Temple Of Saints - Total Crap

Scottish Premier League - 13/10/2001

Jambos 3 Saints 0 League Table Here

Team: Miller, McCluskey, Forsyth, Dasovic, Kemble, Dods, Murray, JR, Kiegan, MacDonald, Paddy
Subs Cuthbert, McClune, Pope, Wacko, Free Wullie

Christ where do I even begin. Whatever happened to the traditional honeymoon period for a new manager where the players tried to impress and the side puts a few decent results together. Going by the utter shambles on the park today all I can say is that we've not progressed one iota since the debacle at Easter Rd that ended Sandy's reign. We've tried changing the manager - now is the time for Stark to be counted and ring the wholesale changes amongst the players. There are far too many passengers in the current Saints side.

There were a couple of changes today - Windy Miller came in in goals with Cuthbert dropping to the bench whilst Benito "I can play well against Larsson but don't expect me to play like that every week" Kemble replaced the suspended Weir in defence. Suffice to say that neither impressed greatly with Miller prone to dropping everything and Kemble...well more on that later.

The game was dire from the off but at least the Jambos were trying to attack and put us under some pressure. Saints though were more than content to just punt the ball up the park in the vague hope that someone in a blue shirt could be bothered to chase after it - sexy football this isn't. In fact about our only effort in the first 30 minutes came from a Dasovic header after Kiegan sent in a good cross - of course it went over the bar.

There was plenty of action and farce at the other end though. New Jambo Alan Maybury continually took Flash to the cleaners as he repeatedly skinned the teenager - with only a Chopper clearance over his own goal saving us early on. Butterfingers Miller (as he'll be known from now on) didn't look Premiership material (unless of course we're talking the Crap Keeper Premiership) by continually failing to hold the ball, catch a cross or look anything like a goalie should. Mind you the defence wasn't helping - Kemble and Dods just panicked, Flash was being beaten every time and Chopper on the right was either miles out of position or being turned by the Jambos forwards - on one occasion only a Murray clearance saved the day.

The first came in 25 minutes - inevitable really as Saints failed to take one of the many chances to clear their lines, the ball was knocked back in and Banjo outjumped Dods to send a header into the net. We weren't even at the races.

The game was held up when Kirk was carried off with a broken leg after landing awkwardly and Miller dropped several balls but it took until 5 minutes before the break for the contest to be effectively ended. A run up the left wing saw a low cross into the box. It landed straight at Benny's feet. Well it would have had he not tried to take a wild swing at the ball at the same time. He missed and ended up on his arse watching as Adam got to the loose ball and slotted it home to make it 2-0. Just to round things off Chopper was taken out by his keeper and had to receive treatment for a head knock a couple of minutes later.

Not a good day and when you looked around the stand and saw Rachid, Tommy, Jones and Russell all sitting with their heads in their hands.....well it wasn't much fun.

Pope replaced Paddy at the start of the 2nd half and for a couple of minutes we enjoyed some possession with Kiegan sending a 30 yard shot just over the bar. He was putting in a lot of running but too often was left without support - or just as often saw any run ended by a cynical Pressley foul.

With 58 minutes gone the defence tried to up the entertainment stakes with a Flash passback which was too short. Adam got to it and sent the ball across goal. Luckily Benny Kemble was there to clear it. Actually no Kemble managed to make another ballsup and ended up on his backside once more whilst his team-mates sent it out for a corner. A couple of minutes later though and another Jambo break up the left saw McCluskey nowhere, the ball slipped into the box and Banjo tap in his second and the Gorgie Gits' third. To call it a slaughter at this point wouldn't be an understatement.

Butterfingers came into the game just after that, first with a tip over the bar and then with a couple of cracking blocks from Banjo to keep the score down but the last 25 minutes were just agony to watch. Wacko replaced JR we had a couple of headers and Dods sent a long range shot a mile wide. But it was nothing more than a display by a team, no not even that, by 11 players with no confidence and no clue.

I don't know what to do now - we have 3 massive games coming up but I can't even see us scoring a goal, never mind gaining a point from any of them. The entire side needs replaced - even the U-14s couldn't do any worse than the shambles wearing blue today.

Cheers Saints, another weekend ruined.

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