Bleary-Eyed Statto

Thursday, March 13, 2008

The messageboard's The Other Bob Wilson served up an extended post today entitled "Ten Points About Last Night's Match." I find postings with titles like that nearly irresistable, so I reproduce here what The Other Bob had to say:

1. Surprised that it appears that only Eric made mention of the piss poor Probert. I groaned inwardly when I read that he was in charge because I remembered how awful he had been in one of our earlier home matches (Watford) this season. In the first half he gave a refereeing by numbers performance as he yellow carded anything that moved and yet in the second half he let the worst tackle of the night (on Ledley by, I think, Fagan) go with just the award of a free kick. The contrast between Probert’s first and second half performances had me thinking the assessor may have had a word with him at half time, but, if he did, it didn’t work because the ref’s display went from one poor extreme to another!

2. The game turned out to be very similar to a 1-0 win over Norwich played almost a year ago to the day as we scored very early, played well for about another twenty minutes and then spent the rest of the game on the back foot. The difference between the two matches was that against Norwich we had to rely on some great saves by Neil Alexander to preserve our lead but Hull never really threatened too much. The visitors were very hard working, but, on last night’s evidence, have little creativity or inspiration and the fact that they still occupy a play off place has me thinking again that all we needed this season to be up there right in the automatic promotion shake up was more strength in depth.

3. We are defending very well at the moment with only two goals (one of them a farcical og) conceded in seven matches. Peter Enckelman has played in all of these games so credit to him for his part in that achievement, but, truth is, he hasn’t had too much to do really. Did you know that we have not conceded a goal in the last five games Glenn Loovens has started - he and Roger Johnson are turning themselves into one of the more effective centre back pairings in the division.

4. Staying with the defence, I have to admit that, having spent most of the season criticising him, Tony Capaldi was, in my view, one of, if not the best, of our players last night. Trevor Sinclair didn’t do bad at all at right back either, but, if McNaughton is out for a while, I’m not sure I’d like to see him there every game.

5. Great to see Scimeca coming back. Forget about how good or bad he played - from all that I’ve heard and read about him, Ricky is a very decent bloke and he has had a very rough time of it in the last year.

6. I didn’t like the reception Warren Feeney got when he came on, but, the fact that he gets a place in our squad proves the point I was making earlier about it’s lack of depth.

7. Great goal by McPhail. Given how rare such things are, witnessing it was a real “I was there” moment - I feel really sorry for those who were swanning about outside the ground when it was scored!

8. Are we ever going to score at the Grange End again - mind you, I shouldn’t complain too much, at least we had a couple of shots to watch last night!

9. Results in recent weeks suggest that we will need more than fifty points to be certain of staying up. As long as our goal difference doesn’t suffer drastically in the next few weeks, I reckon four or five more points should see us safe. Whatever, two more wins would definitely be enough and, if they can come sooner rather than later, maybe we can then start looking upwards at what I still believe to be a very improbable play off challenge.

10. In my opinion, there are way too many people on here getting themselves worked up about the “glory hunters”, “cherry pickers”, “plastic fans” etc. who were at last night’s match to the extent that it looked to me as if hardly anyone who went to the game wanted to talk about it on here later. Once the club decided that they could give offer Wembley tickets to people who could produce a ticket stub from last night’s game, it was inevitable that people who don’t get to Ninian Park very often would turn up. If the club think they are in a position to make tickets available to such people, doesn’t that signify that none of us more regular supporters should be too concerned about getting ticket(s) if we want them?

It seems to me those constantly having a go at those “part timers” and their obsession with Wembley are only proving that they are just as obsessed yourselves! There‘s more than three weeks until the Barnsley match during which we have a couple of very attractive home matches against sides at the top of the league - I hope the time up until April 6 is not going to be taken up on here forever whingeing about ticket allocations, plastics, part timers etc.

In reply, It's Only Me wrote, "Cant agree with you about Sinclair. I thought he looked out of place at full back and it was when Kevin went off that we went on the back foot and defended too deep. We need someone else at right back until Kevin is fit in my opinion." PontyBlue added, "I agree with you there. It went a bit pear shaped at the back once Kev went off. Good job Roj and Glen were on good form." JEDA had a bit different view: "I thought Sinclair did OK. He lacks pace but uses his experience to good effect and the number of shots Enkelmann had to save is credit to the entire back 4." He added, "Also Sinclair got forward and almost got that Grange End goal!!! Capaldi has improved beyond recognition in my book."

Early McPhail Goal Lifts City Past Hull 1-0