SUNDAY PEST
By
Mickey Blue Eyes
Well, it doesn't get much more painful than defeat to a wretched Aston Villa - too many of them look like they've just been released from Wormwood Scrubs - on their own midden. It was a game we should have won by several streets and a motorway. We played excellent footy, had huge superiority in possession and territory, got something like twenty corners and had overwhelmingly more and better scoring chances than this week's Brummy bashers. Still we lost. It was mortifying. Unlike the loss at Blackburn, it was utterly undeserved. Moreover, all three goals we have conceded thus far have been due to our own errors. It makes you want to go find Lady Luck and release a mouse under her skirt.
I don't know why, but I had a suspicion something like this would happen after Huddersfield were destroyed 5-1 in the midweek League Cup match. No exaggeration, that could easily have finished 9 or 10-1. But Huddersfield weren't as defensive as I figured the Brummy bashers would be, and sure enough that's how it turned out. However, at least we were spared the spectacle of seeing our players kicked from one end of the park to the other a la Wolves. Instead what we got was a Villa outfit that simply retreated into a trench after they scored in the ninth minute following a Marouane Fellaini hash of a clearance. We were also spared the spectacle of that horrible humpty-backed sour-faced runt Ashley Young kicking all and sundry in his continuing twin mime of El Hadj Diouf and Robbie Savage - I really can't stand the sour-faced gimp and hope he follows the same route to oblivion traced by Savage and his ilk.
You may not believe this but I overheard one knob head in the half time bogs complaining, wait for it, that David Moyes is too defensive. Then again, the same yoyo also launched into an attack on the club because Goodison Park isn't on the list of grounds proposed for a successful World Cup bid. He must have been on the funny sherbet too because his reasoning was based on the Old Lady's selection for World Cup 1966 - go figure, but get in touch with the thick, out-of-date bastard himself and don't bother my email inbox. Of course if the Villa game "proved" anything it is that we play "too much" intricate attacking footy. Then again, it's a safe bet the same soft lad was one of those who once said we didn't play "enough football." Whereas anybody who has the slightest grasp of the game's realities can see what we lack at the moment is a top class scorer in full form and a wide right mid. If we had that, we would be soaring. But we haven't, so that's that until Lady Luck stops taking the piss. Everybody else is fine or good in varying degrees, give or take the odd aberration during play.
Certainly nobody can complain about the current pass-and-move style which ran rings around Villa, though it's a safe bet the bogs knob head didn't say Villa were "too defensive." At times we almost slalomed through them and had them chasing shadows for long stretches of the match. Sadly, final scoring efforts found their 'keeper in excellent form, or Lady Luck hitched her bustle skirt in the way. Louis Saha did well off the bench in the second half but age will now limit his appearances, so he is likely to be used this way from here on in, unless form and injuries to others dictate circumstances. Jermaine Beckford still looks a bit lost, maybe because he's trying too hard, maybe because the final step is too difficult. In midfield, Marouane Fellaini plainly needs a few more games to get into full stride while Jack Rodwell, wonderful player, has not yet settled into his best position, whatever it may be. Ever so gradually it's beginning to look as though Bily's best location might be alongside Mikky in centre midfield though he'll have to deal with a more crowded and physical condition. The only drawback in defence is occasional uncertainty at centre back. In other words we are far from perfect and there's loads of room for improvement, but there's no cause for anything other than huge irritation at the way the dice are falling at present.
But the sooner we get that first win the better. Otherwise every half time trip to the bogs is likely to mean an encounter with a thicko or two.
