As Natasha Woods in the Sunday Herald puts it, when describing the first goal yesterday:
“Football does not get much easier: Derek Riordan flicking the ball across from the left and presenting Garry O’Connor with a simple tap-in. United’s defence was not so much sliced apart as non-existent.”
Not pleasant reading for any Arab. And it’s not a new thing. Our defence has been getting carved wide open for the entire season, and losing fourteen goals in four league games is testament to that, as is not keeping a single clean sheet in our entire league campaign thus far! Every team we have played has scored at least once. Now there are rumours of Paul Gallagher making a return on loan! Surely it’s not all a goalkeeper’s fault? Our defence is shambolic, lacking in confidence, lacking in basic defensive awareness, and lacking in success. In midfield we have lost Charlie Miller and therefore our creative flair, who’s been replaced by Billy Dodds, and up front, our best striker, Jason Scotland starts every game on the bench. We’ve bought, supposedly, a rare talent in Karim Kerkar, and yet he has yet to start a game. Confidence is lacking at United, and it has to be said, that tactics, including actual play, and team selections, are at best confusing, and certainly not effective.
So who is to blame? It has to be Ian McCall I’m afraid. The guy is well paid, and we were all delighted when he arrived at the club, and his impact was, if not amazing, certainly immediate, instilling a confidence and belief that had long been missing. That confidence has now evaporated, and we’ve only won one game in the league this season, against ICT, themselves bottom. This is not good enough. McCall has to start getting his tactics right, he has start getting the players to believe in themselves, has to start with his best starting eleven (which I honestly don’t think he does), and he has to start getting results.