Why, why, why? #
Ian Symes - August 25, 2008 @ 12:31 pm
Well, that was depressingly predictable. I had a nasty feeling about the game all day, but I still thought we’d get through it. It was never going to be easy playing a newly-promoted side on their first home game in the top flight for three thousand years, or whatever it was. We could moan about the penalty appeal we had turned down, minutes before they had a dubious one given. We could complain that the winning goal was scored in the fourth minute of injury time. But the simple fact is: we weren’t good enough. We weren’t good enough to beat Stoke.
The main reason for this is our defence. Now, we should not be conceding three goals against Stoke City, no matter what the circumstances. The problem isn’t the quality of the players we have; it’s the quality of the players we’re missing. Even out on the right, Olof Mellberg was a huge influence on the team, and it’s only now that we realise how great he was for seven years. And didn’t I tell you we’d miss Freddy Bouma? It’s not that Shorey and Young are worse players than those two (although, they are) – it’s just that we’ve lost two big, strong defensive titans, and we don’t know what to do without them. This is a time where we’d expect to turn to Martin Laursen – our new skipper and one of our best players last time round – for that defensive stability and confidence, but even he is looking unsure and making daft mistakes. It all needs time to gel, and we need to be patient… but if our defence is being given the runaround by Ricardo Fuller, how are they going to cope with Fernando Torres next week?
Having said that, what a fantastic goal by Fuller for their second. Reminiscent of Bergkamp against Newcastle, only, you know, by a Stoke player. But what the pissing hell was Gareth Barry playing at in the build-up? Is he deliberately trying to lower his value? I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt for now, but anything less than a full-hearted performance against Liverpool, and I will not be happy…
At the moment, we’re in a frustrating scenario. We have one of the best attacks in the country. There’s no doubt about that. Carew, Gabby, Young and Barry – with the likes of Harewood, Sidwell and Petrov backing them up – would scare the shit out of most defences in the league, and we really can’t complain with six goals in our opening two league games. But the defence is letting them down at the moment. Scoring two goals away at Stoke should have made whatever they did irrelevant. But as it stands, we shit ourselves every time the ball comes anywhere near our box. It’s a confidence thing – those five players (the back four and keeper) are more than capable of keeping teams at bay. But if they’re not sure, then we’re going to concede goals. Five goals conceded against Man City and Stoke? Hardly the sort of stat that suggests we’re going to break into the top four, is it?
But still. It’s the UEFA Cup second leg on Thursday, which should be interesting. Hard to tell whether Martin will rest some of the attacking players and give some of the kids a chance, but he should definitely play a first choice defence. The more games they play together, the more confidence they’ll get. And without that confidence, we’re going nowhere.