I don't suppose you want to read this any more than I want to write it, but here goes. It was a bit of a dampish windyish afternoon, we had a new "gaffer" and we proved true the old adage "if you don't shoot you don't score." Roberts and Clarke did nice enough stuff down the wings (mebbe swap them over for periods, eh,?) but with no target in the box...you get my drift.
Patterson
Huggins O'Nien (c) Ballard Hume
Neil Ekwah
Roberts Bellingham Clarke Ba
.. and a bench of Bishuuurrrp, Triantis, Seelt, Mayenda, Rusyn, Burstow, Dack, Aouchiche, and Rigg
We defended the north end and had to defend an early corner aimed at Ellis Simms, then had a free shot on our left which we fired in low to win an eventual corner. Nothing came of that, but we should have been ahead on 19 when a Clarke blast was spilled but Ba carefully splatted it into the back row of the Roker End - a truly awful miss, a chance Danny Graham would have gleefully gobbled up. We followed that with some O9 nonsense on Simms as Cov tried to take a corner and Luke was probably lucky to stay on the field. There was a Patto save with his feet then a block as we sat deep, and any attempt to play into their box saw Ba make Michael Bridges look like Arnold Schwarzenegger.
There was a clash of heads near our box on 37, and we continued to get forward with no target. Four added minutes were announced, Luke tried to play the man rather than the ball, and they eventually plonked it beyond Patto. Our body language for the dying moments if the half was awful, Cov nearly got a second, and we were glad of the break.
No changes, when there really should have been, but at least Ba started chasing their defenders about.
Look, let's keep this brief as I'm sure you've got sprouts to peel. We tickled rather than tackled (fullbacks excepted), we fannied about near their box because we had nobody to give it to in the box, Mayenda came on, their keeper was booked for wasting time, Adil came on, Huggins left on a stretcher in the added six minutes to be replaced by Seelt, we piled forward but got precious few shots away. Oh, and Patto spilled a shot that we couldn't be arsed to get to first and Cov put it away. And scored another.
Baptism of fire for Batmo? Certainly, but questions about who exactly is picking the team have to be asked. It's certainly not the eleven I'd have started with if it'd been my first game in charge.
Man of the Match? Clarke and Roberts were pretty but ineffective, Ba and Ekwah were awful, and Bellingham wandered from midfield to centre forward to left back with little effect. I'll probably give it to Neil for being steady away for the whole game. Horrible afternoon.
