Falling Skies!

United like a holey bucket, continued to leak goals against Glentoran at the Oval yesterday. Long gone are the days when United used to look forward to this fixture with something approaching anticipation, now in its place, is trepidation. Make no mistake, United were well beaten yesterday by  a Glens team, smarting from a defeat in midweek by Championship side Bangor and but for the heroics of United keeper Dwayne Nelson, we could have got really thumped.

Spike must have thought we played well at Chickenville, for he he made just one change from his starting line-up of Tuesday, Ally for the suspended Archie. I was worried when I saw the players selected for I thought here we go again with no obvious player on our right flank, like Tuesday, but Spike changed his formation to a 3,5,2 with Mike Ruddy making up a defensive 3 with Cookie and Kyley and Tony and Ally as the wing-backs.

Now call me old-fashioned if you like, but I think this system only works if you have two fullbacks as your wing-backs and they need to be prepared to run their hearts out. Tony worked on the right, but Ally on the left, was like a fish out of water. He didn't know what position he should be taking up  and as a result the home team got some inroads on our left flank. I'm not blaming Ally for this, I just think it was the wrong formation to use and it left us exposed at times.

The much maligned Dwayne Nelson (not by me), came to our rescue time and time again but even he could nothing when Curtis Allen outpaced our defenders, but luckily his fierce shot came back off the crossbar. United had lost the toss and were defending the Sydenham end, against the prevailing wind, which was strong and little was seen of us in attack in the early stages of the match. When eventually we did get going, Tony drove a cross in the six-yard area but a Glens defender wanted it, not our attackers and he conceded a corner, which came to nothing.

The Glens were trying to get us to come out and leave space, but it generally ended up with their keeper, Morris, hitting a long ball and our midfield not dealing with it properly. The only man that seemed to know what he was doing was Gavin and he was playing with a broken nose, subject of an injury he received last Tuesday at Solitude. We were indebted to Dwayne for making saves and the Glens forwards for missing gilt-edged chances, but it seemed only a matter of time before our defences were breached.

United won a corner but it was cleared and from this the Glens won a throw-in level with the halfway-line. A Glens forward picked up the ball, stole a good 15 yards and Tony handled the ball and got himself booked because of referee Davy's incompetence. Our Captain Alan Jenks remonstrated with the ref to no avail, rules is rules, as they say. A minute later Davey had to book Allen of the Glens when he handled, tit for tat as they say.

Referee Davey was called into serious action, when Henderson chopped down United's Captain, Jenks in midfield and he received a merited yellow card this time. As the half drew to a close, Allen was denied by a marvellous save from Dwayne, turning his fierce shot round the post for a corner. As the ref blew his whistle for halftime I was thinking positive thoughts, surely Spike would see the error of his ways and revert to a flat back four and get some his five midfielders on the bench on for Owen Kane, who was one of our many weak links.

2nd half
We took the field with the same personnel and the same formation and the Glens started where they had laid off in the first half, by taking the game to us. Dwayne was called into to action,. in the first min, saving a downward header from Allen. Two mins into the half, Spike made a sub, taking off Gavin and bring on Cush and we reverted to a flat back four. Whether this was tactical or whether it was a result of Gavin aforementioned injury, I don't honestly know, but it left us bereft of our one tackler in midfield.

Despite our having the wind in our favour, it was the home team who continued to attack and Dwayne saved again from Jordan Stewart's cross shot. At the other end, Cush set Ally on his way and when Morris came out, Ally decided to bend the ball round him, rather than trying to beat him. But there was no pace on the ball and a Glens defender was on hand to clear the danger and we had missed a great chance to 'set the cat among the pigeons' for it was against the run of play.

We were to pay heavily for this benevolence in front of goal, when Tony messed up, not seeing a hopeful ball cleared for a throw-in and allowed Stewart to dispossess him near the goal-line and when the ball eventually came across, O'Halloran was on hand to steer the ball past Dwayne to give the Glens the lead,1-0. Surely I thought to myself, Spike has to see we're getting over-run in midfield and get Sparky on, our only player on the subs bench who has any idea about tackling, but he dithered.

The Glens increased the lead on 70 mins and it was that man Allen, the best player on the field, who got his just rewards, when he was on hand to poke the ball past Nelson, despite the attentions of Tony. Fergie then acted but I thought he's taking 'the piss', bringing on Alan D for Owen Kane, but he did it. This was the last straw as far I was concerned, he had lost the plot and the Glens were riding roughshod over us and it was a damage limitation time.

Our tackling ability was reduced even further as Fergie took off Tony and brought on Gawley and we reverted to 3,5,2 but it was really 3,4,3. The Glens saw their opportunity now and attacked us at will and we were indebted to their poor finishing as much as our beleaguered defence for their failure to turn their superiority into more goals. Kyley picked up a booking in this spell of Glentoran pressure as we were under the cosh

It was no surprise when Stewart increased the Glens lead with less than three mins remaining and as if to add to insult to injury, he got another in the two mins of added time. We had been comprehensively beaten, our tactics were all wrong and we had not had the foresight to change them when things were going bad, yet another abject performance, to add to the pile, of abject performances!

Dwayne (8), Tony (5) (Sub: Gawley 5,), Ruddy (6),  Cookie (6), Kyley (6), Owen Kane (5) (Sub: Alan D 5,), Gavin (7) (Sub: Cush 5,), Jenks (6), Ally (5), Tippers (5), Darboy (5)

Man of the match: Dwayne