The Killa wiv Villa - Toon Rope a Dope
Saturday, February 10th, 2007
Special by Alan Bell
Ali did it in Zaire now the lads do it at St James’s! Did we deserve to win - of course not! We did win though and that’s three points in the bag; but any more of this and who knows where we will end up.
Things just started great, two goals in six minutes – good goals at that. However, two things in my book started the rot. First Nicky Butt went off and that seemed to slam huge holes in our defence. Second, Kieran Dyer missed sending a pass to Martins who remonstrated with him loudly. Not many people were watching this as the play had gone on but I noticed the shouting from Martins and the arms outstretched from Dyer and the banter did not seem good. I saw Dyers head go down - well down. I think our Kieran has a confidence problem, not that he should, up to that point he was the best man on the park, but that small angry outburst seemed to hit him in the gut and his head went down never to come back up.
Martins never looked a ten million pounds man, just racing about and never getting one ball in the air. I have serious reservations about this guy. But looking at all our players, they seemed to exude championship level football. All long balls even though we rarely won a ball in the air, and the passing was diabolical.. Villa mind didn’t look much better but they seemed to have team ability if not individual ability. The best build up we had in the whole game was a underarm throw from Harper out to the right where Carr placed a perfect pass to the centre and after five more passes a shot on goal (a rare Toon activity!). Why cant we use a passing game? Who makes the tactics that insist on lob forward up and under when we cant win one in the air?
The Geordie fans around me were brilliant; their knowledge of football about the best in the league. They chatted and gave objective comment that was so right. None of the old ‘black and white’ eyed subjective stuff here. These guys have one of the biggest stadiums in the country; they should have one of the biggest teams! They deserve it. Now come on management – give it to them!
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