just back home from the abbey havinf watched two matches back to back and then listened to united take keegan's barcodes apart on the way home. so here goes, 2 match reports for the price of one:
birmingham city (plus a dodgy ref) 2-2 arsenal: a minute's applause for an ex brummie hero and armbands for sagna's brother plus a bad week for the gunners overshadowed this early k/o. eboue suspended so walcott came in for a game we needed to win with the mancs guarranteed 3 points up north. less than 2 minutes into the game and taylor goes in hard on eduardo: the arsenal players call for the stretcher immediatly and taylor is sent off while the crozillian is carried off with an oxygen mask to warm applause from everyone. sky wouldn't show the incident because it was so sickening apparently, wenger was furious afterwards calling for taylor to be banned for life - it reminded me of diaby's injury two seasons ago. eduardo has broken his shin, his fibula and his ankle the pundits feared he might never play again. i hope he is ok becasue he didn't deserve that. im not sure the bluenose meant it but mcleish should drop him until eduardo is in training again - that is the only way to stop these sorts of tackles happening.
with arsenal looking shellshocked birmingham took a surpise lead - a nothing tackle from flamini gave them a fee kick very close to the D and alumunia was out of position and flapping as mcfadden put in the top right corner. for the rest of the elongated half we huffed and puffed but never looked like scoring. SheWho was hassling me for info from cork - just find a tv love! second half we went for it and scored twice in four minutes. first theo reacted to a knock down from adebayor and then created a brilliant goal himself. but we shoudl then have buried them - they had ten men remember.. but we had about 4,000 chances and fluffed the lot. then in the last minute of injury time the inevitable happened. the blues broke down the right and knocked in a harmless ball that clichy should have cleared but - and i still dont know why - he looked away and only reacted at the last minute, catching the brum in the box. he got the ball but the ref (having already waived away a perfectly obvious pen at the other end earlier, pointed to the spot. mcfadden - the scurge of all things french - finished off a miserable week - gallas went ballistic and got booked for kicking a sign when he shouldl have kicked clichy or himself for letting it happen. ho hum just gonna have to do it the hard way (as usual)
Cambridge united 2-0 forest green rovers
so, left the supporters clubhouse at 10 to 3 to get on the newmarket road end to watch the mighty U's. big crowd (nearly 5,000) but only about 50 from forest green. started very well, hatswell's free kick sailing past the FG keeper (robinson.. no not paul robinson.. his stock has fallen but not that far..yet) and the ground erupted: bounce bounce amber army! then we had a dreadful game to be honest. FG were rubbish and we kind of descended to their level. but it wasn't helped by possibly the worst referee in the world ever ever. this is what the regular match reporter on the U's website says: "Ref: Mr Oli Langford - he was whistle-happy, inconsistent, pedantic and often wrong. Surely the worst referee we've had this season. 0/10." Take note of the name - OLI LANGFORD, lets hope he's not coming to your club in the near future..bonnie langford more like it! anyway the game was summed up when cambridge scored their second. a long ball towards the FG end was met by one of their defenders (i use the term loosely) and it sailed into the net over the advancing keeper. anyway its three pits and now im going for a curry