Sunday, February 28, 2010

Last on Match of the Day, not even last on Spoony

I felt compelled to phone Spoony on 606 this evening. To be fair to the people I spoke to they seemed quite pleased to have a Blackburn Rovers supporter calling up. The fact that I was annoyed by the surly interview Rafa Benitez gave probably helped. They love the whole contrived drama of the tedious "race for 4th place" and I guess this was a tangent from that.

But I also felt that Rovers deserve some credit for a spirited performance today. Liverpool had two shots on goal in the first half and scored both times. Ours was a penalty. I will confidently predict now that Match of the Day will focus on the following.

a) A "controversial decision" to give us a penalty - a clear penalty, the accident prone Carragher fluffed it again.

b) Torres and his "brilliance" - ignoring his wayward headers and rightward drift.

c) N'Zonzi's booking - a tangle with Lucas, handbags.

d) Gerrard and Diouf squaring up - it takes two, as Marvin Gaye said.

The latter two will get wrapped up with Big Sam and his physical approach. Do you know what? I wish it was true. Sure, Rovers competed today. But a bit more strength of character and a bit more concentration and two soft goals wouldn't have been conceded. At the other end a more direct approach and a cutting edge might also have seen another goal, which was no more than Blackburn Rovers deserved.

Some other positives to take: Vince Grella ran the game in the last 20 minutes; Salgado looked comfortable (despite being at fault for the Torres goal after a brilliant tackle by Samba), Givet was commanding.

The only consolation is Rovers won't be last on Match of the Day this week, as it's against a Big Four team, but we usually are. Which brings me back to Spoony. I was bumped off in favour of a last call from a Spurs fan. So not only were Blackburn Rovers due to be last on 606, we didn't even make that. Typical.

2 comments:

NIGEL HUGHES said...

Blackburn should feel a hard done by. They looked like the home team at times.

Just a point on players squaring up to each other etc. We were sitting two rows from the front and at one point Pederson came within 10 yards of us to retrieve the ball for a throw-in. As he was doing so, he said to the supporters nearby "This isn't football, it's f***** rugby."

He said it with a smile on his face and he got a laugh from the Liverpool fans by us, but he clearly meant it.

Michael Taylor said...

Ha! Brilliant. What a brilliant story. What a tart!