I knew at the beginning of the day that I had probably had my most exciting moment. I mentioned in my Darlo report that I’d had to bugger off out of the country Thursday morning for work. Well Saturday morning and we were coming into land (I say “we” I have to admit my part in it was minimal – I was simply following gravity). A couple of hundred feet as we came in under the low cloud we suddenly aborted the landing. I’ve been in a plane that has aborted a landing before but never in a jumbo jet. It makes one hell of a noise as the engines struggle to get such a huge weight to do the exact opposite of what it had been quite happy doing. The steward came on the intercom to say it was alright and that the captain was in control and would come on the intercom soon to let us know what had happened. Up until then I hadn’t been worried – there are loads of reasons a landing might need to be aborted. But the steward was inside the cabin like me and obviously could see no more and knew no more than me. I don’t know about you but I don’t feel comfortable putting my life in the hands of a man whose main job is to give people peanuts. As it happened after the engines had stopped screaming the captain did come on to explain that there had been a plane on the runway we were meant to land on. I was with the captain on this – piggybacks is not something one should attempt in a Boeing 747.
As I say I knew this was going to be the most exciting part of the day but I hadn’t realised the contrast was going to be so stark. This was a poor game. We were in the front row and so our view was crap but that if anything was a blessing. A mate of a mate at half-time said that Keane was trying to intensely kick-start the team back to fitness by getting them to play 11-a-side games in training with an hour each way. I have no idea if this is true – mates of mates at half-time in the accuracy stakes tend to be just below bloke at the bar in pre-match pub and just above anonymous posters on internet message boards. However, it certainly could have been true because they generally looked knackered.
We again played two fairly different teams in each half – but not quite as drastic as at Darlo. However, somewhat worryingly there was still no sign of Andersen or Richardson. Plus still no Carlos. One would hope those players would be fairly core to our Prem hopes (which currently are somewhat at – maybe we’ll finish mid-table but, you know, fourth off bottom first season back would be OK). Varga is still playing the whole 90 minutes. Someone please tell me that he isn’t going to be a regular. Stern John played the second half and still managed to look woeful in a woefulish sort of team performance. Nowt against the bloke (nor Varga actually) but he is looking poor and I can’t believe he can cut it in the Prem.
Chopra played the first half and was very busy. Unfortunately we were kicking towards the opposite end to me so whether he was busy anywhere near the ball you’ll have to ask someone in about row 10 or a bit higher who could get some perspective. I was a bit disappointed we didn’t get to see him the second half as it might have made the trip a more worthwhile.
That new lad Etuhu played. I thought he was some sort of midfield hard man. He seemed to be playing further out wide-ish (switching between left and right) but to be honest in the first half I was struggling to work out what our midfield formation was. Leadbitter seemed sometimes to be out wide and other times to be playing behind the front two. Yorke was definitely in the middle but Deano seemed to flip between wide-ish and linking up with Yorke. Anyway I wasn’t too impressed with Etuhu but I’ll reserve judgment for now.
Apparently we had a New Zealand trialist playing somewhere. To say I have no opinion of him would be massively overstating how much I realised we had a trialist.
My son thought the young lad Donoghue (or something like that) was canny on the left (i.e. coming down towards us in the second half). I guess so – one’s view tends to be coloured when nothing much is coming off.
There was more entertainment at half-time as the stewards again played hunt the smoker. At Darlo at half-time the smokers had forced open the fire exit so that they could stand outside the concourse and have a smoke. This seemed to be showing a simultaneous compliance with, and disregard for, regulations that was bewildering. This time this option wasn’t available so they hid in toilets and behind bins. However, special packs of sniffer stewards were sent in and rounded them all up. This is all going to get very silly as the season progresses. I am not a smoker myself (never have been) but if others want to smoke I’m not that bothered if they do. I guess pubs are better without smoke but this infringement of the state on the actions of the individual is at the least undignified.
Keano reckoned we were “sluggish” (I’m back to the players not the smokers by the way). I guess that probably sums it up. They scored early on from a Nuggsy mistake – although their player did control the ball rather outrageously with his hand. Not very important.
Enjoy your time in Portugal lads and lets hope for a few more Prem quality palyers and some sharper performances in Ireland. And some better weather – it was miserable again today. One of the pleasures of pre-season friendlies is usually lounging round in the sun. Today, like Darlo, was more shivering and avoiding showers.
John aka Herts