Carlisle 0 Saints 1
Team:
Main,McCluskey,Blaster,Dods,Kernaghan,Dasovic,Hartley,Thomas,
Connolly,Pope,Kane
Subs:
Cuthbert,Parker,Jones,Russell,Tommy,Crozier,McCulloch
I have a dream of Saints coming out onto the park and playing non-stop sexy football next week as we vanquish TFOD and head on to win the treble. It's a nice dream. And sitting in the sun today I would have been able to enjoy it if it hadn't been for the total arse behind me shouting "Snap the English fucker" (and other such delights). Because without his wonderful impersonation of an idiotic moron who takes pre-season friendlies far too seriously this afternoon would have allowed me to catch up on some sleep. Because let's face it the stuff on the park wasn't going to keep me awake.
Yup after a sexy win last week and a so-so draw on Wednesday today was the day for the crappier members of the squad to try and get a place in the new St. Sandy Sexy Eleven. Well for our striking pair of Messrs. Connolly and Thomas it's probably just kinder to say they lack match practice (well it saves me from saying that they are shit anyway). Same goes for the other non-triers today with Kane and Bollan looking jaded already. In fact if it hadn't been for Hartley and Pope trying to play some football there would have been a bloody good case for a refund - Christ even the Sheep slaughtered this mob last week.
There's little match action to report (it was that bad), with Saints first shot coming from a Pope long-range effort from a JR cross which went wide. And that was after 15 minutes. He had a similar effort later with a Paddy header sandwiched in between. And that was it for the first half for Saints. We never looked in any trouble as Carlisle showed all the signs of a team of trialists who had only met that morning.
Defensively we were OK with Stuart "Factor 50 on the neck" McCluskey linking well with JR and Dods and Cartman looking solid in the middle. In fact Carlisle's first shot on goal after 44 minutes only came about thanks to the Messiah and Kane managing to give away possession in midfield.
So with the half-time interval passed (and plenty of anti-English songs sung by the large travelling support), Saints took the field with the Messiah replaced by Jones which meant Lazarus moving to the left wing. Not that it made much difference with little action before the hour mark. And even then it was only "Jack" Russell replacing Kane.
Still five minutes later we got to see more of the friendly rules when Jones broke thru on goal. His chip over the keepers head saw the unfortunate goalie handle the ball well outside the box. Cue for the ref to send him off and allow a sub keeper to take his place. Obviously not the usual event but it was only a friendly and the rules are usually what's agreed on by the managers. That last part is for the benefit of the morons who decided to slag the ref off for the rest of the game.
The rest of the game followed the same pattern of Saints dominating the play without making any clear cut chances. St. Sandy put on Parker for JR and he made some headway on the right, and McCulloch replace Bollan. With quarter of an hour to go Saints were denied a penalty when a Carlisle defender handled a McCluskey shot in the box. With Pope replaced by Brendan Crozier Saints pushed for a goal. Russell came close with a looping header. Then in the last minute the same player's free kick on the right saw Jones / Dods challenge a Carlisle defender who bundled the ball over the line and give us something to smile about.
MoM for me was Hartley - he's looking sharper each game. Apart from that we badly need to liven up the midfield. Kane is just a passenger just now. And as for Lazarus and the Messiah - time to get the finger out.
On the bright side - 3 games unbeaten.