Mart Poom, Mart Poom, Marty Marty Poom, he gets the ball, he scores a goal, Marty Marty Poom
Mart Poom, Mart Poom, Marty Marty Poom, he gets the ball, he scores a goal, Marty Marty Poom
What you want a report on the game? Well, OK – but frankly you get all you need to know from that song.
This was a game we should have won by a mile – in the first half alone we could easily have been way out of sight of Derby. The glass is half empty brigade will point to some woeful finishing while the glass is half full lot will point to the total domination of all but the last 20 minutes and the creation of clear goal-scoring opportunities.
The team had a better looking shape than against Stoke. Dazza was fit and moved back to RB. This allowed Healy to move into CM, where he belongs. Arca was sensibly moved back to LB. Oster continued at RW in the absence of either Cap’n Trigger or Piper, who is rapidly taking on hologramitic qualities only previously displayed by Milton Nunez. This left the only controversial position – LW. Butler who was mysteriously dropped on tuesday got the nod in front of Thornton. Was Thornton dropped or rested? What actually is the difference between the two? I am a huge Thornton fan – I love watching him and I think he terrifies first division opponents. I also think he is better coming in from the wing than having to take on holding responsibility in CM. However, I wasn’t too fussed about him being on the bench. He is not going to be a 90 minutes a game, every game sort of player for a while yet and I can see Mick deciding he is a more effective weapon coming off the bench in certain games.
Having lost the battle in CM at Stoke, we bossed it big time here. Healy and Thirlwell were superb and controlled the central areas completely. The fact that we were using two men who did predominantly see themselves as wingers meant we were also using the full width of the pitch well. Kyle was doing his usual job of pulling the central defence open. The combination meant that we were getting genuine chances in the box at regular intervals. But the damn ball just wouldn’t get in – in truth, the players really need to give themselves a kick up the backside for not being one-nil or even three-nil up by half time. Kyle, even Dazza, had chances and Stewart had one where the goalkeeper went after Kyle who nodded it back across to Stewart in the six yard box in front of goal with no-one near him – Stew somehow managed to nod it back across goal into the goalkeeper’s arms.
We continued to dominate in the second half but still our finishing was woeful – it was all down the opposite end from where we were but some of the chances for Stew and Oster seemed even easier than in the first half. Even Thirlwell tried to score (all be it from outside the box) and came bliddy close. Late on, Thornton came on for the tiring Butler and kept up the pressure – personally I would have been tempted to throw on Proctor for Oster at the same time but Mick wasn’t.
As so often happens, the side on top tires and/or gets frustrated at not having scored and the side under the cosh grows in confidence. For the last 20 minutes or so, Derby increasingly took the game to us and we were practising the refrain of “well an away point is always a good point”. However, in the last minute at our end of the ground, Derby got a corner on the left. A Derby forward was doing a good job of blocking Poom on his line – pushing legality but if it’s legal, I’m not going to whinge about it. The corner came over to a derby player on the right of the six yard box who turned and fired in. Really shouldn’t be able to do that – if a player attempts to turn in that position he should have the ball booted 50yards off his feet.
What was Simon Crabtree saying about “how dare we, how dare we give up on Sunderland”? The spirit that flows through our heroes this season once again took over. Instead of their head dropping they charged back up pitch. We got a corner and we were urging them all to go forward but the buggas wouldn’t. Arca had a superb shot brilliantly saved by the goalie and from the resulting corner (seeming way past the two minutes put up by the fourth official) all the players went forward – and then as Thornton was about to take the corner, Poom went running forward from the half way line where he’d been standing. Thornton spotted his run and fired in the corner superbly timed to arrive towards the back just as Poom arrived – he seemed to fill about a quarter of the box as he rose improbably several feet (well so it seemed from the opposite end) into the air to meet the ball as sweetly as you could ever imagine – to send the ball crashing back across the face of the goal and into the far side. Words can not do justice to the scenes in the away end. Everyone just exploded – we had seen one of the great moments of football and we were damn well going to enjoy it. I think the referee allowed the restart but probably only one kick – we were too busy with our celebrations to take much notice of what was going on. Congratulations to the genius who started the Mart Poom song with which I started this report – the spontaneity with which the whole massive travelling SAFC support took up the refrain was marvellous. Our players took an age to leave the pitch and Mick Mac came on to enjoy the celebrations – it took us even longer to leave – we were just having too much fun.
It’s hard to do a summing up after you’ve witnessed an end to a match like that but here goes. Team pick and shape good. Healy and Thirlwell could be an excellent partnership and Healy is so much a CM – hope he doesn’t have to move off to weird positions to cover for others again. Jocky fitted in well with George well given how worried we were about losing Breen. Dazza defended well and looked lively getting forward. Arca continued to show how good he can be at LB. Oster continued his good run of form. Butler frustrates me – he was trying to play like Oster but a lot less seemed to be coming out of it – he also had possibly the second worst miss (after Stewart’s header) in the first half. I worry that this thing with Butler is becoming an obsession with me – I am going to try really hard next game to pick up on positives about him. Kyle and Stew – well what can you say? Without having bad games you have to say that with so much quality ball coming into the box, one of them should have scored. However, I’d rather say that if we keep playing like this we are going to pick up a lot of points- certainly I’d hope enough for a play-off place and, I like to dream, possibly even enough for an automatic slot. But let’s not linger on that, let’s instead concentrate on ……
Mart Poom, Mart Poom, Marty Marty Poom, he gets the ball, he scores a goal, Marty Marty Poom
Mart Poom, Mart Poom, Marty Marty Poom, he gets the ball, he scores a goal, Marty Marty Poom