northsomersetblade
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Oct 21, 2015
- Messages
- 4,322
- Reaction score
- 5,557
Welcome back.
Strap yourselves in, it's gonna be one of those seasons. On pre season performances, pretty shit signings an acquisitions, the weeping sore of injuries and tonight's stupid team selection, I'd say it's business as usual. MGW kicked the last ball for us last season and fucked off and evidently took with him Sheffield United's last hope of putting some sort of performance together. And no, I don't conceded 'Watford were PL last season'. Most of our players have played in the PL. But then again, many of them have been at the club longer, and are hanging round like the smell a mucky fanny gives off. Not one that's recently been in action the night before. No. One that has been hanging round in the same set of pants for weeks and belongs to the insane and aged. That's what Stevens, Norwood, Fleck and some others are. Add to that those still here and quietly released we have spunked copious cocksfull of cash on ... you know who I mean ... 'Wilder's Great Gambles' and we have what we have out there tonight.
I had a riposte at Nick Sheff Utd Way's team lineup earlier today on twitter:
View attachment 140870
Nick, in his genial manner came back to ask what I think the lineup should be, but I couldn't answer as really, we haven't signed anyone I feel can improve that, but the key point was the centre mid pairing of pointy and Jimmy. Then:
View attachment 140871
Now, if you are @pingpoongpeterg, have the fucking grace to substantiate your stupidity and square your statements with tonight's fucking abject outing. Let's not forget also that signing an unknown banned player and the fucking appalling fitness and conditioning which blighted our club into the end of last season and still plagues it two and a half months later is another thing which needs addressing. Maybe for later.
But the lineup was basically asking for a pretty iffy Watford, stripped largely of any last-season capability in real terms must have been rubbing their fucking hands when they saw us beaten by Sunday League sides, an impressive injury list and a lineup which spelled 'WILDERBALL' in big, polished, neon letters. Indeed, the kickoff was played back to one of those 'better centre mids' who typically humped it long to the wing where three players were waiting for Baldock. Five hollywood passes later and we still hadn't created anything. Only Baldock was actually bothering getting down the right flank and Stevens on the other side looked like he couldn't be arsed. No idea why he and RND had swapped places - Stevens is more a CB than RND and with Gordon on the bench, why were we shaking the dice with two wingbacks like that anyway?
Watford didn't actually do anything special. Typically, they just waited for us to fuck things up. Jebbison and N'Daiye had to do much of the donkeywork themselves. N'Daiye spent much of his game digging his own furrow because Fleck, Norwood and Berge were just shambolic behind him. None of them carried the ball forward, none of them threatened and definitely none of them created chances, save for Jebbos cheeky chip which my dad could have saved, and he lies six foot under in Hutcliffe Wood at the moment. The first half started reasonably steadily but by the time we'd allowed them a few goes on goal (and a great stop by Wes) the die had been set. Both our '2 better centre mids' showed little if anything but why should they? We've been hanging on a moderate performance from the pair of the useless fuckers for three seasons now, some offering shit like 'Norwood makes us tick' and other even piss-weaker excuses for the shamefully crap John Fleck, not showing less in output than the tosser that eventually was John Lunstram. Behind him, Ciaran Clark seems to be the Oliver Burke of the backline, full of inept errors and misjudgements and just easy to get past or expose. Sander Berge ... the longer the game went on the more transparent he became until all we could see was a floating United badge. Lowe came on for Stevens and we lived in desperate hope he'd improve things but within five minutes was were begging for Enda to come back.
We huffed and we puffed an up comes a corner and from a simply pathetic set play, Fleck fucks it up and Watford are on us. It was like you see a kid waving his hand in a cats face trying to be cunty and suddenly the moggy pounces, clamps his paws round the offending arm, bites a fucking chunk and gives six clawed kicks leaving the chabby rooering and bleeding profusely. Sure, the pass was offside, but who gives a fat fuck? I'll not argue much given our team was so fucking useless in snuffing out the counter ... and we have seen our players look like the fucking keystone cops too many times before, haven't we? So it was. You could have almost started the Benny Hill theme 'Yakkity Sax' from the moment it left Norwood's boot until the moment it hit Wes's net not ten seconds later.
