***** Not The Foxtrot Report *****

I arrived in The Fine City with the Ms. but without, it must be said, a great deal of expectation. However, given the state of the footballing nation, I expected to see a few of the youngsters given a chance to learn their trade. Silly me.

Sadly, as the team was read out, it became apparent that the Honourable Member for Dullsville had dithered over his selection before reverting, as usual, to the same old minsiters. Particularly disappointing was his chosen back benchers, with the likes of Lord Simeon Cuthbert Greville-Thynne of Charlton, aged 93 and due to retire next week, given the possibility of a final chance to address the House before shuffling off to spend more time on his hobbies of reading, Meerscham pipe-collecting, and cruelty to small animals.

But enough of the piss-taking. Still, how disappointing to see Charlton on the bench ahead of the youngsters? If Worthy wanted to give him a chance to say goodbye, that's what the post-match walkabout is for. Equally disappointing was the sight of Hughes on the right, and quite possibly the smallest forward partnership in living memory. On or the other, Nigel, not both.

The Doc picked up the BB Trophy - I still don't think he's a particularly good player, but I suppose he's not been that much worse than anyone else - and Roger Munby got the short straw and addressed the crowd. Given current position of the board and recent events, I thought he said all the right things, so fair play to him.

On to the game, and to start with we didn't look too bad. Wolves were packed as usual with people who are individually good players, but Goddle had managed to make the team as a whole curiously souless - quite an achievement for such a spiritually-minded manager. Robinson and Etuhu were busy in the middle, and the ball was being retained and passed pretty well without a whole lot of penetration. Doc and Flem were a bit far apart and tended to drift away from each other - Doc in particular was guilty of ball-watching as his player snuck away on several occasions, while Flem always seemed to be in the right place.

Jurgen Colin, returning on the right, is an interesting study; there were plenty of times where a player with confidence and his pace should have been striding forward and charging into empty space, taking the ball in his stride. However, thanks to his early-season problems and Hughes in front of him, he was far too diffident and by the time he'd dithered the space was being quickly closed. Hughes and his headless chicken routine managed to confuse the f**k out of Jurgen and the rest of the backline by repeatedly injecting himself into the back 4 for no apparent reason, then buggering off when he might have been useful. To his credit, he didn't really do too much harm on the ball, but didn't contribute massively to the cause overall.

Paul McSmall and Robert Earnshaw...what genius came up with that one? The Wolves centrebacks went through McVeigh like a dodgy curry all day, and Earnshaw's main contribution seemed to be getting a minimal touch, falling over theatrically, and waving his arms about. When we got it on the floor, McVeigh managed to produce a few beautiful touches to set up a half-chance, but by and large he was reduced to trying to win headers. Somewhat disappointing was the refusal of either to hit the outside channels - there were repeated opportunities throughout the game for one of them to go across the backline and hit the corners (Both have the pace to do so) and cause all sorts of trouble, but they simply refused to leave the middle of the park. Either way, we were absolutely screaming for someone who can win headers and hold the ball up.

Mostly the movement off the ball was alright generally but tended to stop after the first few passes, and there were a few slightly showboaty backheels etc. but there's nothing wrong with one-touch footy and most of them went to a yellow shirt. Hughes was disappointing; again, when given the opportunity to hit the channels and receive a pass, he'd check and crab backwards and sideways, closing down the player on the ball without actually presenting him any opportunity to pass the ball to him.

We were looking reasonably comfortable without ever really looking overly likely to score, while Wolves didn't produce much of note apart from Colin Cameron (Cunt) kicking everything that moved. Seconds before halftime, the mind drifted to the contents of the programme and a halftime pie and we were behind. No idea what happened, I only looked up in time to see the ball rolled under Gallacher, but someone said McVeigh had given it away. Typical - within sight of closing a decent-ish half and we conceed.

As for the halftime report on the programme, I did have a good laugh at Worthy kissing Mr Waghorn's arse. I expect Waghorn's new venture will be doing quite a bit of business with Mr Worthington next season.

Having scored, Wolves were content to slow the game right down and eat up as much of the clock as possible. This wasn't helped by our central midfield running out of legs - Robinson and Our Desmond (Who had a vastly-improved game otherwise - put himself about, got stuck into the challenges, and made a real menace of himself going forward) stopped doing the hard yards back to help the defence out. While Flem was tackling anything that moved and winning the headers, and Doc was trying to do the same, the midifeld two were jogging slowly back, so that any clearance (Particularly the headers) was picked up instantly by the Wolves midfield without any pressure from a yellow shirt whatsoever.

