Saturday, August 14, 2010

When You See Me In The Pouring Rain



Don't read that, read this.

So, it has begun. West Brom hammered, West Ham hammered. Joe Hart showing his class for Man City, bet he misses having Johnson and Dann in front of him, I doubt he was ever required to be that busy for us, Blackpool win 4-0, away, mental. Refs making the news. Meet the new season, pretty much the same as any other season.

We managed a draw at Sunderland. The team was a bit of a surprise with O Connor starting ahead of Zigic and Fahey starting ahead of McFadden, and we took our first strides into the new campaign, with a faltering gait. In short, we were shit, Sunderland looked very sharp from the off and we really struggled to get into the game; for all that, Sunderland did not really look like scoring.   They took the lead from a penalty, which should not have been awarded. The ref has taken a bit of a metaphorical kicking, but I think the linesman was more at fault.

Sunderland then had Cattermole sent off, quite rightly, because he really shouldn't be on the pitch in the first place. This was the signal for Blues to carry on exactly as they did before: haplessly. They looked no better against 10 than they did against 11.

The second half and Blues improved, and were very unlucky to go a further goal behind. We had a decent break on, McFadden payed a beautiful ball through to Jerome, who fucking gave it away, Sunderland attacked at speed, some northern chump crossed it, Carr got his head to it and it looped over Foster into the goal. It was one of those strange ones, where there is a little delay before the crowd celebrates,as they are not quite sure what happened.

Zigic came on soon after and Blues improved somewhat. We put Sunderland under significant and sustained pressure and we got our rewards, with two goals coming from good crosses. We were the more likely winners by the end, but, given that we had been two down and playing, poor, poor, mediocre  football, a point away against one of our main rivals to win the little league of mid table mediocrity is not to be sniffed at.

Overall, I am not happy. The late rally (against 10 knackered men) should not be allowed to disguise how poor we were. Jerome is no good and we badly need someone else up there. We do not play a fluid game, our midfield is detached from the attack; this would be OK if we had someone who could hold the ball up and let the midfield get up there, but Jerome is not that man, he proves it week after week. We tailed off badly at the end of last year, and while our resilience and bouncebackability is nothing short of astonishing, we must remember two things, Sunderland are shit and they only had 10 men for most of the match. Better, teams, with better discipline will take us to the cleaners.

Sunderland supporters left by the thousand in the last few minutes. The game was anyones, but they were streaming out………..what the fuck is that all about? I thought they were supposed to be the best and most loyal supporters in the history of football.

Steve Bruce does not think that Cattermole should have been sent off. Steve Bruce is barking mad. Cattermole was a menace, and should have been sent off for his assault on O Connor. Bruce doesn't see that though, he thinks that Cattermoles first booking was harsh. Even if it was, he got away with the challenge on O Connor. It is a skewed moral universe that is inhabited by football managers, where discretions that go unpunished are OK, but discretions which are punished too harshly are mortal sins. Eck, as ever was dignity personified

Something I learned today. Robbie Savage does not know what the word "monosyllabic"means, and gets the right hump with anyone who uses it.

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