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| Cheers Pele! |
A long, long drive home. Another drive to the gold coast. Is it really worth it? Of course it is. Of course it will be. We might have a central midfield with the combined presence of some colourful tissue paper, we may be be the only team I can think of to go with two big lads up top and then put one of them on the wing and our defence is a mix and match of whoever is fit, regardless of it they're in the right place or any good and is about as secure and steady as a cheap plastic patio chair in a hurricane but it's DARK and the FLOODLIGHTS ARE ON so for the next 2 hours nothing else exists and all who wear tangerine are FOOTBALL GODS.
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| Where I was at 5.30pm... |
I quite enjoyed Hull. I thought we played ok. More of the good bits from that with less of the self destructive spells would be grand. I don't mind precarity. Fuck it, I love precarity. It gives it all meaning. When did we get too cool to support a team that were a bit dodgy anyway? Tactics Michael may or may not get a load of shit tonight. I don't care. I've had enough of sullen hand sitting and muttering. Either way, we need some noise.
Let's have it.
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We start pretty nicely. There's 3 crosses from the left, from the right, from the left again. Beesley and Madine go for the same ball at the same time like two big refrigerated trucks attempting to deliver frozen goods squeezing into the same single space supermarket delivery bay. It doesn't end well.
Carey has a gorgeous cushioned pass. Poveda is sent flying as he races on to it. A few moments later, Poveda is skidding inside. If Bowler would glide with the ball, Poveda is like a windsurfer, all stuttering bursts and angles as if thrown about by waves and gusts and here he goes, hammering it right down the middle, their keeper throwing himself backwards and chucking his fists up, the ball vibrating the bar.
Thommo drops a back pass short. Grimmy belts it over the east stand. Sheff U, take a throw and then like someone doing an origami demonstration, fold our defence into little bits before adding the final flourish by striking the ball into the bottom corner. I'm too far away to decide if anyone is particularly culpable but it just looked as if they decided to play for 30 seconds and scored as a result.
Madine and Poveda fiddle it about in the middle. Madine finds the ball. Beesley is haring into the box, Beesley is striking it above angle of post and bar. Madine as the no 10. Beesley as wide man. It's just... I dunno... What are we?
Yates wins it at the far post .. Madine turns it on ... handball??? Beesley stabs it... It's scrambled away. Handball though? Nope. nothing doing. Free kick to them. I'm going to give up claiming anything. It's pointless.
Sheffield United decide they'll play again. A low stone skimmer of a cross and Jimmy slices over his own bar...
Pool decide to do anything but attack for ages. Anything at all will do as long as it isn't attacking their goal. Pass it sideways. Give it to Grimmy. Knock it aimlessly forward. Get the ball with space to run into and dither. Knock it back to Charlie 'why is he in the centre half position most of the time' Patino to give it away because no one wants to run about and there's no pass on at all. It's really. fucking. frustrating. Poveda looks like the only player who actually wants the ball.
Jimmy Husband shows some wing wizardry and stands one up... It's begging to be poked home but everyone has run to the near post. Everyone claps cos the ball went forward. It's good when your centre half is the most convincing wide player.
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Clap or grumble. Not sure. Shrug and have a brew instead. It's not really a cauldron of anything. Again.
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Intent. Passing. Running at them. Winning a handy free kick. Good start.
Letting them run the literal length of the pitch after the handy free kick goes a bit awry with everyone seemingly unable to put a foot in or even get anywhere near them as if some kind of repelling magnetic field is at work. Poveda is desperately scrambling in their lad's wake like someone who has left the handbrake off his car running down a hill after it. Thommo is running alongside as if wondering whether to jump in and put the handbrake on but not really fancying it. Grimmy looks utterly baffled as how the Sheff Utd lad has ended up in front of his goal like it's one of those MLS running at the goalie with ball things they had instead of penalties and almost seems to dive out of the way. Not so good.
'How the fuck did that happen?' I can see Grimmy shouting. Good question.
This is it. This is when it turns. I think. It's come to a head. A 'sacked in the morning' chant rings out. Someone is hoyed out of the south stand. Everything is fucking shite.
