Losing my Religion

What an absolute bullshitty cunt-box of a performance.

Frankly, I am absolutely astounded at the reasons Le Boss has put up as excuses for as abject a display as we have seen this season. This reeked of the dark days of last season when the likes of Hull City put us to the sword. This time though, there were no excuses such as a wafer thin squad to hide behind. No, the squad lacked motivation. WHAT???? I can think of 50 or 60,000 odd reasons which should serve as motivation to play at 10%, not even mentioning professional pride (oops I just did mention it).

Let's see who was missing shall we? RVP, Gibbs, Clichy, Bendtner, Diaby. Not forgetting Djourou who wouldn't have got a look in anyway.

So, who did we have to choose from? Arshavin, Cesc, Rosicky, Nasri, Walcott, Eduardo. In my book, that SHOULD have been more than enough to have dispatched Sunderland without breaking sweat. But what went wrong then? In my opinion, we have too many identikit attacking players - out of the aforementioned 6, how many are 6ft plus and able to "get amongst the opposition"?? Still we are waiting on a Plan B.... if we are unable to pass our way through the most sardine-like of defenses, our only viable alternative is for our fullbacks (and let's be honest and say NONE of our fullbacks can really cross a ball!) swinging the ball over for Eduardo to leap, Salmon-like, above centre halves a foot taller than him. Err. Perhaps not eh??
Aside from Bendtner, do we have a forward that can hold the ball up?? The answer is a resounding no. The lads just didn't turn up, and can't take being told when they get it wrong.

For an example, look at the teams reaction when the one player, Arshavin, who has the balls to call the youngsters to task, next scores. As in the Wolves game when he plundered the 4th - who celebrated with him?? No one. That's 'cos these coseted, spoilt, young millionaires are not used to criticism - constructive or otherwise. They certainly don't get it from Le Boss, who is highly unlikely to want to draw attention to the deficiencies of his own pet project.

I don't want to be too unfair on Sunderland - they had a gameplan, which was, shockhorror - stifle our midfield - and - fucking surprise - it worked! They have actually really improved and points gained vs the Mancs & Scousers show that Steve Bruce might be onto something. Mind you, he is only biding his time until Purple nose drops off his perch and he can be installed as the new Prince of Darkness. He's never shown a shred of loyalty at any job he's had, so don't kid yourselves Mackems - he won't start with you. 7 managers jobs in 11 years would appear to back that up. And he was only sacked from one of them.

So, instead of making up ground on the Chavs and instilling some hesitancy in them ahead of Sunday, we are now in a position where anything less than a win will pretty much end our title hopes for another season. And we had to witness Sp*rs thwacking 9 past Wigan, another United stroll, and that c*nt Adebayor add to his goal tally. Not a great weekend. United lost 4 games on their way to the title last year, we have lost 3 after a dozen games.

With that rant out of the way, and before I combust taking half the street with me, let's have a sneaky look at Standard Liege at home on Tuesday....

Of course there will still be no RVP, and we can only hope that Eduardo can grow into the role, but following Le Boss' comments about Vela today it would appear that he is in with a shout of playing. I'm not sure I agree with the comparisons to Robbie Fowler mind.... a coke sniffing cheat who utterly, unequivocally failed to fulfill his potential, I'd much rather the comparison be with Ian Rush if we're sticking to Liverpool players, but but I think I see what he meant. No pressure Carlos!

I don't think Liege could beat Sunderland frankly, and despite a labored performance out there in coming from 2 down to win 3-2, I see us getting back to winning ways, and rather convincingly too. I hear Gibbs has made a recovery (not sure if he used the Horse placenta though), and although I was pleased to see Traore get a game ahead of Fishface, the young Frenchman didn't really cover himself in glory against Sunderland.

I expect to see Arshavin star tonight, along with Theo and either Eduardo or Vela up top. The midfield, I predict, will be Song, Cesc, and Denilson, with Rosicky, Nasri, Ramsay et al lining up on the bench. I understand that Little Jack is fit again.... what price a starring cameo role for the young Tyro???

That's your lot my Gooner friends, keep the faith, we are still in the hunt for 3 trophies anyway!!

Clockender