Everyone looks at their shoes and pulls up their socks a bit. It's not exactly pre match hugs with Gary and defensive huddles with Uncle Richard at this point. I think this unit needs to bond a bit...
Probably some other stuff happens but it's all a bit shit. Swansea keep knocking exactly the same chipped pass and it never works. We don't do very much at all. Everyone is very sweaty. Swansea nearly score just before half time. Swansea sing a very tuneful song. Someone calls them cunts. The whistle goes. People boo. Someone calls the manager a cunt. A lot of people are very angry. I'm too hot to be angry.
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It wasn't very good.
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Mikey big arms has made a change! Lavery is on and the Mountie has gone off. He seemed perpetually surprised by everything that happened, like he wasn't expecting football to be like this. Sometimes he ran into someone and other times he fell over a bit. It's mad to think he's probably going to be at the World Cup whilst I dunno, Andy Robertson or whoever won't. The World Cup is great. It won't be great if it's hot like this though. Loads of boring possession football and probably summary execution for letting off a smoke bomb. Not far from the English League to be fair. See what I did there?
We're loads better. Lavery is straight into a brilliant clattering tackle. The ref books him because it's a bit exciting. He's shit (the ref) but he is fairly consistently shit and he does have the added bonus of looking like he's from the 1950s cos he's a really old looking fella in mad long black shorts. Look at old FA Cup finals, refs used to be ancient, gnarled and school masterly, not the lithe blokes who look like aggressive little close cropped gym goers whose main life regret is not joining the forces because they didn't make the height limit that many refs today resemble.
Thompson takes a throw. It goes straight up and down. He takes another. It does the same. I'm wondering how long it will be before someone says "Look, Dominic, you're a lovely lad and we like you and your careering about a lot, but that is NOT a long throw. However much you say it is. It isn't"
Lavery is fucking flying. Book him? He doesn't give a fuck. He's been liberated by the Barrow game. Nothing can be as painful as that so now, he's fearless. There's a flick that's so bright I'm dazzled that starts the best move of the game, quick, incisive, pass after pass, the Pool are a tsunami, Swansea are running for higher ground, we fizz across the pitch and the ball drops to Bowler who hits it into the keeper's arms. For once, Bowler is the damp squib and not the firework. That was the best move we've had since about last March.
Lavery again. Ratting, fighting. He's a man reborn. Threaten to sell him to Millwall? Make a lukewarm statement about how 'we've got no one else so we can't?' He'll show you - Shayne is a little streetfighter today and he's cutting in, chasing down, to the byline, charging about. I've missed this. You might say he's smouldering a little, maybe even a flame flickering about him. Their defence is actually a bit terrified.
Wide again. Across the box. SHOOOOOOOT. Dougall shoots. Blocked. Back to Kenny. He flops to the ground. Penalty. Ha! Nice one. Take what you can. Jerry steps up. He looks nicely confident to me. He's juggling the ball cos he's fucking great at penalties. Here we go. One, two. Smack. Good low penalty, down the middle, keeper gone the wrong way Ye..... For fuck's sake! It's hit the keeper's feet for fucks sake. Fuck my life. Why is it shit?
Head up Jerry. Get yer head up. C'mon Pool!!! The ball comes across. Yates spins and is clattered on the ankles. That WAS a penalty. Surely? The ref just runs off as if to say 'You know how this works. You don't get another one' Jerry trots off looking rueful. He knows how it works. No one said life was fair. We should be fucking singing his name now, not worshipping a Youtube idol on the bench but thems the breaks. One day you're king, next day, you're old hat. Get yr head up Jerry.
Here's Bowler. I love it when he does this. He's like an overclocked electric scooter weaving between pedestrians who are trying to get out of his way. Jerry! Give it to Jerry. GIVE IT TO JERRY. JOSH!!!! GIVE IT TO FUCKING JERRY. FOR FUCKS SAKE! JOSH! Fucking hell. Jerry looks at the sky. The sky burns down on him. He sighs. He trots back. We go again.
The ball is up and bouncing in the box. CJ is up waiting to come on. It's obviously Bowler's reward for not squaring the ball. Micky has decided the egg is hard boiled. He's not happy. He wanted a runny yolk. Bowler controls. He controls like only he can. He swivels and .... ooooh. It wasn't far away. Bowler looks at the sky. He knows.
We're pushing... It'll come. We'll get this. We don't though. I can't summon how or why, but suddenly Fiorini is losing the ball and we've all run beyond him apart from Dom Thompson who tries to foul his man but somehow doesn't. It's one of those horrible moments where they seem to run for about 5 minutes towards the goal, Grimmy can't win cos there's two of them and no defenders. They draw out Grimmy, it's squared, Patino (fair play to the YouTube kid, he's got heart) has galloped back and nearly but not nearly enough gets a slide in and the ball nestles in the net. Swansea go mental. I would if I were them.
His number is up. Off he goes. Christopher James Hamilton is on. I feel a bit like part of me dies when Bowler goes off. It's like Bowler is the prospect that it might happen. No matter what. Bowler sits down. Appleton lets him go with the slightest of touches. He slumps onto the pitchside and empties a water bottle over himself. He looks hollow. He knows.
Get off his fucking back.
Still time... A free kick. nothing. Another free kick. GET GRIMSHAW UP! We don't. Nothing.
Whistle from the ref. Fuck's sake.
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Where are we at? I don't know. 3 games is no time. It's really not. We're all in this age of instant decisions and where we're all supposed to know everything and be able to see exactly the problem. It's constant punditry and dickhead blogger and cunts on podcasts giving their opinion on shit and actually, it's a really short time. We used to give managers a season and a half unless they'd only gone into the club to troll the fuck out of it like Clough at Leeds. No, really. We did. I remember this.
There were moments where we clicked and the movement was really good but for a lot of the time, we didn't look coherent. It felt to me sometimes like the old guard were pressing and some of the newer players weren't up to speed with it. Corbeanu. I don't know what to say really. There must be more to him than we've seen. The first half was dire, but Appleton didn't dither and he got a reaction. We missed chances, but most of the chances were made by Bowler and missed by him which is kind of same as it ever was. Equally, we got more than a bit lucky with not being behind in the first half. We lost and we could see that as fair, we could have drawn and called ourselves lucky or unlucky and we could have won. It was fairly close but also an odd, fitful sunbaked game that was at a few points quite good, but often not great.
I think we look too young, too quiet (there's not a lot of leadership) and too reliant on one player but there's Gabriel to return, Madine to add variety and Lavery playing like this regularly would add a lot. We must surely be in for a couple more signings though. The three above (especially Gabriel and a hopefully renewed Shayne) will help, but they won't make the jigsaw complete. There is experience missing. I actually think there's quite a lot of quality in some of the young loanees but I think we need someone who really knows their own game in their midst. Someone whose confidence is unshakable. The kind of figure that Madine or Dougall was to the Critch side 2 years ago. We need that player to knock heads and drag us along a bit by force of will. Confidence transforms teams. It transforms strikers, it bleeds into everything that happens on the pitch.
We need some.
Onwards.
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