No passion, no heart and no fight. Is this the brave new post-Warnock world that we were promised? If it is, you can keep it Mr McCabe. I, for one, would like to see Neil Warnock back. Who cares if he rants and raves? Who cares if the football isn’t champagne stuff? Watching United used to be pleasurable but it isn’t at the moment.
We got more evidence of Robson’s flawed recruitment policy on Saturday as we lined up with Gary Cahill at right full-back. Cahill is a decent player but he isn’t a right back and I would have much preferred to see Rob Kozluk or Ahmed Fathi lining up on the right of our rearguard. Leigh Bromby had paid the price for his poor performances to date but I can’t help but wonder how much of his struggle has been down to the instruction (or lack of) that he receives from the coaching staff. Too often our full backs blindly follow ‘their man’ leaving gaping holes for others to run into.
Chris Morgan who led us to promotion from this section in 2005/06 and took to the Premiership like a duck to water the season after now looks a shadow of the player he was. I can’t remember Morgan ever having a sustained bad run like he is doing at the moment. Is he another victim of the complete lack of organisation at the back or is he the cause? Whichever, it is very painful to watch his decline at the moment.
The midfield was, as has become the norm, horribly lacking in balance. Alan Quinn came out of the game with some credit and was unlucky not to equalise on the stroke of half time. David Carney seemed to impress the Sky commentators but looked a very ordinary player to me, he deserves more time to adapt to English football though. Tonge was invisible and Lee Hendrie is showing the folly of offering him 3 year deal. Will it be any great surprise if he spends more time in the treatment room than on the pitch? A shorter deal may have increased his hunger and desire.
Jon Stead was no better than OK but he still comprehensively outshone James Beattie. How badly would Beattie have to play to be substituted? Surely he hasn’t got an agreement that guarantees him 90 minutes? That’s 2 absolute stinkers in 3 games from Beattie and the dilemma of what to do when Hulse returns is getting easier all the time.
Robson says some of the players aren’t as good as he thought they were. Well Mr Robson, I expected you to be an awful manager and you aren’t as good as I thought you were. You say you’re now going to bring some loan players in. Are you going to go for someone we have a chance of landing or waste more precious time on unrealistic targets? The transfer business so far has largely been a disaster with the players going out better than those coming in.
I hope that the Sheffield United board will now spend less time inviting Pele to matches and expanding our global presence and more time questioning the wisdom of appointing Bryan Robson. After all, it won’t be much comfort owning clubs around the world if we’re in the 3rd Division.
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