Beef Bagel

There’s nothing like an emphatic win to shake off those Uefa Cup blues and yesterday’s game against Wigan was just that; nothing like it. Going forward we weren’t too shabby and with the ball at our feet we looked the more dangerous but Wigan seemed happier to play volleyball than kick it along the ground and well, who can blame them against a techincally superior opposition?

Yes, it was good to see after so many games and so many disappointments and so recently that the team had the legs and the heart to claw their way back at the JJB goal by goal. What was not good to see was how easily undone we were by the basic Premiership survivalist/Bolton tactics of:

Cross/set piece + n(header) = goal

, where n is an integer of one or greater.

We really have been leakier than fifty-year-old Welsh prostitute all campaign and as oft commented by MJ we’ve just conceeded far to many to have made a real impact in the Premiership. Shame that but I seem to remember last time around it was that we hadn’t scored enough and when we had we’d lose our lead at the last. Well, whichever way around we’ve done it, it’s been a damn good ride and still a sight better than the doldrumous years before.

Now that Fergie and Mourinho have their sweaty mitts on either handle of the FA Cup, all that remains for us to do is secure at least seventh place to get back to where we all begun except hopefully some the wiser. This does involve pulling those Puma socks a little but what we didn’t gain in points yesterday we still see in effort and whatsmore, at last, the lads get a week to rest and ourselves a little time to reflect.

Going out to Seville seems more of a nostalgic dream of what could have been with a weekend between to cushion the blows and a few nights out to destroy the memories. Once the pain had subsided, I took the time to look at MJ’s post match press conference.

It breaks my heart all over again to look into his eyes and see how gutted he is but he does make two valid points. Firstly, that, again, the goals were conceeded from set pieces and secondly MJ was out thought. “They eliminated both Lennon and Berbatov,” and that’s basically all we’ve got. Out only other plan of attack appears to be vague sounding “midfield support.” Is this case and point for MJ not having the nouse to take us any further than the fringes of something great or as Jason Burt of the Independent suggests, a product of him not having the personnel he wants in his own squad?

Now The Bagel has heard from a very good source that MJ had never even seen Ricardo Rocha play before Comolli signed him back in January and this does add credence to Burt’s and indeed many people’s suspicions. So far the Portuguese centre half hasn’t exactly set the Premiership alight and has been played out of necessity rather than on his own merit.

If this is the case, does MJ get any say at all in who we buy, and the answer had better bloody be ‘yes’, and will one more window of purchase provide the opportunity for our manager to get what/who he needs to do the job? For me the priority is simply to provide at least one, ideally two more attacking outlets, more than just Lennon and Berbatov. A quality left footer is still a must and I may settle for an excellent centre half instead of the other atacking purchase.

There were just a couple of other points of interest that happened the night of the Uefa Cup blow. There was a thought that kept me going at the start of the seond half, something that led me through and let me believe until the last and it was beautiful that a moment of such dissappoinment could become such a tool of hope as thought echoed in my mind, “If Man City can do it, so can we.”

And the other thing, well, it’s more of a confession but perhaps an idea of how carried away we all got. When the second goal went in and we were riding the crest of that wave, I turned around and the person behind me and I threw ourselves into eachother’s arms. In that jubilent melee and I hugged the Junior Harpey and before you ask, no, she will not be appearing at the beginning of any match day stories.

Spit bageled.

The Bagel.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 16th, 2007 at 5:08 pm and is filed under Bagel News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.