Or maybe we shall...
So here I am, about four hours after another utterly supine/soporific/anodyne performance against this week’s Official Club in Crisis – our next turn is scheduled for early December - and yet I find myself surprisingly sanguine about things. Perhaps it’s the bucolic splendour of the new Kings of Convenience album that Spotify is kindly piping to my ears; perhaps it’s the fact that last night’s booze intake hasn’t entirely vacated my bloodstream; perhaps it’s the knowledge that they routed us 4-1 last season and we still won the league.
.
Perhaps the source of my unusual calm and equanimity is that, much as the players couldn’t be arsed working themselves up to any pitch of interest, neither can I. Or maybe it’s that performances like that today are everything that I expected of this season and it’s vindicating to be proved right. Not that such vindication beings any real pleasure or satisfaction. That transcendent moment in the derby aside, Owen once again looks horribly and embarrassingly past his sell-by date. He would have done more to press his England claims by staying at the Toon and scoring a hatful down in the Championship. He won’t manage it at United.
.
Valencia and Nani proved equally ineffectual, while Vidic and Rio seem to be in some kind of death spiral in which both are competing to see whose talent can evaporate the quickest. At least Rooney and Berba continue to excel; the margins just didn’t run for them today though.
.
Just like in Rome, the two players whose reputations were most enhanced by today were Fletcher and Hargreaves. In fact, from the moment I saw that Fletch hadn’t even made the bench, the optimism that had coursed while reading all the last rites for Rafa in the paper suddenly started to ebb away. Thing is while we were top of the league our shortcomings were being masked by the shortcomings of everyone else in the league. And as city and Arsenal both draw eminently winnable fixtures, that’s a situation that might remain for some time.
.
Still, winning a 19th by default would still be sweet. But when we’re this mediocre, that’s not really going to happen, is it?
.
Perhaps the source of my unusual calm and equanimity is that, much as the players couldn’t be arsed working themselves up to any pitch of interest, neither can I. Or maybe it’s that performances like that today are everything that I expected of this season and it’s vindicating to be proved right. Not that such vindication beings any real pleasure or satisfaction. That transcendent moment in the derby aside, Owen once again looks horribly and embarrassingly past his sell-by date. He would have done more to press his England claims by staying at the Toon and scoring a hatful down in the Championship. He won’t manage it at United.
.
Valencia and Nani proved equally ineffectual, while Vidic and Rio seem to be in some kind of death spiral in which both are competing to see whose talent can evaporate the quickest. At least Rooney and Berba continue to excel; the margins just didn’t run for them today though.
.
Just like in Rome, the two players whose reputations were most enhanced by today were Fletcher and Hargreaves. In fact, from the moment I saw that Fletch hadn’t even made the bench, the optimism that had coursed while reading all the last rites for Rafa in the paper suddenly started to ebb away. Thing is while we were top of the league our shortcomings were being masked by the shortcomings of everyone else in the league. And as city and Arsenal both draw eminently winnable fixtures, that’s a situation that might remain for some time.
.
Still, winning a 19th by default would still be sweet. But when we’re this mediocre, that’s not really going to happen, is it?
posted by Royton Red @ 8:45 PM
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