Clueless United!

After three hard fought draws on the road, I suppose United had to come down to earth with a bump, but why had it to be tonight of all nights. This is the one game United fans expect their players to give their all in, but it's not happening, in fact they seem to reserve their most insipid performances for when they have a decent home crowd. The Coleraine scum took all three points, courtesy of a Kyle McVeigh penalty, after Leon Knight had his legs whipped from under him in the box. The foul was attributed to Lee Colligan, one of Saturday's heroes, but tonight one of many zeroes. Few of tonight's team wrapped themselves in glory and manager Roy Walker must shoulder the blame for the weird formation he settled upon.

The United manager made one change to his starting line-up of last Saturday, with on-loan striker Aaron Boyd starting in place of the suspended Sparky. This necessitated Andy dropping into centre-midfield and team Captain Gazza (a no nonsense centre-midfielder, being on the bench), where the logic is to this I'm sure I don't know. The story of the first half was mainly about an inept linesman who only flagged once for an offside when there were about 10 incidents and three 'sitters' missed, two for United and one for the scum. Cutch was heavily involved in both chances for the home team.

Firstly he burst through on goal and then shot tamely at Davey 'fat' O'Hare, a great chance missed. Then in almost a carbon copy, after taking the ball round the stranded fat man, he elected to pass where Eamon Murray fluffed his shot with the goal at his mercy. At the other end scum forward Mukendi messed up after slipping past his marker but with only the keeper to beat couldn't find the target. The visitors had already missed another chance when United keeper Brown failed to cut out a cross but luckily for him nobody could make him pay dearly for his indiscretion.

Young striker Aaron Boyd was getting no change out of the scum defence, while the midfield of Andy, Caff, Eamon and Ryan Berry were not at the races. It was obvious to everyone in the ground that changes would have to be made at halftime if United were to turn this game on it's head. Too many players were performing way below the standard required and where oh where was the passion, this was after all allegedly our biggest game of the season. Something was missing from the equation, there was no 'heart' in the team, that never say die attitude and it was desperately needed.

2nd half
Unfortunately our manager seemed to be trying to prove a point as he continued with the same players, but at least he tried to 'spice' things up when he changed to a 4,3,3 formation, but to no avail. Bad enough as this was our defenders then became extremely benevolent, passing back to keeper Brown, when it wasn't entirely necessary and when he 'messed' up, they still continued to involve him. Chief culprit here was Caff, whose first move seems to be back and invariably involves the keeper. I'm a firm believer in the old adage, the best means of defence is attack, while you're pussyfooting around in your own half you're asking for trouble and it invariably finds you.

With 20 minutes remaining Roy finally acted taking off Aaron Boyd and Berry and bringing on Matthew Boyd and Paul McAreavey. By then I think it was too late but United did manage to create one piece of magic. Albert (who collected a commemorative cup before the game for reaching the 300 game mark in a United shirt), came bounding forward, played a one two with McAreavey before releasing Murray down the right. Eamon cut into the box and drove a cross into the box, but neither Cutch or Matthew Boyd were willing to throw themselves at the ball and the chance was lost.

Almost immediately the game was taken away from United when Knight was upended in the box by Lee and Kyle McVeigh gave the scum a somewhat undeserved 1-0 lead from the penalty spot. You could almost see the United heads drop, surely now was the time for a final sub, bringing on Gazza or Denver, pushing them up to try and get something, but Roy like his biblical nemesis Nero, fiddled and took no action. United have just managed to hang onto 5th place but it's a lot tighter at the top now than it needed to be. With 8 games left it looks like it could go to the last game before it's decided, I hope my heart can stand the strain!

Brown (6), Mikey (6), Lee (5), Albert (7), Archie (6), Berry (5)(Sub: McAreavey (5), Andy (5), Caff (5), Murray (5), Cutch (5), Aaron Boyd (5)(Sub: M. Boyd 5,)

Man of the match: Albert Watson