Slow Learners!

There's an old saying that says you 'learn by your mistakes', unfortunately for United they didn't 'learn' last night and it cost them dearly. Glentoran had put us under pressure throughout the game forcing at least a dozen corners, which we had dealt with okay, there was a couple of close shaves but generally we had defended them well. One hour into the game the Belfast side won another corner and this time it was delivered to the far post where, Sparky of all people was found wanting giving Glens player Leeman a free header and we were lucky to merely concede another corner. Sparky acknowledged his mistake, but was beaten once more at the far post and when the ball was partially cleared, Glens midfielder Clark rifled the ball into the net. That was the end of the game really as United were almost completely devoid of ideas on how to break the Glens down.

As intimated on Sky Blue Sport, Archie was unfit and Denver replaced him, while Sparky replaced Aaron Boyd, who dropped to the bench. Captain Gazza came in for Berry partnering Caff in centre midfield, while Andy Smith played on the left wing where he had a better game, but still not anywhere near his best. United, as is there wont took a while to get going and it was the visitors who looked the most likely to score early on. The United defence weren't helped by keeper Brown's reluctance to leave his line and as a result a few attacks resulted in corners which could and should have been tidied by the keeper. In one attack the ball actually flashed past the keeper when it looked easier to intercept it. Then during another onslaught he punched the ball when he surely could've caught it.

We somehow got through this period and began to subject the visitors to a bit of pressure ourselves. Referee Burns, who earlier had failed to at least caution Glens forward Fordyce for a deliberate elbow on Denver, denied United a penalty when Cutch was fouled in the box, somehow he gave a free kick to the visitors. Cutch then forced a good save from Morris and from the follow-up, Caff's shot just skimmed the crossbar. Eamon Murray was again not at his best, but he did feed Sparky on the right but his effort was blocked for a corner. After seemingly having an abundance of left-footed players, we now have no-one capable of taking an in-swinging corner from the right and in fact Mikey, our fullback, takes all corners. This situation needs to be rectified as we have no variety in our corners and they're all too predictable. Also with Glens keeper Morris unable to take goal-kicks surely we should have been pushing up and pressuring them. Halftime was reached with the match scoreless and it was hard to see how we were going to change that.

2nd half
Ten minutes into the 2nd period Walker took off Andy and brought on Aaron Boyd, which meant Murray switching to the left. This actually had a negative effect rather than the positive one and we were unable to exert any pressure on Glens keeper Morris, who by this time was clearly in extreme pain and should've been at our mercy. Surely the better option would have been to switch Sparky to rightback, move Mikey up to right-midfield and push Andy into an attacking role. If that didn't work there was still an option to change things round,but now it was too late, although Sparky could still have switched.

Maybe though in hindsight that would have been a bad idea as Sparky, who up to then had been one of our better players, messed up badly in the 63rd minute, which lead to the Glens taking the lead. Manager Walker's response to this setback was to first almost immediately, take off Captain Gazza with Young replacing him and then bring on Gavin 'westy' Taggart with 10 minutes remaining. These two substitution were basically 'like for like', and were surly just done to do something. What we needed was someone with the ability to get behind the Glens defence as our attempts to bulldoze our way through were ineffective.

United did create one good chance when Murray burst into the box, dribbled past a defender and his fierce shot was parried by Morris, but no United player could get on the end of it. The visitors missed a few chances to make the game safe and a Waterworth shot clipped the crossbar with Brown stranded. But the Glens weren't to be denied and they duly wrapped up the points a minute from time with a second goal. For the second game running the United fans who outnumbered their opposing fans again by at least 5-1,saw their side cave-in, this is just not good enough and something needs to be done sooner, rather than later.

Brown (5), Mikey (6), Colligan (5), Albert (5), Denver (6), Murray (5), Caff (6)(Sub: Taggart 6,), Gazza (6)(Sub: Young 6,), Andy (6),Sub: Boyd (5), Sparky (6), Cutch (5)

Man of the match: Caff