Temple Of Saints - Spineless

Scottish Premier League - 07/08/99

TFOE 3 Saints 0 (and that includes the backbone) League Table Here

Team : Main,McQ,Bollan,Weir,Dods,Dasovic,Kane,O'Halloran,McBride, O'Neil,Miguel
Subs : Ferguson,Lauchlan,Griffin,McCluskey,Lowndes

Well any hope that last weeks poor performance was just a minor blip is now lost. I know we were up against the media's new Dream Team and on today's performance they looked fairly unbeatable as they stroked the ball round the park and basically took the total piss out of us. But for me and the 399 other Saints in the 60,000+ crowd the worst thing is that the spirit and teamwork which earned us this weeks trip to Europe has all but gone. Saints today looked slower than ever with no structure to their play. And it's probably only through sheer luck that we didn't suffer like Aberdeen did last week and lost by 5 or 6.

Legend missed out through injury and was joined by Gerry who has a hamstring problem. Del came into the side and the Ginger Bomber and McCluskey took the spare places on the bench. TFOE fielded their footballing billions in front of the usual bunch of bigoted, sorry, "best" supporters in the land.

It looked bad from the start. Remember when St. Sandy seemed to be happy to play attacking football. Well for today it was like the return of Judas with a 4-5-1 formation heavy on the defensive side. And unfortunately as was soon proved, Eusebio is no Georgio - he just can't hold the forward line on his own.

We started well enough forcing a corner in the first minute. Prodigal Son Pope screwed that up big time with a total sclaff. Unfortunately for the midfielder this was only a sign of things to come as he had one of the worst games I've seen him play for us. And given that today was his chance to prove TFOE wrong he's got a lot of work to do to redeem himself in the eyes of a lot of the Saints fans.

Well from the corner it just went downhill. 7 minutes and Henprick got away with handball on the side before winning a corner kick. Lubo (as our uneducated West Coast distant relations like to call him being unable to pronounce his full name) took the kick. Main appeared to save it but only palmed it to Mjallby the Dolph-clone who drove it home. Still we went up the park and Miguel came close with a solo run which ended in a shot just going over.

And apart from a free-kick which Grant Mitchell saved from Blaster that was it for the first half for Saints. Oh yeah and while I'm in depressed mode a word on the free kicks. We had 3 today on the edge of the Celtic box. Every single bloody one was a Bollan drive against the wall. Please St. Sandy when something doesn't work a couple of times try and vary it.

Meanwhile the first half action saw TFOE miss loads of chances although strangely enough when it came to kicking Miguel or Del both Riseth and Mjallby were on target. Not that the ref (Mike "don't tell them I'm from Glasgow" McCurry) noticed. Still they got a 2nd goal on the half hour when a cross from the right was saved by Main, let go by Main and backheeled past Main by Psycho Verruca.

Half-time saw Danny replace McBride (another defensive player when Miguel was crying out for support). Any hope of what could possibly be his last game for Saints turning into a glorious departure vanished within 5 minutes of the restart. A free kick on the right saw an unmarked Donkey Weighorse head past Main.

St. Sandy put on Nathan for Del (who was carrying a knock) and Frankie-Boy for Kane towards the end. But even though both managed to liven up the attack (and give Eusebio a chance to liven up as well), with Frankie-Boy looking like an excellent psycho player, the game was all over by then and TFOE weren't even in top gear. And when the ball doesn't even bounce kindly you know it's going to be one of those days.

Still we did have one good laugh. As a couple of Saints fans left with 10 minutes to go (and credit to all of us that stuck it out for the 90 minutes), up pipes a bigot with a chant of "Cheerio, Cheerio". OK normally but Neanderthal man was totally unaware of the irony as he sung out whilst hordes of unwashed bigots around him also headed for the exits. Best supporters in the world - my arse.

Where do we go from here? Christ knows. But with St. Sandy saying that this weeks UEFA match is the equivalent of playing a lower league team in the cup I can't help but be reminded of the delights that were St**h**s**uir and F**k**k. Still once the Messiah (sorry, new striker) comes along it'll be OK. Won't it?

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