Match Report

Oh dear. Oh dear dear me. I’ve thought long and hard about subjectivity and balance in this report but fuck it, what’s called for is a rant and a rant you shall have. For the record, this is what factually happened. For his much fan-fared Premiership debut for us, Rossi effectively started as a lone striker. About five minutes into the game it quickly became apparent Charlton were beyond rubbish, by far and away the worst league side we have come up against this season and as Boro were last week, there for the taking. Their centre half was so outrageously poor it was debatable whether he was a footballer or perhaps an electrician or gardener. They were that bad. We played well enough for the first half, creating plenty but predictably putting nowt away. Rossi hit the bar from about three-yards, Duff was brought down by the footballing impostor at the heart of their defence. Well, maybe he was brought down – tough one to call, but it would have meant a certain red card and possible penalty and we seemed to be creating chances. Come the second half, we yet again switched off completely, created next to nowt bar a Duff chance that should have been buried and were comfortably contained, in truth slightly hanging on for the last twenty minutes. OK, job on reporting the facts done, here we go with the rant.

The team selection was a scandal. Here we are playing comfortably the worst team seen at SJP in many a month and Roeder is ‘accomodating’ Nicky Butt. Man of the Match Nicky Butt at that. Are the guest sponsors actually forced to ingest tabs of acid before entering the stadium? The whole world can see that a central midfield pairing of Parker and Butt adds nowt (bar speculative 30 yarders) to our attack. Time and time again we’ll break, get the ball moved quickly wide and the winger is forced to hold it up while the midfield trots forward. A simpleton could work out that in order to stifle us, all that is necessary is a midfield that is prepared to track back. Simple. The biggest scandal is that Roeder then chooses to wait until the eighty fucking fifth minute to change it and then staggeringly makes a straight swap, bringing Solano off for Milner. Unreal. Actually, worse than unreal. Unforgivable. Sorry Glenn, nice guy or no nice guy this is out and out incompetence.

Here’s another question for you. What exactly was the point of having Luque on the bench? If the lad is shite and cannot be played under any means whatsoever, then why is he included in the squad? Here we are, scoreless and drifting at home to the league whipping boys and absolutely crying out for something up front and there is £10m worth of striker not even warming up. The situation is beyond belief. Duff tried his best but patently isn’t a centre forward and Rossi is to be pitied. The lad ran his socks off today and showed some lovely touches, generally had a go but was crying out for some support. To think that we have had so many calls for the kid to play and then he gets isolated like this at home to bloody Charlton.

What was the plan today? Hope to snatch a goal and then push Duff back into a five-man midfield?? What is the guy thinking? OK we’ve got injuries, we understand that but you must make a fist of winning football games, especially ones as important as this. OK, we didn’t have much luck in the first half, but you shouldn’t be relying on luck to beat sides like this, surely to God.

I haven’t heard Roeder’s comments on the match as yet. So depressing was the game that the only option was to go out and get horribly, steaming drunk last night and try to forget it, so I’m looking forward (??) to reading what the guy has to say with my breakfast and eight Nurofen this morning. For me, Roeder lost it from Old Trafford onwards. That day was a disgrace. This has managed to surpass it. Again, I’ll state the point that the buck stops with Shepherd and the sooner we are shot with the chairman the better but for the last 30 minutes today, there is one man to blame. Roeder has one game in my eyes to save his arse – repeat the same mistakes again and fail to beat Sheff Utd. and it will be quite rightly P45 time. What happens from there, God only knows. I didn’t find the answer after twelve pints of Guinness last night but I’m sure you’ll all let TF know.

Simply not good enough!

Shepherd out and Keep The Faith! You can do both.

GH