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I know it, you know it, my flatmate knows it, other third division defences know it and the crazy Orient fan who collared me on the tube knows it; without Lee Hodges we have no bite, we are impotent up front.
Now, I know I’m beginning to sound like a broken record, but Saturday was the most dismal, uninspiring, depressing display from United since, well, last time we played Orient away. On that day we looked terrible, but at least we were safe from the drop, it was the end of the season, after a terrible run, we had nothing really to play for. This time, more worryingly, it is the beginning of the season, we are meant to be setting out our stall, starting as we mean to go on. Go on, presumably, as a Conference side. There was a huge, Hodges-sized gap in our attack, for the first half we never looked like scoring, nor did we deserve to.
Having said that, for the first quarter of an hour of the second half, I was almost (‘almost’, note) ready to take my hat off to Lawsy, we went forward with panache (no, not a new Spanish signing) and we looked like penetrating. Carruthers, in particular, looked set to score. And then it happened. The curse of last season, the curse of the panic buying of a lanky, useless striker for an inordinate amount of money. Namely, Laws’ insistence that Torpey will never, ever be substituted. Off went Martin and away went any chance of breaching the Orient goal. From looking set to equalise and possibly go on to more, we went to one, tired, ineffective player up front and half an hour of dire, pathetic ‘football’.
Laws’ tactical naivety has never been so evident, it really was as black and white as that; one minute we looked good, the next, we were terrible. He’s alienating our best players with his ‘tactics’; the aforementioned Hodges for one, Carruthers for two. Martin looked intent on murder as he snatched his tracksuit top back, and who could blame him? He was playing well, Torpey was knackered and had simply stopped trying. It’s just not good enough. We are just not good enough. There is no way we will be anyway near challenging for anything if we are still making schoolboy errors. It is pathetic.
The dodgy penalty was by the by, we had lost it well before. Laws had lost it well before. I’m not confident this season. I’m seriously worried.
It is interesting that the Orient fan I met on the tube could pinpoint the deep-rooted problems at United on the evidence of two games, yet Laws, who works with the players everyday seems oblivious. What does that tell you? Mind you, he also told me that the problem with North Lincolnshire was that no one has net curtains so maybe he isn’t a reliable source of information.
Up The Iron