Gone Cruising!

It seems to me that when the chips are down, our wee team goes missing. Yesterday’s game at Seaview was no exception, with the scores tied at one apiece, United had a glorious chance to take all three points, but Lee Patrick’s shot came off the crossbar and five minutes later the United defence went to sleep and allowed the Crues to take all three points and push United into bottom place in the group table. With Aaron Callaghan coming back into the team at right-back, it meant a reshuffle for the United back four, with Gary Haveron being pushed into central midfield alongside Lee Patrick. Scatesy moved to the wing and Friel was preferred up front alongside Kevin Kelbie. After early pressure from the Crues it was United who began to exert the pressure and they were rewarded with a goal in the 20th minute, when Kelbie set up Scatesy for his first goal of the season. United spurned a glorious chance to increase their lead when after Kelbie had split the home defence to find Friel, the wee man allowed a home defender to catch him up with Kelbie waiting for the cross that never came. Referee Steven Weatherall, allowed the ‘Hatchet men’ to get away with some ‘wild’ tackles, but what can one expect when playing a Belfast team. Then as if to compound matters he and his linesman allowed a Crusaders equaliser to stand when the veteran Raymond Campbell was clearly off-side when he dispatched a cross into the United net. This goal came ten minutes before halftime and to say it knocked the ‘stuffing’ out of the visitors, would be to put it mildly. The home team probably should’ve gone in ahead at halftime, but Albert Watson was on hand to make a goal-line clearance with keeper Paul Murphy beaten.

United leftback Boydie didn’t come out for the second-half, whether injured or not I couldn’t say, but Gary Haveron was switched to leftback, with Mark Picking coming on as sub. This also meant Scates switching to the centre midfield, to allow Picking to take up his customary wide right position. United seemed to lose their way completely after this, with the loss of Haveron in midfield they never seemed to get into the game in the second half. Picking was a total disappointment also in the second half and he looks like a typical Linfield reject, well past ‘his sell by date’ (no doubt he’ll make me eat my words in the coming weeks, I hope), and gave a very poor display. The match looked like it was petering out for a draw and this was verified when manager Wright took off Friel, with Fitzy taking his place, which intimated to me that he was more concerned about protecting the draw than going for the win. Admittedly a draw would have kept us in with an outside chance of qualification, but in my opinion winning becomes a habit and it’s a habit we need to develop and soon. With ten minutes remaining he made an even worse decision taking off Kelbie and bringing on Brown, when surely he needed all his strikers on, for a final onslaught. It would’ve been much better to have lost the game, going for a win than holding out for a point. Having said that it almost worked in his favour, when with 8 minutes remaining, Patrick crashed a shot against the crossbar. Five minutes later United were put out of their misery when after keeper Murphy could only parry a shot, home striker Davey Larmour was on hand to force the ball over the line and give the home team all three points. As if this wasn’t bad enough, United keeper Murphy and Haveron collided and Haveron was carried off, which makes him a major doubt for the start of the league campaign in two weeks time. This renders United’s remaining game at home to Limavady next week purely academic and the clubs decision to switch the fixture to Limavady first time round has backfired on them quite badly. Surely it would’ve been much better to have had that fixture at home in front of a reduced support, but giving themselves every chance to be in the knock-out stages of the C.I.S. cup, instead of  being an also-ran, once again.


P. Murphy            6          Patrick               6     MoM:       Scates

Callaghan          6          Friel               5

Boydie               6          Kelbie               6

Haveron          6          D. Murphy          6     Referee:     S. Weatherall      3

Simms               6          1st Sub: Picking     5

Alb. Watson          6          2nd Sub: Fitzy          6

Scates               6          3rd Sub: Brown     6