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Time to dip into the big bag of cliches.."you live by the sword, you die by the sword"..."what goes around come around"...Yep, after blatantly mugging Caley for all 3 points last week we got our pockets picked by Well's squad of young street urchins and pick pockets...so we're hardly in a position to grumble about dominating but not getting anything.
As for the game, observed on this occasion from the fully operational mausoleum that is the Main Stand (it truly is the place Dandies go to die). Dinna get me wrong - it's full of nice affable couthy North East gents wi the kids/grandkids, and more amusingly a wide variety of ex hooligans in suits sippin tea and nibblin on cucumber sarnies.
First off the official minutes ball scratching - or in my case wondering whether Clan Royal would win the National... The silence was impeccably obeserved of course but as I've ranted elsewhere you have to wonder why we had one in the first place. And the morally outraged Tims from yesterday should bear in mind their failure to observe the Queen Mum's silence (which according to Chick Young was "acceptable")... no I'm not going to go there - but hopefully if anything good comes from yesterday it's that these pointless gestures have to f*ckin stop.
As for the game - well, I had a strange feeling almost deja vu like... You know, it was almost as if I'd been transported back to Spring 2004. Sure enough, we dominated from the off and looked more likely to score. Then on our opponents' first attack they get a penalty and score. Then again from a speculatiive long shot, which, given it was scored by Jim "Jimbo" Hamilton, without doubt one of the worst collections of Footballing DNA ever to don the sacred Red Shirt, from 40 feckin yards it had me musing on the hallucinogenic qualities of the Pittodrie Steak Pies. Then just as we'd got back into it and looked likely to equalise... we get sucker punched once more and game over.
Does that not sound almost identical to most of the games we saw under Pele? Hardly surprising given that it is of course virtually an identical side.
All Tango and Sash have done is make us much harder to beat (which to be fair was all Pele had to do...whether he was capable of doing so was/is a moot point) but we're still a side with one gear and to be perfectly honest if we fall behind we're f*cking useless at chasing the game. If progress is to be made we need to completely revamp our attacking options and add at least a semblance of creativity to our play.
Big Blaha came on and looked a tad rusty but still if we can get him fully fit for the run in we may have at least a short term solution as I always felt Mackie's best performances came when he was feeding off Eugene "Whosya" Dadi's knock downs. Mackie remains the official scapegoat for many but along wi Mikey "Ferfoxsake" Hart he's been our most improved player this year, and on Saturday once again he appeared to be the only Red at least willing to attempt runs/angles. My personal opinion is that he's an auxiliary striker and has suffered in recent years as he's been expected to lead the line, a task to which he's patently unsuited, but Blaha knocking down balls for him to chase into the box might work ye know.
Only other thing was Richie Byrne.....does it have a purpose? Cos it sure as sh*t aint a footballer. Scotty Mo is, I'll grant ye, nae the best defender in the world - he's more a wingback/defensive midfielder in the Superkev mould - but at least Scotty can play a bit and appears aware of what's goin on around him. Byrne just appears to be completely f*ckin gormless and blessed with no discernable talent whatsoever.
Anyway Europe... oh dear, a'thing went wrong there eh? Now we have 3 clubs chasing 1 spot and we're the ones wi the least firepower. Realistically wi 3 of our 6 remaining games against the OF we're looking at 60 points as our maximum points haul now. Whether that will be enough, I dunno but a draw in the Reekie Derby would do nicely. Either way Saturday's defeat removed any margin for error - we simply now have to win our post split games wi Well, Hibs and Hearts.
If we do that, we should be home and dry - so we can still control our own
destiny - so even after a day I'd rather forget all is not lost.
The Red Avenger