I fear for our future.. let there be a light shining soon to guide us through this tunnel..
Match Report: http://www.lscm.com.my/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=47&Itemid=41
Match Pics: http://www.lscm.com.my/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=43&Itemid=83
Regards,
Boo
For all its worth, this drawn game may well prove to be a valley that we have glaringly plunged into after the state of affairs pertaining to our financial situation.
If Agger’s last-gasp header had gone in.. all will be well and faults will still be glossed over..
BUT no more !! As the cliche goes.. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH !!!
No more lame excuses like players coming back late from the World Cup (it’s already past 2 and a half months from the Final in mid-July)..
No more deflecting to tiredness from our mid-week game (the first eleven were not even involved)..
No more finger-pointing at the referee (though it is not helped to have a ref younger than the players with insufficient steel in his application)..
No my dear REDS.. this was a very poor performance on the whole by our Red Men.. and we are just spared from the deadly thrusts of the journalists, partly due to Chelsea’s, Arsenal’s and Spur’s collective demise.. (and please don’t make that as an excuse that our Premier League is “tough”)
We had possibly our best 11 on the field: Reina in goal, back four of Johnson, Skrtel, Carragher & Konchesky, central midfield of Poulsen & Gerrard, Kuyt playing behind Torres with Cole on the left and Meireles on the right !!!!
Yes !! You read that correct my friends !! True the players were interchanging positions running around.. but surely Kuyt plays well on the wings and Joe Cole should have been the one in the hole behind the striker.
Maybe it was Roy sticking to his word that “None of the players who are playing on Saturday played on Wednesday night”.
This effectively shoved Jovanovic to the bench which “forced” Cole to the leftwing spot. Yet we still had the option of Gerrard in the centre behind Torres with Kuyt at the right. Instead Gerrard was positioned deep at the back, blunting his forward forays which were sorely missed in the first half and even the better part of the second half. Poor Meireles is now an instant right-winger doing what he is not best at.
Then the fractionally offside Torres goal.. and the blundered “freekick” by Turner which was adjudged as “played” by the ref Stuart Attwell. So an assist by Torres who waited on the ref’s decision and Kuyt plants the shot in. Surely such an early “gift” would have spurred us to greater heights.
Sadly, our play was so fragmented that Sunderland were able to impose themselves back into the game. And from their attacks, Poulsen unintentionally deflected the ball away with his hand. Penalty awarded and duly converted by Darren Bent.
At the start of the second half, we were handed a blow when Bent scored again with a sweet diving header after a sweeping move at their right-wing.
So it’s back to square one.. and worse, a goal down.. It had been a case of square pegs in round holes. But with the entry of Ngog in place of Poulsen, Meireles shifted back into the middle with Kuyt still behind the striker. Interestingly, Torres shifted to the right and it was to prove decisive eventually when a sweeping counter-attack left El Nino to ghost past the defender, advanced menacingly and crossed to the middle for Gerrard to improvise a header giving the keeper no chance.
2-2 and you would expect a winning goal from the home side now at the ascendancy. There was even time for a clash of heads between Carra & Skrtel as they desperately tried to clear their lines. That left Skrtel in an imposing red head-bandage while Carra had to endure the pain of some intant stiches to stem some bleeding.
We did stem the Sunderland attacks thereafter as Reina was rarely threatened. The Sunderland midfield still had their moments but they were also adept at defending in numbers.
We had our fair share of good chances to win the game in the closing minutes but they were sadly not converted. The ending point-blank header summarized the state of affairs, Agger’s glaring miss just emphasized the woeful state we are in financially and sadly transmitted into our performance on the pitch.
There was an organized sit-in protest at the end of the game… and it surely points to the one-and-only way to lift us up from this valley that we are struggling to climb out from…