Zigor's Moment Of Madness Costs Us Dear

By Neil Ravenscroft
September 1 2003

Someone asked the question on the message board whether the considered opinion this week would be a rant or not. The whole idea of a considered opinion is that is shouldn't be a rant. Having said that, I came close!

I honestly believe that we did not look in any real danger of walking away from that game on Saturday with anything other than three points until Zigor Aranalde's moment of madness. Sure Alan Lee had been his usual handful, but he had been more than adequately marked by Roper, Hay and the impressive Ritchie, to the extent that he looked like a volcano about to explode and a red card likely. Ritchie's wonderful tackle on him shortly before "that" incident, which you could hear from the middle tier of the Purple Stand, made that even more certain. That made Zigor's retaliation even more stupid, as we certainly found the adjustment to ten men too difficult.

If any of the fans really were having a go at Colin Lee at half time, I can understand him losing his rag. We had played some wonderfully neat, attractive attacking football, only to be let down by the final ball and the lack of a cutting edge. He knows we need another striker, and is trying to do something about it, so what's the point of the abuse? This will run and run this season, as we are likely to be playing the same style and some of the crowd don't like the patient approach. Personally, I'd watch that ahead of kick and rush any day.

For once, I'll agree with Ian about Bazeley. His crossing on Saturday, from some wonderful positions, was woeful. Aranalde too wasted some great possession with a poor final ball, but he, at least, put some good ones in as well.

Colin Lee's big mistake on Saturday was not bringing on Emblen in midfield towards the end to "stiffen" things up, in place of the otherwise effective Corica. Defending is not his game and it showed.

Someone rang up WM on Saturday complaining we were playing a 5 4 0 formation at the end. This just proves some fans don't watch the game, as we had gone to a flat back four, with Birch and Merson up front to try and hold the ball. Why the players decided to defend so deep (against the Manager's wishes, if you were watching him yell at them to get forward) and suddenly decided to hit long balls instead of keeping possession, I don't know, but it wasn't part of the tactical plan.

Let's clear one other thing up. The reason Leitao spends so much time in defence is that he’s doing Merson's defensive duties. Plain and simple. When Birch came on, he took over with those defensive duties. However, he did not look very effective in either role.

There is a danger already that expectations are too high in this club. With the restricted budget, it is obvious that it will take some time to sort out the striker situation (which proves that we should not have wasted so much time waiting on Junior in the close season). I have seen criticism already though which seems to suggest that an element amongst the supporters do not appreciate the revolution this season and think we are going to achieve instant success. We aren't. Get real. One defeat, too many draws, but with only one first choice striker, with the ability to put that right. If they were Derby or Watford fans, they might have real cause for complaint.