One of the features of this season has been an honest group of lads who have fitted together well and have fought for the cause in a way that has done us proud, resulting in us being one of the best teams in this league despite not necessarily having the best players. Unfortunately another feature has been the ability to suddenly summon up quite awful performances that are litterally (and yes I mean that literally) shocking to watch. From Plymouth early on to the dreadful Christmas period we’ve seen some real dross. So this one was in good company. As I look at the weather forecast and see the snow predicted for tuesday I have a heavy heart. Almost 600 mile round trip to see us play a night match against Rotherham, squeezed in between work on tuesday and an early start on Wednesday. Why do SAFC do this to us? Why do they continually take our hopes and crush them underfoot? Are we going to murder Rotherham as we did Watford (ignoring us leaving the pitch with 15 minutes to go) or are we going to turn in the sort of bizarre unable to get near the goal performance as with Gillingham? Will we have put this awful game behind us and be convinced we are back on track or will we feeling even more suicidal?
It all started off quite well watching Ipswich at Preston – Ipswich were awful and Preston should ahve murdered them. If the ref had his eyes open, they probably would have. Not only was automatic promotion in our own hands but so was winning the league. Watching Sheff U give Arsenal a good runaround in the pub was also entertaining. The Brighton lads in the pub were up for the game but realistic about the limitations of their players. Some of their players were on only £300 per week – some of ours are close to 50-100 times that even after the massive restructuring of the wage bill post-relegation.
The Withdean is one of the strangest grounds you’ll ever visit – certainly in the second league. Only one permanent very small stand and a couple of temporary golf course style stands with both ends totally open. The away end is pushed miles back behind one corner of the running track. As our seats were in the second off back row there were probably people listening on Metro radio who had a better view than me. Frankly most of the match that was something of a mercy. Once again against limited opposition we had Jeff and Robbo in central midfield. I’ve accepted Jeff coming in for Thornton after Thornton has had a good game on the basis that the match in question was one where we needed a bit more steel in the centre. But surely the opposite should apply? If you don’t get at teams like Brighton early on then you risk conceding and making the game hard for yourself rather than hard for the opposition. We must play Thornton from the start on tuesday and saturday.
Anyway Brighton came out and were at us much more than we were at them. Eventually this told as they got the goal they deserved. Arca went on a run down the left and with McCartney availaible he instead decided to run into three of their players. One of them got the ball off him and from that they broke – the ball eventually coming to one of their players just outside the box with more space than he should have had. Although it took a deflection the lead was no more than they deserved.
Brighton then had a man sent off. At the time I thought it was a straight red but apparently it was a second yellow. To say we failed to take advantage of it would be an understatement. Just before half time a corner came in and a striker on the centre of the six yard box got a clean header. For crying out loud how can we concede a goal like that? Whoever was meant to be marking him (I think it was supposed to be Breen but it was hard to tell he had so much space) needs shooting. I also can’t help but think Poom would have been out to thump a ball like that.
The “tunnel” was right next to our end and a number of SAFC supporters decided to give the players and McCarthy a hard time. Half-time! Aren’t we meant to be supporters? We were all cheesed off with what we had seen but having a go at half-time is hardly going to do any good.
The second half was better in the way it was bound to be. Brighton sat back well and their organisation and our lack of real penetration meant it didn’t make much difference. We were kicking away from us and so it hardly got the pulses racing faster. You felt curiously divorced from what was going on down there. Whitehead and Whitley went off and Thornton and Brown came on, Later on Elliott went off and Bridges came on. As happened at Preston. Thornton’s performance was pretty much the only thing close to a highlight. He tries to do things and moves the ball around. It was truly depressing how little we had seen of that beforehand.
Eventually we got a goal. Arca suddenly got a load of space and took the ball forward to score a similar goal (absent the deflection) to their first one. It is an indicator of how poor his performance had been (and perhaps memories of his part in their first goal) that there was no real singing of his name after the goal.
Some supporters tried to have a go after the match but there was a bit more appreciation of the second half effort. Frankly the over-riding emotion was not really anger but depression. This promotion is in our hands but we seem determined to muck it up.