Back to the Footture E28
Going to Lisbon and getting a point is certainly a long way from going away from home to Hamilton and losing 1–0 in the Challenge Cup in our first season. I choose to celebrate as such, getting met with a police escort at Prestwick airport after having one too many miniatures on the flight home. Luckily, the police drop me at my home after a promise of an executive suite at the next game.
It’s not even that costly as our next game is a Scottish Cup tie against Raith. Buoyed by the reduced cost of the suite, I do a large amount of rotation before the game and sit up in the stand, leaving Catts to deal with the touchline duties for the day opposite John McGlynn.
It’s a very confident performance, with our margin of victory only lessened by our somewhat relaxed approach and the performance of the opposition keeper. Paul gets an early brace and Emile follows up to put us 3–0 up at the break, with Conor icing the game early in the second half with a fine strike from a through-ball from Paul.
We get drawn against Peterhead in the next round of the cup, who have dropped out of the leagues but have overcome three League 1 sides to progress this far. Nonetheless another wonderful opportunity for rotation.
Next up, we play the mighty JT Hertz at Ibrox on a Wednesday night at Ibrox in the League Cup semi-finals. There are so many things wrong with this sentence that I get a migraine, granted changing in the home dressing room at Ibrox is even weirder. Celtic and Rangers are playing our the other semi-final at Hampden on the same evening, and Glasgow city centre turns into a modern day version of The Warriors as the various factions of fans duck and dive. Its back to full strength for us as I remind the players of the problems that the Maroon Bastards have caused us of late. Let’s win and win well.
Straight from kick-off, Hearts attack through new signing Folorunsho, who drives forwards and tees up Jamie Walker to hit a dipping effort from 20 yards which screeches past Coniah and into the far corner to give them an early lead. After an inept first 20 minutes I push Billy forwards and call over Simone to tell him to get the team going. He does just that and wins the ball inside the Hearts half, where Vasilios picks up and plays a quick diagonal to Osame. he touches it straight back to Georgios 25 yards out, and he takes a touch and curls an effort…..INTO THE TOP CORNER!! MAGIC FROM THE GREEK! 1–1.
It gets even better 2 minutes later — a cross from Osame finds Georgios backpeddling in the box and he nods it back across where Guus Til is waiting to head the ball past Davies to put us into the lead! Suddenly its all us and an overhead kick from Georgios goes narrowly over the bar, but Hearts counter and Jamie Walker nearly equalises but Coniah makes a brilliant save diving to his left.
Another good save from Godden from Coniah keeps us in the lead and Guus nearly extends it with a vicious volley that Davies bats away. Billy shoots wide, but Georgios presses high up the pitch from the restart, robs Matheson and has the simplest of tasks to square the ball for Osame to pass it into an open goal! 3–1 and but for two more saves from Davies from Vasilios and Georgios we’d be further ahead.
I tell the team to kill the game and they do just that, with no action up to 70 minutes to speak of barring a couple of subs. Coniah makes a late save from Godden as they throw the kitchen sink at us with the accuracy of a drunken wombat, and any other crosses are repelled by our hybrid Scottish-Dutch defence. As the full time whistle blows I go across and shake John Terry’s hand, coming away with a handful of notes and minus my tie.
Another final it is! And this time we’ll play Celtic after they beat Rangers 1–0 in a 2 shots to 8 Champing.
We take the rest of the week off ahead of a trip to the land of Birdies and Bogeys and spend a night in a hotel outside of Perth ahead of visiting McDiarmid Park. Callum Davidson has got his charges into rare form and up in 4th place, so I decide to keep the side in a similar state.
2500 away fans have made the trip up for the game and it feels like a home game for us with seas of blue-clad supporters swarming around the ground. Osame, Morten and Vasilios get a rest — with Billy banned and Guus rotated out for the livewire Paul Nebel. This is a big test, and one that I want to be well over par in — despite that fact that under par is better. Golf is fucking stupid.
The opening 15 minutes are cat and mouse as the offensively bad kit clash leads to both teams misplacing a number of passes. The get the first chance through Middleton, but Coniah pushes it away. Stevie May forces Coniah into action shortly after and it feels justified when they get the opener on 20 minutes with Whyte sliding home a cross. 0–1.
We get an unexpected bonus two minutes later when we get a corner from a long ball and its handled by a defender. Perr Schuurs steps up….SAVED. What the fuck is he doing taking penalties?!?! I’m still screaming at Catts as Aymen has two shots saved in quick succession, then hits a rising effort over the bar after good work from Simone. We are still behind as we go in for half-time.
Georgios and Paul look like they mean business in the second half and both have efforts saved by Zander Clark as I bring on Emile and Armando to go two up front. Vasilios comes onto the left in place of Aymen — but its route one that gets us the equaliser — Emile with a long ball forwards to a streaking Koutsias to slot past the keeper with 20 minutes to go.
