MATCH SEVEN vs. The Mighty Ducks 14/3/07 19:45
Lose 6-10
5.Leo (c) 4.Steve 7.Dean 8.Jon 9.Gareth 10.Aneel 11.Adam
“It seems true love is so rare. Seems all I’ve known is deceit. Your laughter fills the air. Once more I’m sensing defeat”
Local rag devotes whole page of tributes to young man killed in car crash into tree. Scan article for C.O.D.; tox report. None mentioned. Inquest pending. How convenient. Woman in adult education class rallies against the fucking Polish, cackers, Indians - back to their own country she snorts. I challenge her not. Can’t move her fat and ugly, out of her unsellable 3 bedroom, six kids, Millbrook crib. She’s already punished. Getting emotionally played again. Self-esteem and hope, scratch scatter like a polygraph. Bullshit playground politics to be dealt with. Lenny Henry jokes about Vanessa Feltz’s weight, impersonates Ant & Dec, in the name of charity. Whatever smile was left on my face tells me to go fuck myself, and has an affair with my best friend.
It was a bad week.
In the (apt) wake of this defeat, this temporary gaffer is not one to shirk responsibility, happy to hold his hands up, and point the blame to someone else. Or maybe not. This was a tactical dog mess, an unravelled canine turd. Pressing the self-destruct button on an over-reaction, and limiting options to ‘glass jar or plastic bag’.
The Molly personnel tonight exuded the spirit of Arsenal’s league cup squad, and there was enough sugar plum to ferry the team through long uncharted waters – the first time in a luvulongtime absence of Matt, glossed over by two exceptionless stand-ins keepers. So while Matt was filling his boots, masticating in his week away from work, Leo and Aneel would fill his gloves. Adam increased the totty count with a Phoenix-like return, and Jon once again chanced his arm with his knee. The temporary gaffer was happily illusionned that the pledge and the turn, would produce the magic, no matter the twists.
No longer able to scout our opposition prior to meeting, and with match points being traded like STDs at an American frat boy college party dot com, every opposition this season has been a unique surprise. Dealing with their system and shape on the night requires the same tactical thinking and tinkering that has served Steve McClaren so very well.
A game of two halves ultimately produced the same score line and highlighted the same deficiencies in each. Leo took sticks for the first half, and immediately let in the first after barely a couple of minutes, cruelly exposed from the angle. This was going to be the pervading flavour of the goals conceded – all struck from close range, with nary a defender in view. The opposition rarely wasted opportunities, by shooting long, or through the crowds of one defender. They built up quick yet patient attacks, only shooting when lock-on was beeping.
With no-one taking full charge of defence, and a happy-go-lucky merry go-round movement of Molly personnel, everyone seemed to be everywhere when we had the ball, and nowhere and anywhere else when not in possession. That being said, notable crunching tackles at the 12th hour, from side-on behind at least kept the team in the hunt.
Leo was doing his best to stop the close range efforts, spreading prone on the ground to block the low drives, and saving a hat-trick with his left foot. Jon was finally proving his worth as the return of The Self-Proclaimed, punching balls around the pitch, with the impact of a Rohypnol spike, smacking in two bitching goals. Adam, Steve and Dean wandered around Nobbyland like sun-sapped tourists, and Aneel was using his dribbling skills to aid Gareth in attack, whilst diverting attention away from his shorts over trousers faux pas.
The way the opposition played could not be countered by our ropey “that’s your man!” philosophy. Oh, for the days of barking-mad Dave Wills. We either had to play three in defence behind the ball, which is as alien to The Molly Maguires, as Leo is to a social life, or else we had to man-mark in order to contain the runners, and delegate some gawd damn blame and responsibility.
The first half finished with the team 3-5 down, Leo weakly letting a deceptive prod sneak into his near post as the last meaningful action. And from there, things would get worse.
Aneel took over in goal for the second half, in an abortive attempt to put Leo’s presence to better use in defence, but just as God created the dinosaurs in his own image, so the evolution of the side might have developed brain, but lost bite.
It wasn’t all misery, and cocked gun in mouth, with the Mollys starting sharpest, a premature peak, as Steve bagged two early to complete his hat-trick, including wrestling the penalty- taking duties from designated Dean, to draw us level. Temporary respite unfortunately, as the cards fell foul, and the team drew dead for the remaining quarter hour.
