Saints 1 Dundee Utd 1 League
Table Here
Team :: Main,McQuillan,Il
Biscotti,Dasovic,Weir,McCluskey,McMahon,Attila,Kane,Georgio,Jenko
Subs :: O'Neill,Scott,Grant
Again Saints show that they havent really learnt anything. Despite ending a dismal run of 3 defeats in a row in the League, the game was really a repeat performance of the Motherwell match with a shite first half followed by a lecture from Luggy and a decent second-half performance. Having said that this was a fairly unfamiliar Saints line-up with Stuart McCluskey starting in place of the suspended Kernaghan and Dino and new signing Gerard 'Dailly haircut' McMahon starting in preference to Xausa and O'Neil.
The defence looked shaky for the early part with McCluskey and McQuillan the worst offenders. The former looked to have a major case of the jitters (and throughout the afternoon proved that he will still remain behind Weir and Danny in the pecking order for the centre-half spots) whilst McQ, making his 100th appearance for Gods Chosen Team was caught out time and time again drifting into the middle of the park leaving 'Handball' McLaren with plenty of room to move.
It was from one of these moves after 25 minutes that a cross was sent into the box for Winters to head home and give the Arabs the lead. To be honest the game had been fairly even until then with the Saints midfield looking good moving forward and McMahon feeding some good through balls up front. Dasovic and Dino looked to be in form but Kane looked far too slow to react to anything. As for the useless winger he did have Saints best shot when a mishit cross almost went in past Porno Dykstra at the near post. Apart from that though he was pretty much ineffective. For a winger he seems totally unable to start any run beyond the half-way line and doesn't seem to have the pace for the Premier League.
Second half was much more even and with the Arabs seemingly content to sit back and defend Saints had a chance to push forward. Unfortunately most of our attacks consisted of sending high balls into the box which Porno and Pressley dealt with easily although the keeper did have a couple of blunders.
Saints were making chances though and sub Roddy Grant had a good long range effor t go just wide whilst Weir and Georgio both came close on a couple of occassions. El Luggino put on Phizzy and O'Neil as well in place of the tiring McMahon and useless Kane (one player whose contract I wont be disappointed to see not being renewed this summer).
Eventually we got the breakthrough and a well deserved equaliser when Legend got on the end of a cross from the left to leave Porno helpless. There were further chances including a Jenko free-kick but the score remained the same.
As for the performance of the new players in the side Scott and McMahon both looked sharp. McMahon seems to be very adaptable and showed good close control and can tackle. Phizzy showed that we had been missing him and perhaps the rest will have done no harm to his form - he certainly looked like a player willing to fight for the jersey.
No bookings at all in a game which was pretty bad-tempered at times. That's not to say that the ref was any good. Sandy Roy seemed to be unable to come to terms with the fact that the Utd players were taking foul throws and using elbows and hands far too often. Still he wasn't helped in this by a totally incompetent linesman.
MoM for me was probably Weir - he led by example. Special mentions too to Georgio for constantly digging in and Dasovic who is looking like our best midfielder these days.
Remember to vote on todays ref Sandy Roy (Edinburgh) - send marks out of 10 to refvote@grange.demon.co.uk