Match Report

As an opening ceremony for the 2006/07 season, this was no classic. But on a day when the talk was of the desperate need for new blood in the attacking line, it was a local lad who helped us of into the August rain happy with the 3 points.

He’s much maligned, is wor Shola, but going from his display against Wigan it would be hard to pick holes in the performance – Made one, scored one - Not a bad day at the office eh? At times he was woefully isolated, thanks to a 4-5-1 formation to kick off, and the key moment was the injury to Butt which brought about the introduction of the wizardry that is Charles N’Zogbia (he was genuinely made up with his tf young player of the year award for last season, by the way). The formation changed, Duff was pushed up top, and that allowed Ameobi to stop running about (which is seems not to like doing very much) and start to hold the ball up and give the play some focus. Roeder made the right decisions at the right time, and ultimately won us the game. That was my take on it all anyway, and I’m sure you’ll pick the holes out of it whilst you’re reading this.

Saying all that though, and as happy as we all are with the 3 points, there’s a lot of work to do. Obviously there are players to bring in - As well as (at least) 1 striker, I reckon we need a left back and another centre half. Word today points at a striker and defensive midfielder being drafted in very soon indeed, which is canny, but that shouldn’t see Roeder and Shepherd stop and be happy with their lot. If we are to finish higher than we did last season (as has been Roeder’s mantra lately) then the 14 player who took to the field against Wigan, I’m sorry to say, will see us fall short. We need more numbers to the ranks.

Fitness was a glaring issue yesterday too. I thought Carr, Emre, Babayaro, Taylor, Solano all look short of fitness, mind I though Carr was defensively sound, which is a welcome change. We ground it out at the end though, and worked hard until the end, notably Parker and Duff running their arses off to the death – Would a Souness team have buckled under that pressure? Hmm...

To be honest, I cant’ work out whether we played well or not. We won aye, but was it deserved? Deserving a win means fuck all anyway, it’s about scoring more goals that the opposition. No matter what way you look at it, the conditions (near monsoon like at times) were never going to make it possible for a fine display of football, but all that matters is the 3 points. Hopefully by the next time we kick a ball in anger, there’ll be some new faces in the team to help us kick on.

SR