11 Nov 07: Grasshoppers 0:1 Worth Park Rangers November 14, 2007
Posted by editor in : Uncategorized , trackbackMy first draft at this report just read, “Bugger!”, but then I thought I should probably try a bit harder than that.
How we didn’t win this game is a mystery to everyone who watched it. We must have created 20 chances to their 5, and even then they couldn’t get past us. But obviously that isn’t good enough, and whoever killed the black cat in the off season needs to own up now.
We lost the last game because we simply didn’t try hard enough. We lost this game because the football fairy decided that it just wasn’t our turn yet. Worth Park were decent opponents who played some good football, but with no disrespect to them, we totally outplayed them, outfought them and outwitted them. And lost.
Of course it would be too simple to gift them a goal by someone making a stupid error. No, this one had to be a goal of the season candidate. A totally unstoppable header from a corner from J-P. For those of you who are starting to question his loyalty after his second OG of the season, you really should have seen him after the game. He sat moping in a cold bath, still unable to believe what had happened. His brother, ever supportive, sat with him quietly. After about 2 hours, with J-P turning blue from the cold, Cian uttered just one word, which summed it all up. “Emo”.
There are loads of positives to take from this performance and (own goals apart) only one real negative. The positives start with the impeccable way the team conducted itself during the minute’s silence on Memorial Sunday and continued with a solid performance from the back four, who were back to their normal selves. Tom had earned a start this week with his previous performances and did well. Sammy had not earned being dropped, but did well when he came on in the second half.
After what can best be described as indifferent performances last week, Nip and Jake responded very well and both worked really hard throughout, showing character, skill and the all round package we all know they can both deliver.
The midfield was also solid. J-P and Craig lost very little and basically ran the game, with Sam T also coming back to the level he was producing every week last season.
The negative is an old story of failing to put our chances away. Their keeper made one quite brilliant save from J-P, but other than that, he didn’t look that great. But we just didn’t hit the target often enough, having often cut through them like cheap margarine. We need to rediscover our composure in front of goal- which we have in spades in training on Wednesdays.
Oh- and did I mention that the captain scored an own goal?
MoM this week was Jake, who did everything we asked of him and more. The only problem for Jake is that we now know that there is no problem with his fitness, so no more excuses for lack of effort in the future! The difference between this performance and last week was like chalk and cheese. CRAP award has to go to the scorer of the best headed goal this team has ever scored- for the third time this season- J-P.
I had a bit of a rant last week about attitude. This week I’m afraid we just have to chalk it up to bad luck and J-P (he scored an own goal you know). If we play this well and improve our finishing, we won’t lose any more games.
Bugger.
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