They had never scored against us in 25 years and never beat us in over 35, yet today, barely three months after being shown the door, we’ve visited Roy Hodgson’s new battleground and even these records came to an end.
Granted that we lost two players in the first 25 minutes! Granted that Martin Atkinson, together with Lee Mason is the referring I dislike most in the PL! Granted and well documented that our squad is shallow! But this was a very bad showing on all accounts and we did too little too late to deserve anything out of the match.
I feel the need to mention one or two players in particular. Kuyt was a shadow of himself (not in horrendous first touches and ridiculous passing as that is part of his ever present negative side) but he was also out of puff! Kyrgiakos was clearly in difficulty against Odemwingie instantly. We took no counter-measures against this threat which lead to the Nigerian provoking two penalties. Carroll fell into Olsson trap and was provoked from minute one, with the result that he was nearly sent off and remained ineffective for most of the game. Wilson for me remains too cool and casual on the ball and very superficial in his passing. Is he playing out of position, so f..king what? Ryan Giggs played left full-back for Utd against West Ham earlier on today. They came back from 2-0 to 2-4!
Okay, bottom line is we had a bad game. It’s not the end of the world. Those are the comments I expect to receive. Reina proved his worth yet again (for those who seem to think that if leaves it will be business as usual!) and Suarez was our most effective threat especially coming from the left in the second half. We were tight at the back in the first half but when we went for the win in the second we left Kyrgiakos at the back to tend to Odemwingie and that was our downfall! Luckily for us if we really want to take a positive out of this, Wigan managed to hold Spurs to a draw.
We never seem to come well off the blocks after an international break do we? I bet Roy must be chuffed! Wouldn’t you be?????