Hecky tried to emulate Weigman's canny substitutions to 'change the game' and hauled the liability that was Clark off for Khedra, Norwood thankfully fucked off hopefully to be transfer listed and shifted out and Jebbo went for Brewster, and less touches for the poor kid. It changed things vestigially. We stopped giving the ball away but still couldn't penetrate or create. Both Berge and Khedra looked simultaneously like their internal narrative was "Fucking hell. Do I really have to play with these dickheads?' Osborn also came on, apparently.
Finally, Billy Sharp came on to at least make everyone believe the forwards were part of United's team but their goalkeeper was sat in a tin bath reading a copy of Razzle for the last fifteen minutes. Watford simply managed us out of the last extended minutes safe in the knowledge that we are just a disorganised, talent free, poorly assembled squad of League One hopefuls, easy meat for three points and clearly reliant on one player for our flattering position last season. Millwall must have watched that game and texted each other in glee about Saturday's game. Sticking my neck out here but I can see Berge gone soon and Hecky sacked by the end of October. Tell me I'm wrong.
Foderingham 7.5/10: A great stop from a header in the first half and some safe ground stops. No chance with their goal
Baldock 4/10: Usual busy but ineffective run up and down the wing. May as well have carried a flag whilst he was doing it for all he achieved
Clark 1/10: Rubbish. Exposed, poor reading and poor defending for the hour he was on. Send him back. This season's Goode
Egan 4/10: At a push, Some decent interceptions but stretched and still lost without O'Connell. Three seasons now I have been saying that.
RND 3/10: Dogshit performance in an unfamiliar position. Hopelessly exposed especially aerially
Stevens 3/10: He's done. Fucking sell him or just give him back to Pompey
Berge 5/10: If that. Made some effort but by 75 minutes his face spelled it all out that he'd joined a pup of a club going nowhere
Norwood 1/10: He gets '1' for a few blocks and interceptions but was his usual dispossessed, chasing shadows, long-ball-to nowhere level of shitness. As said, if he played against Lena Oberdorf today, she would have fucking broken him like a fucking Weetabix. Please - everyone: Stop this 'Norwood makes us tick' horseshit and 'we are a better team with him in it'. Neither of these are true and you need to stop taking the deludamol. He points a lot. He boots it long. If that is your measure of what makes a good defensive midfielder, then you clearly don't watch much football.
Fleck 0/10: There was just no redeeming aspects in his game tonight. He was simply shit from start to finish and needs to be either terminated contractually or loaned out to a club where he would make his mark, like Brunsmeer Celtic or Throstles B.
N'Daiye 5.5/10: Tried his fucking best to get some purchase and create chances. But there is a big hole in his pitch now that is Morgan Gibbs-White shaped and don't we all know it?
Jebbison 2/10: Cheeky chip. Poor kid. Absolutely nothing else to get at because the midfield are too fucking busy trying not to fuck up and then fucking up
Lowe 2/10: Dreadful return. Passing was abysmal and he was run ragged
Osborn 3/10: If that. Saw him chase, but he simply not even Championship level
Khedra 5/10: Showed 'some' promise but then again, when you are surrounded by turds, even a diamond smells of shit
Brewster 3/10: No more 'poor kid'. He's been at the club long enough with a big price tag to now know what to do. Mind you, it would help it the team found him with the ball
Sharp 2/10: Not enough time or bandwidth to make any effect
Heckingbottom 1/10: Shoulders FULL responsibility for all of this. The signings, the injuries, the pre season, the team selection and tonight utterly predictable and utterly shit performance and result. It's his bag. He needs to stop fucking playing Wilderball, have the potatoes to drop players who have been there too long and start rebuilding this team to even survive this division, once again. Tick-tock, Hecky. Get the fuck on with it.
pommpey
Harsh but lengthy and largely true. I would like to give you an extra point for the use of 'vestigially'
