Temple Of Saints - Bummer

Scottish Premier League - 04/11/2000

Saints 0 Pars 2 League Table Here

Team: Main,Sylla,Blaster,Dods,Kernaghan,McCluskey,Dasovic,Kane,Connolly ,Parker, Evers
Subs: Cuthbert,McCulloch,JR,Tommy,Pope

Should have expected it really. A week building up to this with decent PR off the park and signing star players on longer deals and we're favourites. So with the added incentives of cars to be won to attract the crowd what happens? Yup the players let us down with a performance which whilst not as bad as the Fir Park debacle was bloody woeful. All credit to the Pars - they were well worth their win and if it wasn't for the woodwork and some luck it would have been as bad as 3 weeks ago.

With Cap'n Jim suspended (and God how we missed his fight today) McCluskey took over in defence in an otherwise unchanged side. But with the arrival of the colder weather it was never going to be a classic of flowing sexy football.

So it proved with the opening 20 minutes or so absolutely dire. Both sides looked poor with stray passes, panicky clearances and an almost total lack of willingness to take on players or move about the park. Kiegan was an obvious target for the Pars defenders and he's perhaps developing a bit of a reputation for going to ground too easily as the ref was giving nothing in his favour. The rest of the team were poor as well although we were enjoying a greater amount of possession and apart from the odd break forward were almost constantly in the Pars half.

Unfortunately the midfield were back to their usual defensive selves and seemed incapable of pushing forward to support the strikers. Evers and Dasovic were both very poor and although Kane tried his best he's not got the pace to attack much. On the wings it wasn't much better. "Marilyn" MoMo (classic blond style) showed his usual control but for the most part was content to fire long balls to the strikers rather than get to the byeline - the one time he did a low cross into the box was almost put in by Paddy. On the other side Bollan was just shite - hardly getting forward and looking far too slow and lazy - when Dods is turning into an overlapping winger it shows how bad it's getting.

There wasn't much action to talk about - Paddy missed his shot from Marilyn's cross. We also missed an open goal when a poor clearance from the Pars keeper landed at Evers feet - an open goal to shoot at from 20 yards out and he elects to pass to Kiegan. At the other end Moss rose unmarked to head against the bar and a couple of long range efforts were all that concerned us.

Half-time came and went and whilst Saints seemed happy to just meander along until the 90 minutes the Fifers obviously had a spare firework shoved up their collective arse. We can moan all we want about how they fouled or shoved their way into the game but they were by far the better team. More fight, more pace and most importantly a willingness to move about the park, whilst the Saints players seemed to be playing statues for most of the time. We had the odd chance early on with a MoMo 35 yard lob just over the bar - had it happened in the last couple of games it probably would have gone in.

But for far too long the team were content to let the Pars come at them and in the end it cost us. Kane picked up a booking and the ineffective Evers was taken off and replaced by Pope before it got too bad. First of all a Crawford break down the left saw him get through on Main only for Jesus to pull off a great save. A stramash from that saw a Pars shot come back off the underside of the bar before Saints cleared their lines.

It didn't last though and after one goal was correctly chalked off for offside the Fifers forced a corner in 68 minutes. A short ball saw Dair cut inside a static Saints defence and send a low curling shot past Main. St. Sandy put on JR for the tired Kiegan but with only a poor Bollan effort to show for Saints attacks it wasn't much of a surprise when we went further behind. Nicholson broke up the left and lobbed an oncoming Main from 25 yards with Bollan, Dods, Kernaghan etc. posted missing.

After that Saints had some chances but when we resort to having Kernaghan and Dods running up the wings it shows a team bereft of ideas. To their credit though Pope and Hartley both looked a bit sharper with a pope chip and a JR drive both saved. But there wasn't really and fight in the side and that's what hurts.

MoM for me was Kane. The sponsors picked Bollan - fuck knows why. Marilyn didn't do too badly either but the rest were back to square one. We *badly* missed Cap'n Jim in defence and to be honest McCluskey now looks to be behind Malcolm in the picks for central defence. Up front Kiegan and Paddy are doing their best but we badly need support - Tommy and JR deserve a run in the team and IMHO Bollan should be dropped on the left and JR put through the middle instead of Evers.

Next week is a tough match at Parkhead - another performance like today will see us back in crisis mode and all the good of the TFOD and Jambos win will be gone.

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