Saturday Morning
There’s been little movement in the transfer window so far, which is par for the course, but I’m sad to see Kavanagh leave as I thought he always put in a good performance for us and I was surprised to see that he only played for us fifteen times or so. I’d like us to keep Diouf because he’s capable of really turning on the flair though I think we could afford to let Chimbonda go for the right price. Evans played for Man U the other night and I’ve heard no mention of him coming to us for a week or so. Much as I like Nos he’s started looking a liability again at times with dodgy back-headers and the like. Certainly, having Ferdinand back in the team makes us much more solid. Boro’s home record is almost as bad as ours, with three draws and two defeats in their last five matches, and they’ve only got two goals in their last six games so I think we’ll get at least a point today. They’ve got some quality players including Julio and Downing and if Alley-Alley O and Alves are playing they’ll need to be tightly marked. I’m old school and I’ve always considered this match to be a derby.

The Match
It’s 2.30 and I’ve just seen the team news; Malbranque in and Edwards out. Nobody would argue with that, I think. Our bench is looking pretty strong and Healy’s still in with a chance of coming on but sadly no sign of Chops. West Brom have just lost and a couple of games have fallen victim to the weather so we can really move ahead with a point or three this afternoon.

I tuned into Century Radio and the first ten minutes sounded like they were played mainly in the centre of the pitch and the only events of note were Steed being booked again and then a good shot from Downing that was comfortably saved by Fulop. Boro were edging it and ten minutes later Tuncay had another good effort for them while we hadn’t really threatened at all. Then we started to come into it and we won the first corner of the match after twenty-five minutes before Cisse headed wide after a cross gave him a golden chance. It sounded a scrappy game without much atmosphere and with around a minute to go to half-time Downing and Alves combined well for the latter to put them one-up. We hadn’t had a shot on target all half and it was the final third letting us down again. An air of gloom descended in London W10.

There were no changes at half-time but shortly afterwards Malbranque was taken off injured and Edwards came on. There was a bad clash of heads between Rico and Digard which resulted in Rico being yellow-carded and the other getting a big lump on his head. That meant there’d be at least two minutes of added time. Nos was booked shortly afterwards and then the home fans were baying for Collins to receive similar punishment. It sounded like it was getting rough out there and certainly there was little flow in the play, especially in ours. Diouf, who’d done little to impress, was subbed by Reid with around twenty-five minutes left and I hoped for some badly-needed creativity. We had a very good shout for a penalty waved away and seemed to be getting the better of things as we attacked the goal with our fans behind it. Rico took a free-kick that Gary Rowell described as the worst he’d seen this season and five minutes later was replaced by Healy. A minute later Healy got the ball from Reid and provided the pass to Kenwyne from which he put us level. He was our fourth player to be yellow-carded for over enthusiastic celebrations. The momentum was finally with us and I reckoned we could win it. With four minutes left we had a shot cleared off the line (or was it even over the line?) following a corner and then Cisse went close. As four minutes of stoppage-time were signalled I’m sure the Boro fans were hoping for the final whistle more than ours as we were really in control. I was up pacing around in the final minute as Boro got a corner and then Cisse broke away into their penalty area but was tackled just at the crucial moment. Then the whistle went and we’d got a point.

All in all I’m happy with the result as we sounded very ineffective for at least the first hour, though with the penalty-shout and the ball over the line incident we may well have been robbed. Tellingly we didn’t really get going till Reid came on while Healy bolstered his chances with an assist but Carlos sounded like he had a poor game. Kenwyne showed again that both he and Cisse can be very quiet for much of the game and then pop up to score. With the way the other results went I think we may even have snuck up a place or two.

ALS Books click here