Lopsided like an absent-minded Heather Mills, the left side of the team was conspicuous by its absence, and the team shape bore a passing resemblance to a leper in a hot bath (joke circa 1985). Had Pro-Zone been utilised, the sight of Gareth’s pixellated vapour trail scrawling around the back side of our end of the pitch, having to defend against the runner was not an encouraging use of our most skilful player, especially when he got cornered into dinking an own goal past a bemused Aneel. No word on whether Don’s paying for his son’s trip to a real pro-zone.
With Steve’s head full of goalscoring glory, Leo drowning in quicksand, Dean and Adam largely anonymous, and Jon again keeling under his own bodyweight, no one escaped from this match with much credit. The opposition played the ball through the centre to a hold-up man, his back to goal, who fed the unopposed channel runners for uninhibited cracks at our keeper.
It’s the nature of the beast that this team concedes a regulation handful or two of goals every game, but as top scorers in this league (even after this game), it was disappointing and a little perverse, that Gareth got outgunned by two others, and was indicative of our lack of strategy - the pro-activeness of Aneel’s attacking, not compensated for a second, by Leo’s defensive reactiveness.
The second half finished 3-5 also. A total defeat of 6-10, and thoroughly deserved, with a lack of control, and organisation being callously exposed. Make no mistake, The Mighty Ducks are beatable, but it will take this trial run to get things right.
So a bad week hardly peaked or troughed with this middle time result, just a continual flatline, that mixedly metaphorically brought the team back down to earth. Looking back perhaps, it wasn’t as bad as I originally made out. West Ham lucked out with the greatest goal ever scored to ensure their fight for relegation will go on; the Mollys remained in third place in the table; I’m still breathing, living to die another day; and the car crash, was actually into a lamp post. So no tree had to needlessly die in a drunken mess.
Goal Scorers: Jon 2, Steve 3, Gareth 1
Match Ratings: Leo 6, Steve 7, Dean 6, Jon 7, Gareth 6, Aneel 6, Adam 6
Man of the Match: Steve
Lose 6-10
5.Leo (c) 4.Steve 7.Dean 8.Jon 9.Gareth 10.Aneel 11.Adam
“It seems true love is so rare. Seems all I’ve known is deceit. Your laughter fills the air. Once more I’m sensing defeat”
Local rag devotes whole page of tributes to young man killed in car crash into tree. Scan article for C.O.D.; tox report. None mentioned. Inquest pending. How convenient. Woman in adult education class rallies against the fucking Polish, cackers, Indians - back to their own country she snorts. I challenge her not. Can’t move her fat and ugly, out of her unsellable 3 bedroom, six kids, Millbrook crib. She’s already punished. Getting emotionally played again. Self-esteem and hope, scratch scatter like a polygraph. Bullshit playground politics to be dealt with. Lenny Henry jokes about Vanessa Feltz’s weight, impersonates Ant & Dec, in the name of charity. Whatever smile was left on my face tells me to go fuck myself, and has an affair with my best friend.
It was a bad week.
In the (apt) wake of this defeat, this temporary gaffer is not one to shirk responsibility, happy to hold his hands up, and point the blame to someone else. Or maybe not. This was a tactical dog mess, an unravelled canine turd. Pressing the self-destruct button on an over-reaction, and limiting options to ‘glass jar or plastic bag’.
The Molly personnel tonight exuded the spirit of Arsenal’s league cup squad, and there was enough sugar plum to ferry the team through long uncharted waters – the first time in a luvulongtime absence of Matt, glossed over by two exceptionless stand-ins keepers. So while Matt was filling his boots, masticating in his week away from work, Leo and Aneel would fill his gloves. Adam increased the totty count with a Phoenix-like return, and Jon once again chanced his arm with his knee. The temporary gaffer was happily illusionned that the pledge and the turn, would produce the magic, no matter the twists.
No longer able to scout our opposition prior to meeting, and with match points being traded like STDs at an American frat boy college party dot com, every opposition this season has been a unique surprise. Dealing with their system and shape on the night requires the same tactical thinking and tinkering that has served Steve McClaren so very well.
