I just arrived at my sister’s place in rural Spain about an hour ago and as she doesn’t have satellite T.V. plus there’s only intermittent internet access, keeping in touch with tonight’s match could prove problematical.

From what I’ve managed to glean, Kilgallon will play while Turner won’t and Catts may well return. I agree with many that the loss of Cattermole has been our biggest individual problem so far, as our midfield has been easily bypassed too often to expose the badlands of our back four. Steve Bruce has been much quoted in the last few days about how many times he’s had to change our back-line due to injuries and suspensions and from the players we have now I’d play Da Silva, Mensah, Turner and Richardson if at all possible.

I don’t think Bardo, Ferdinand and McCartney are up to the job while Nos can be pretty good in the centre but a major liability as a full back. I wish Kilgallon luck and also hope we can bring in some quality replacements. I’m not casting aspersions against his ability and I’m sure he’s a fine man but I’m rather glad we didn’t sign a player called Fanni. I said in my Saturday column that I thought we’d get hammered again tonight. Well, maybe it’s the holiday mood mellowing me but now I think that we’ll just lose. By all accounts Everton were shite on Saturday too. If we got a point out of this game, I’d be delighted.

After various enjoyable family activities were out of the way I managed to get the SAFC.com text update on to see that we were losing 2-0 at half-time and I can’t say that I was surprised. I know that he’s a much-disliked player but I really rated Fellaini when I saw him on Boxing Day and Cahill must love playing against us. Kilgallon at least was getting a lot of good mentions. When next I tuned in it was around the hour-mark and both McCartney, fair play to him, and Mensah had done great defensive work to keep it down to 2-0 but that’s what it sounded like, damage limitation. For one reason or another there was a gap of around twenty-five minutes before I got a further update and then I discovered that it had ended 2-0 with Everton well in control and without us having any major scoring chances.

So, I haven’t been able to make much of a comment on tonight’s proceedings, but it was all ominously predictable I’m afraid. The convent bells across the way have just rung eleven and I feel the bells are tolling for any hopes we had for this season. Bring on Pink. We need a bit of razzamatazz.

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