Saints 0 Evil Ones 2
Team ::
Main,McQuillan,Preston,Attila,McCluskey,Griffin,Scott,Kernaghan,ONeil,Georgio,Bowman
Subs :: Tosh,Grant,Robertson
As the line-up above shows, Saints injury problems were worse than first feared with Davison joining Weir,Kane,Dasovic,Jenko,Price etc on the injury list and fears about Main meaning a place on the bench for Stephen Robertson. Still we'd all been told that Gers had major worries but as far as I can tell they had a full-strength team out (and only 2 Scotsmen in it !!!!)
As for the game it was just like the cup-tie in January at Ibrox except we made fewer chances and saved a penalty. Still there was the usual dubious offside decision in the Huns favour as they attacked in the 8th minute which led to Negri (a definite candidate for Unwashed player of the year) through to score the first. For the rest of the game Saints looked desperate and it was only towards the end of the first half that we began to put any sort of pressure on the Rangers defence.
This was mainly due to the almost total ineffectiveness of our midfield. And for this Dino has to stand up and be counted - the guy is now a major liability in the Saints team - for someone with so much desire to play on the bigger stage and earn himself a new contract, his lazy attitude and lack of team work is becoming one of our major weaknesses - the sooner Dasovic is fitter the better but IMHO Luggy should drop Dino now and even try and blood some of the kids - it couldnt be any worse. The other main problem today was the amount of room we gave the Huns - too often as they attacked Laudrup or Albertz were given far too much room to move and Saints seemed to be more intent on standing off them rather than getting the tackle in and breaking up the momentum of any attack. One of the main offenders here was McCluskey who was playing just in front of the back 4 - he gave the ball away far too often and to be frank was shown up to be far too young for the big stage. Still with the signing of Kernaghan the defence was given a major boost as he picked up several loose balls and made a few excellent tackles.
Up front the lack of a striking partner for Georgio is becoming more and more apparent - borne out by the fact that Saints best 2 chances in the first half fell to Phizzy - a header just over and an excellent overhead kick that if it had gone in would have made Negris effort against Utd look like a tapin. Credit too to Del for playing a good game and taking some of the pressure away from Georgio - if Saints had had a good fast target man playing today the score might have been totally different.
The second half started as the first with the Huns getting a goal inside a minute - Negri with a poached effort. After that Saints fought to get back into the game with Georgio and ONeill playing well and Tosh (on for McCluskey) having a few good runs. Attilla the Useless had a shite effort but there wasnt mich goalmouth action until towards the end of the game when Negri showed that Celtic dont have the monopoly on divers as he took a tumble in the box. Justice was done though when Main saved the spot kick.
As for the rest of today it wasnt as bad as some feared in the morning but we still have a lot of work to do. MoM for me was ONeill for the running about he did. The other surprise was no bookings for either side although Gattuso ran closest to one in the second half. Credit also to the guy behind me in the East stand - 15 mins to go and he pipes up with 'OK Saints now switch to the mediocre European team style'. A bit better than the wit of the Govan Gorillas (todays songsheet included the renditions of 'Proud to be a Proddy', Sash, 'Rule Brittania', 'Swing Low' and 'F**k the Pope' - charming people).
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