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MAKE UNITED HATE WEDNESDAY 27-2-08
Toby Higgins
“Anyone but Woodgate”.
There is something a little difficult to take about a former employee who claimed that we lacked ambition, winning a cup final at Wembley just weeks after we let him go. What makes the whole thing a little harder to swallow is that it was he who scored the winner in extra time.
Woodgate, who claimed Gareth Southgate wasn’t a proper manager days after leaving the club that gave him the chance to resurrect his failing career, found time just before the final to thank the Boro boss for choosing not to play him during Boro’s early forages in the Carling Cup earlier this season.
That in itself is a bit odd. Woodgate, we were lead to believe, couldn’t manage three games in the space of seven days when he played for us, yet managed to play Thursday and Sunday for Spurs. Clearly someone has been telling fibs.
Woodgate’s header appeared to justify his reasons for moving to Spurs – to win things. And while granted that Spurs were at a very advanced stage in the competition when Woodgate actually signed, he has ultimately won a trophy. This is something that he reckoned Boro wouldn’t do for a long time.
Obviously, Southgate disagrees. I do too. While it takes a huge effort to win a cup, and more than a few slices of luck from the first game to the final, Boro’s cup culture and tendency to get decent draws at crucial stages means we are certainly a force to be reckoned with. Woodgate presumably followed the lead of most top flight players and did his thinking with his wallet.
Yet again, we’ve got a great chance of making a serious cup challenge. Luck plays a big part in a team like us getting through to the latter stages.
Realistically, we can’t say we’d back ourselves to beat an Arsenal, a Manchester United or a Chelsea. We need those teams to knock each other out, for plenty of all Premiership ties and for a few lower league teams to over achieve.
That is more or less what has happened this season. It means that again we have a chance to be optimistic and again we have a chance to dream.
I shouldn’t need to overemphasise how important Wednesday’s replay against Sheffield United is in the grand scheme of this season; without the Cup, our season is as good as over.
It’s naughty to think it but I’m glad about most things that happened at Anfield on Saturday.
Maybe I’m a pessimist, maybe I’m a realist; maybe those two are one and the same - but we couldn’t go unbeaten forever this year and if we had to lose either the Liverpool game or the Sheffield United game, I know which I’d rather lose.
The defeat, as disappointing and frustrating as it was, came in a nothing game. At the start of the season when you try to work out from where the Boro would score our forty plus points, you write a zero next to Liverpool away.
Again, I don’t know if that’s pessimism or realism but you always travel there in hope that this could be the year we get something.
We last won at Anfield in 1977, eleven years before I was born.
In all of the thirty-one years that have passed since that day, this was probably one of the best times to play them.
They didn’t play well, they didn’t create a lot and they can count themselves very lucky to have won the game. They looked tired after their midweek win against the mighty Inter, and, the irony pointed out delightfully by Jeff Stelling was that Benitez, who picked an almost unchanged team, probably hadn’t made enough changes.
The individual errors that were made by both Julio Arca and Mark Schwarzer have cost us at least a point. Whilst mistakes that lead to goals are not something we look forward to, if getting those mistakes out of the way on Saturday means that we focus that little bit harder on Wednesday night, they could turn out to be a blessing in disguise.
The performance against Liverpool was an encouraging one, errors aside. We created chances and had the ball in the net several times, and while all were correctly ruled out, it’s refreshing to see us having a go at teams low on confidence when playing away from home.
Predicting the starting Xi for the game on Wednesday is certainly going to be tricky. With Wheater suspended and Huth facing a late fitness test, it could be Chris Riggott who lines up alongside Emmanuel Pogatetz, or even Seb Hines, who was on the bench ahead of Riggott at Anfield.
Stewart Downing has finally signed a new deal after months of speculation over his future and his agent declaring that he definitely wouldn’t be signing a new deal.
He will take his place in midfield along with Fabulous Rochemback and skipper Julio Arca, both of whom are due goals.
Gary O’Neil should be fit to start after illness saw him withdrawn just before the hour at Anfield.
After viciously assaulting Javier Mascherano on Saturday, Jeremie Aldailaidere is lucky he’s only facing a four match man and not a trail for attempted murder. But he loses his place, presumably to the now slimline Mido, unless Southgate deems this the right time to give Afonso Alves his first start.
A bit like Paris Hilton’s knickers and ‘entertaining rugby’, Mohammed Shawky seems to be a mythical creation that I’ve heard a lot about but I’m yet to be convinced is actually real.
Apparently, he’s back in training although I’d guess the clause in his contract that forbids him playing at any ground north of the M25 means we probably won’t see him make his home debut.
Knowing Boro, Wednesday won’t be done the easy way. An early Sheffield United goal will probably be followed by a barrage on Paddy Kenny’s goal, which ultimately, will see the game forced to penalties. This will be a shootout we will win.
One thing is for sure, a home win will give Sheffield United another reason to hate Wednesday.
Same time next week.
Up The Boro
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