We break. Beesley the pacy whippet in charge... Why is he doing this job? Madine. Slower and slower. They do ok though - It's with Yates. That's better. C'mon Jerry! Jerry passes it into Poveda's heels. Oh ffs. Let's get a third beanpole and just lash it at the box for the rest of the season. This is hopeless. Sack everyone. Sack the fucking blogger if it helps. I don't care. I'm fucking sick of this anyway. There's no joy in just writing 'and we lost' every fucking week and no one fucking reads it anyway when we lose so it's a pointless exercise...
...Hang on... We've scored! A corner. Marvin. Easy as you like. The goal is greeted with something approaching caution as if we're not collectively sure we're happy about it or believe it will make any difference but it slowly turns to joy and then to determination. C'mon Pool!
They try. Oh they try. Jerry on the end of a move gets everything right but the direction, the ball flying and swerving into the boards behind the goal. Carey puts one across the face. Carey catches one on the D that spins and spits just wide. Corner! It's 100% our corner. Nope. Of course not.
Lavs comes on. CJ comes on. Dougal replaces Patino. We wrestle. We fight. It feels like the wrong players doing the right things. We break on the right. It's Madine charging away like a washing machine on an energetic spin cycle juddering across a kitchen floor.. Fucking hell. Well done Gaz... have a breather. Now it's Connolly. Aaaaargh. It's just not what they're built for. Somehow we get a corner. The corner comes back to Carey. He leathers it. It's saved again.
Dom Thompson keeps over estimating his long throw ability. He throws himself about as far as he throws the ball. Bless him. CJ has a few runs like a dog excited to be out on the beach after being cooped up for days Somewhere in this Madine sneak in on a cross. It's over the top. Gaz collapses and pounds the turf. We know how he feels.
They spend ages fucking about in the corner. Carey nearly goes into the crowd to get the ball back. It feels like we're a dog snarling on a leash being held back, teeth bared, desperate to get at them but the dog is a chihuahua. I can't fault the players. I can't. We're just not good enough. You can't be both under confident and half a yard slower whether in pace or speed of thought than the opposition and get away with it. The whistle goes. The Blades sing. The players are applauded. Appleton isn't.
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I keep writing that 'out of context we did alright but...' - Sheffield United have ridiculous players compared to us. To lose to them is not a disgrace. We were shit at times tonight but we also put some pressure on them and made some chances. An equaliser would not have been unfair but it's the same record every week. Just as I'm fucking sick of the same tepid 80s/90s playlist through a crap PA every week like playing 'Now that's what I call indie disco' is going to hype up a crowd, I'm sick of watching players manfully battle against themselves. We keep neither losing by a lot nor looking particularly like we're ever going to win. We do ok in some ways but inevitably we fall short either through a lack of composure, quality or self sabotage.
Other teams bring subs on who would walk into our first team. I imagine opposition teams looking at our side going 'who the fuck is he?' about half the squad. We seem to play like we know that half the time and whilst ranting and raving isn't automatically a good quality, in the spells where our belief has gone, I can't see anyone getting into the players and telling them to fucking stop being frightened and have a go. Gaz is dishing out cuddles and low 5s but that's it. That seems to be the sum total of the in game mental energy. The plan seems to be to hope that they'll learn by discovery but the other teams are too good to let that happen. We try. We really do...
Patino is sinking under the weight of being a magical midfield lynchpin that he isn't. He's a good player, but he's not good enough yet to carry us and run a game. Carey is doing ok, he carried a bit of threat tonight, but he's crying out for someone to smash the other team about a bit and make him some space. The lack of width whether from full back or forwards is hurting my eyes when I look at the pitch. We're not completely unremittingly shite - we're really not - we're just not equipped to do what we're trying to do and it's draining watching us trying endless variations on the same thing and being not quite good enough week in and week out. It's like we're always not quite as good as the other team no matter who they are. I feel we'd be not quite as good as Annan Thistle 80-81 if we played them at their age today as we'd somehow manage to fuck it up with a 5 man sending off or a load of our players falling into a big hole... It's perfectly OK to lose to Sheffield United, but if you've lost to half the rest of the dross in the division too, it's not great.
It didn't really come to a head tonight as it might have done. I kind of feel as if we needed to win or lose 4-0. It's just dragging on and on in the same manner. Sullen. Kind of stormy but not really breaking. It's not good. It has to get better.
At least no one got concussed/seriously injured/sent off. That's practically a victory these days.
Onwards.
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