I was back on the Kop for the visit of Northampton Town on New Year`s Eve and it was another bumper crowd at the Lane with just over 25000 in attendance. Northampton brought a good following with them up the M1, which added to the atmosphere.
We started well and had some decent chances early on, although so did Northampton. They came with a game plan and did some good counter attacks which had me on the edge of my seat as our defenders looked a bit susceptible early on. I thought Basham and Freeman weren`t playing to their strengths early on, and you could hear the comments from the Kop about Freeman looking like he was blowing early on. He did grab the winning goal though which I suppose made up for that.
A few players seemed to have taken their feet off the pedals though, Duffy wasn`t top notch and a couple of others might have been a bit lethargic, it did prompt a few late chants of “attack, attack, attack” from the Kop end who were frustrated with the players seeming to want to walk the ball in when in front of goal rather than taking shots. The stats say different though with twenty-two shots and about six or seven on target. I know Fleck had a few cracks but wasn`t on target. At the end of the day we got the win we needed to climb to the top of the table.
I would`ve thought Done would have started the game, but Clarke did instead. I don`t think I rate Clarke that much, I know he`s probably being used as a target man but he always played with his back to the goal and it would have been nice to see him have a crack at the defenders once in a while. I know a few people around me referred to the lack of goals in this match as down to the Clarke curse haha, they were saying every time he starts we don`t get a goal, mind you he did come on as a sub a while ago and got the winner.
Our game today is against Bury, who find themselves just above the relegation zone. They`ve drawn two and lost two of their last four games, one of the draws was against Bradford, so I think we`ll have to dig in and put one hundred percent in to win this one. We need to stay top, keeping ourselves in the best position to get out of this League this season.
I`ll be listening to the match on BBC Radio Sheffield today, so fingers crossed we can nick all the points.
UTB!!!
Olly
Olly Longden (RFA)
Sheffield United MOD/Armed Forces Supporter`s Branch
Email: oliverlongden@aol.com
Tweet: @oliverlongden4
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