With our defence looking rather porous, it seemed inevitable that Wolves would get a second and they duly obliged after an absolute shocker from Carl Robinson. Under very little pressure, he sold Doherty ridiculously short on a very simply backpass, allowing the Wolves player to nip in and get past the Doc, who stuck out a leg but turned like the Titanic, and rifle the ball into the far corner. What a f**king dreadful way to concede a goal.

Contrastingly, we were starting to look much more of a threat up front. The departure of Mr Popular meant that Paul McSmall could wave his wand from the wings, while Earnshaw suddenly had a partner who could win headers agains the Wolves back 4. Leon had a bit of a quiet start, but was really getting it together when we conceded. One of the best things about Leon is his absolute fearlessness. Just after conceeding, he flung himself in where angels would fear to tread and got a touch on a long punt upfield. Earnie raced forward but was always 3rd favourite, however a calamitous cock-up between the goalkeeper Murray and the covering defender let Earnie roll the ball into an empty net. Woo-hoo!

City were really starting to pile on the pressure, and more excellent work by Leon and Earnie should have given us an equalliser, however after a scramble in the box, Earnie's shot was pushed onto the inside of the post and bounced very kindly for the keeper. That seemed to take the heart out of the players, and although there was the ever-amusing sight of Colin Cameron (Cunt) getting his marching orders for his umpteenth cynical foul of the game, we didn't really look like scoring. Incidentally, Cameron (Cunt) should have gone a few minutes earlier for a deliberate trip on McVeigh in full view of the referee when a really good chance was brewing.

There was still time for a genuinely concerning moment, as Leon flung himself onto a through-ball and got absolutely smashed by the covering defender and goalkeeper. He went down like a bag a s**t in full view of the referee and it was instantly obvious that he had a very serious head injury, but the ref allowed play to continue for almost half a minute before stopping play. I don't want to be a drama queen, but Leon was out before he hit the floor, and had he swallowed his tongue, every second counts. Luckily, I think our man beat the count but he must have been hurting pretty badly after that one.

So, all in all, a 1-2 loss. Seen worse, seen better. Barring the slightly odd selections, a half-witted substiution (IAN FUCKING HENDERSON AT RIGHT WINGBACK??!?!?!?), and the no-show by the central midfielders in large parts of the second half, I suppose we were alright, but forget about promotion next season without a major change in personnel and tactics.

In summary:

Gallacher: 7 - not much to do, frequently went short to Colin, which was nice to see.

Colin: 6 - Good player low on confidence, confused to f**k by Hughes. As were we all.
The Doc: 6 - caught ball-watching a bit too often for my liking
One F: 6.5/7 - Won everything at the back
Drury: 6.5 - didn't stand out, but didn't do anything wrong

Hooves: 6 - not actively detrimental to his own side, but just not very good, either.
Transparent Taff: 5.5 - Would have been 6.5 if not for the f**king horrendous mistake for the 2nd goal
Our Desmond: 7.5 - Actually looked like he gave a s**t. Worked hard, steamed into challenges, some good passing and general skills. Keep it up big man!
Hucks: 7 - Typical Hucks, drifted in and out of the game. What a shame he has such a poor first touch - there were so many occasions where he should have strode onto the ball and been away, but instead he kept slowing while it bounced off his knees, shins, etc. and was almost at a standstill by the time he'd sorted himself out, allowing the defenders to cover. Got a good kicking from Rosa and Cameron (Cunt), and collected a very stupid yellow card.

Paul McSmall: 6.5 - Flat-out bullied by the Wolves defence, but still produced some great bits of skill whan allowed a bit of space.
Earnie: 6.5 - good goal, but too much falling over and whining at the referee. Really, REALLY needs a decent partner who can win headers. Seemed to have a much better understanding with Leon.

Subs:

Leon: 6.5/7 - changed the game when he came on, did well for his first game back.
Henderson: 6 - Why in shuddering f**k was he at right wingback? Didn't do much wrong, not that that stopped some "supporters" from giving him grief; e.g. given a hospital ball with two players up his backside and his back to goal, he kept the ball and played a good pass, greeted with "GET A FUCKING CROSS IN HENDERSON YOU FUCKING USELESS CUNT!" by the halfwit behind me. Didn't teach us anything we didn't know, except that right wingback isn't his bag either. Quelle surprise.

So, where does that leave us? Buying yet more TWENTY-SEVEN YEAR OLD UTILITY PLAYERS and midgets recently raised from the lower leagues, it seems. Ho hum.

Posted By: Iwan Husarmi, May 1, 17:53:24