A Right Old Mess

16598 Jimminy jilickers. That wasn’t quite what we had in mind. Before there was even a chance to sit back in our armchairs and breath in all the Champions League paraphernalia dotted about the place- ooh, look at them arm patches– Young Boys had already spanked in three without riposte. It could’ve been eight. A thirty-minutes I imagine none will care to re-live. Did you ever watch that documentary about those mental Swedish sisters running amok on the M6 a couple of years ago? If you haven’t, then start thumbing the key words into Youtube. It’ll bring back familiar memories of last night. As the thing unfolds, you know damn well something terrible is about to happen. And when it does- ie: one of them is hit by a truck- it’s worse than you imagined. You start sweating. You feel queasy. You’re watching Tottenham Hotspur.

And it’s just awful.

The lego pitch certainly didn’t help much; as ‘Arry insinuated, nay, outright declared after the final whistle. It was clear from the get-go they looked spooked by what they were treading on. It had them rattled. And while the bag of air bounced and flubbed around their molded studs like a bonus ball in Camelot, belief waned only further. I don’t fancy this much, they seemed to nod in unison. An excuse? Hardly. Contributing factor? I dare say.

There’s no getting away from the fact that many of our best men had shockers in Switzerland. Wilson- whose dimensions seem to have squat a few inches over the summer- looked particularly uneasy. As that kamikaze back-pass will testify. In a game which required calm heads and measured thought, Palacios charging about the pitch; giving the ball away, bullishly clattering people, possibly wasn’t the modus operandi we were after. As appose to Huddlestone, whom was like liquid nitrogen when he came on. He changed everything.

Plenty to garner from such a hellish performance, then, and even more so from the two goals which we take back home with us. We’ll not see worse, I’m certain. The Young Boys may’ve had us vomiting in our paper bins for those opening minutes, but there’s nothing in their make-up that would discourage my optimism for the second-leg. A fluke? A one-off? Let’s bleedin’ hope so.


About the Author

avatar

24 Responses to A Right Old Mess

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

Back to Top ↑