They score shortly after through Vaughan, but it rightly gets chalked off for offside. Paul then strikes a free-kick wide as we head into the closing stages and then a snapshot from a knockdown from Armando is saved by Clark. Suddenly we are all over them and Perr has a header saved then Armando has a shot brilliantly tipped round the post by Clark. From the corner, Perr rises to meet it…AND PUT US 2–1 UP. FINALLY!
Georgios has a goal chalked off which would kill the game before Vasilios heads wide. With time nearly up, Oliver Villadsen takes a quick throw into the area where Armando ghosts in and hits an emphatic volley home to make it 3–1. From kick off, we switch off and Stevie May scores from a Vaughan through-ball but time is up and we finish 3–2 winners in an absolute barn-burner of a game.
At this stage we are 19 points clear of Rangers (though they have a game in hand) and I’m doing a full Stevie Clarke “Bye-Bye” in every interview after we win. They threaten to ban me from Ibrox next time we play there but the SFA eventually talk them down by agreeing to award them 3 decision against us. This sequence of events, whilst entirely made up, is incredibly plausible.
What is implausible is that we are just a point away from Champions League qualification to the knock-out stages. We would progress anyway if Feyenoord vs Sporting doesn’t have a winner, but I want to do this and do it well. Man United are up in the dizzy heights of 3rd in the Premier League with January additions Timothy Castagne and Wout Weghorst key contributors. I’ve locked Simone down on a new long term deal though and he is better than both of them.
Rugby Park has seen some atmospheres in my time at the club, but this is off the scale. The streets around the ground are shut from 4pm to create a fan-zone and the Man United coach is greeted with Buckfast and flares as they pull up at the ground and process off wearing earbuds and looks of pure fear. I hear a shout as the players run out their changing room pre-game complaining — as I discover that my traditional gift of pickled herring for Ole hasn’t gone down well. After a bollocking from UEFA officials its game time, and we are at full strength. Lets fucking have it!
Both sides have early chances, with Dybala shooting wide and Osame doing the same at the other end. Morten Frendrup has been an invaluable January addition and he wins the ball on halfway, pushing it forwards to roaming Billy. He skips past a challenge from the advance United midfield and moves into space, looking up and hitting a cross from the right into Georgios — leaping like a salmon….WHO NODS IT OVER DE GEA AND IN!!! CUE BEDLAM!!! 1–0!!
It’s his 40th goal of the season so far and it’s fair to say he almost smiles at me. We push again from kick-off and some fine pressing gives Billy a chance to shoot but De Gea saves down low. We continue to sit deep and break at pace, winning a number of free-kicks, but unlike our first game United deal with them well. We get a warning when Sancho gets away down the right and his cutback is slammed wide by Dybala, and not long after Weghorst heads wide from another Sancho cross. We steady ourselves and with a couple of minutes to the break, Georgios wins a header and Osame gallops down the left. He pulls it back for the Greek….WHO IS BUNDLED OVER!! PENALTY!! Kik steps up…AND SCORES!!! 2–0 AT HALF-TIME!!
The boys drink in the noise from the stands above them as they sit in the changing rooms and I tell them that they can be history makers. We get out the tunnel early and get set whilst Ole reads the poems of Kipling to the United team. I assume this is what he does as they come out comatose. Billy and Kerr Smith have early shots saved by De Gea and a corner from Osame is powered wide by Kerr as we search for a third.
We are disciplined and well organised as United struggle to break us down, with Coniah commanding in claiming crosses with the giant Weghorst sniffing around. They win a corner and hook the giant Dutchman for Nketiah, but as I breathe a sigh of relief the ball is played in and Paul Pogba rises highest to bullet it home…2–1.
Straight from the restart, Georgios wins a free-kick 25 yards out and Vasilios curls an effort wide. With them committing men up the park we get some space to create but nothing seems to be sitting for the finishing touch to be applied. Dybala shoots wide after Kik loses him and Williams comes on to replace him. With 15 minutes left, clever interplay in the midfield between Ante and Billy sees the quiet Simone get some space, and he takes advantage to play a raking low ball between the centre back to Georgios…WHO ROUNDS DE GEA AND SLOTS HOME!!! 3–1!!!
The fans are all on their feet as we enter the final quarter hour and the referee’s whistle is drowned out on a couple of occasions as he tries to stop play. He gets an even more difficult job a few minutes later as Kerr Smith plays straight through the midfield to Billy, who runs at the defence backing off and plants a shot home with aplomb to make it 4–1!!! Georgios nearly gets his hat-trick in injury time as his shot hits the bar, but he makes the night even greater with a glorious turn on the edge of the box and a lovely flick back to Billy, who fires home with the last kick of the game…5–1!!!