A game of two halves ultimately produced the same score line and highlighted the same deficiencies in each. Leo took sticks for the first half, and immediately let in the first after barely a couple of minutes, cruelly exposed from the angle. This was going to be the pervading flavour of the goals conceded – all struck from close range, with nary a defender in view. The opposition rarely wasted opportunities, by shooting long, or through the crowds of one defender. They built up quick yet patient attacks, only shooting when lock-on was beeping.
With no-one taking full charge of defence, and a happy-go-lucky merry go-round movement of Molly personnel, everyone seemed to be everywhere when we had the ball, and nowhere and anywhere else when not in possession. That being said, notable crunching tackles at the 12th hour, from side-on behind at least kept the team in the hunt.
Leo was doing his best to stop the close range efforts, spreading prone on the ground to block the low drives, and saving a hat-trick with his left foot. Jon was finally proving his worth as the return of The Self-Proclaimed, punching balls around the pitch, with the impact of a Rohypnol spike, smacking in two bitching goals. Adam, Steve and Dean wandered around Nobbyland like sun-sapped tourists, and Aneel was using his dribbling skills to aid Gareth in attack, whilst diverting attention away from his shorts over trousers faux pas.
The way the opposition played could not be countered by our ropey “that’s your man!” philosophy. Oh, for the days of barking-mad Dave Wills. We either had to play three in defence behind the ball, which is as alien to The Molly Maguires, as Leo is to a social life, or else we had to man-mark in order to contain the runners, and delegate some gawd damn blame and responsibility.
The first half finished with the team 3-5 down, Leo weakly letting a deceptive prod sneak into his near post as the last meaningful action. And from there, things would get worse.
Aneel took over in goal for the second half, in an abortive attempt to put Leo’s presence to better use in defence, but just as God created the dinosaurs in his own image, so the evolution of the side might have developed brain, but lost bite.
It wasn’t all misery, and cocked gun in mouth, with the Mollys starting sharpest, a premature peak, as Steve bagged two early to complete his hat-trick, including wrestling the penalty- taking duties from designated Dean, to draw us level. Temporary respite unfortunately, as the cards fell foul, and the team drew dead for the remaining quarter hour.
Lopsided like an absent-minded Heather Mills, the left side of the team was conspicuous by its absence, and the team shape bore a passing resemblance to a leper in a hot bath (joke circa 1985). Had Pro-Zone been utilised, the sight of Gareth’s pixellated vapour trail scrawling around the back side of our end of the pitch, having to defend against the runner was not an encouraging use of our most skilful player, especially when he got cornered into dinking an own goal past a bemused Aneel. No word on whether Don’s paying for his son’s trip to a real pro-zone.
With Steve’s head full of goalscoring glory, Leo drowning in quicksand, Dean and Adam largely anonymous, and Jon again keeling under his own bodyweight, no one escaped from this match with much credit. The opposition played the ball through the centre to a hold-up man, his back to goal, who fed the unopposed channel runners for uninhibited cracks at our keeper.
It’s the nature of the beast that this team concedes a regulation handful or two of goals every game, but as top scorers in this league (even after this game), it was disappointing and a little perverse, that Gareth got outgunned by two others, and was indicative of our lack of strategy - the pro-activeness of Aneel’s attacking, not compensated for a second, by Leo’s defensive reactiveness.
The second half finished 3-5 also. A total defeat of 6-10, and thoroughly deserved, with a lack of control, and organisation being callously exposed. Make no mistake, The Mighty Ducks are beatable, but it will take this trial run to get things right.
So a bad week hardly peaked or troughed with this middle time result, just a continual flatline, that mixedly metaphorically brought the team back down to earth. Looking back perhaps, it wasn’t as bad as I originally made out. West Ham lucked out with the greatest goal ever scored to ensure their fight for relegation will go on; the Mollys remained in third place in the table; I’m still breathing, living to die another day; and the car crash, was actually into a lamp post. So no tree had to needlessly die in a drunken mess.
Goal Scorers: Jon 2, Steve 3, Gareth 1
Match Ratings: Leo 6, Steve 7, Dean 6, Jon 7, Gareth 6, Aneel 6, Adam 6
Man of the Match: Steve
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