[No Title] IUE 1-2 San Frediano

Tuesday 6th November 2007. Scorer: Leo (see VIDEO below. Thanks to Dave Parsons.)

There ain't gonna be NO TITLE unless we make our luck change.

Okay, count to ten before reacting is a rule of thumb that is often banded around when talking about controlling one's temper in dealing with a situation that is threatening to boil over. I have counted to about ten thousand now before writing this match report. I am calm, almost.

In front of a huge crowd, apparently not all of them there for me, although Dom's girlfriend revealed her true feelings by calling me before the game during the teamtalk, we put on a performance that we should, on the whole, be very proud of. The reasons we didn't win are not that complex and are almost entirely down to our own failure to capitalise on our own domination and for a phenomenal ability to shoot ourselves in the head, nevermind the foot, TWICE. Sounds like a dodgy 'suicide' covering up a mafia assassination.

Seeking to get more texture and variation into our midfield, Nate came in on the right, and I switched to the left. Davie H came into the middle next to Luis and Leo pushed up to seconda punta. There is only so much you can say about our uncanny ability to fail to score in the last three games, despite our ratio of (excellent) chances being easily superior to our opponent's. Okay, a few missed chances and rushed finishes, but also the terrible luck of the ball going across the face of goal a good few times and missing the onrushing forwards by millimetres. Denied a stonewall penalty when Leo was pushed in the back when about to tap in my cross.

Ah the ref. Same one as last week (the groans and looks of dejection on discovering this were telling), and, in many ways, he was far far worse. I genuinely believe that this man is psychologically too unstable to be given the responsibility of such a volatile event as a men's football match. His decisions are so so so absurd at times, and his managing of the game even more so, that it is genuinely difficult to keep any semblance of concentration on the game. I, for example, as some of you saw, have two separate sets of stud mark on the back of my left leg, one of which stretches well over a foot down the back of my thigh and fucking kills. No foul either time. On the other hand, Davie Horan, among others, was penalised numerous times for absolutely cleanly winning headers, finally gets slightly frustrated and cries our a generic 'come on'. Booking for Davie. Unbelievable. UNBELIEVABLE. They get a free kick when two of theirs crock each other. One of their's ATTACKS Luis while he is on the floor (this is a red card), yet both of them get a ticking off. Insane. He also has a tendency to start screaming at random about not arguing when not a word has been uttered, and neither team knows who he is talking to. This is not the behaviour of 1. someone who understands football, or 2. someone who has the stability to do a job like this. A job for which, by the way, he is paid handsomely,

Okay, enough. I have sent a letter requested that this ref not be assigned to our games, with a detailed explanation of his erratic behaviour, arrogance and incompetence. His performance at the end of the game when I asked him how it was possible after NINE substitutions, two goals and at least two injuries that only three minutes of injury time were added topped even what had come before, as he first tried to avoid me by walking round in circles, then telling me that in Serie A the maximum amount of injury time is five minutes (??????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), then telling me that I had no right to talk to him, then on being told that I was allenatore, presidente and dirigente responsabile, he replied 'Non è vero', and started walking round in circles again, yelling incomprehensible nonsense.

Okay, enough about him. Fact is, we absolutely GIFTED two goals to them last night. In reality they created NO CHANCES, yet we let in two goals. We created six or seven excellent ones, yet only scored with a (fantastic) freekick at the end. Their first goal. One shout, 'yours', 'mine', anything the goal would have been avoided, instead we get our keeper 'saving' our defender's clearance, a daft pinball-style deflection routine off the two and the ball rolls in front off our goal.

Second goal. Even more ridiculous. Their striker is clearly offside, okay, so what. Ball bounces nowhere near him. Ref doesn't blow his whistle, so play is still going on, even though even the striker has stopped really. PLAY TO THE WHISTLE. We do not and we gift them an even bigger sitter that the first goal. This is pure pure tragicomedy, lads. Not good enough. So tragicomic that their lad hits the post from one yard before tapping when it comes back out.

Half way through second half, having dominated THE ENTIRE PROCEEDINGS, and we are two-nil down. We still have three excellent chances, in one way or another to score, plus Irial hits the post and Leo gets his excellent goal. This is a team which has one every game easily so far, yet they didn't understand where the pitch was for most of the game, given how much we was shitting on them. Even when we switched to 3-4-3 at the end, we still didn't look vulnerable until the last minute we got a rare favour from the ref when he called them offside when the lad was clearly in his own half.

Let's not be under any illusions though raga, the reason we lost is because of our psychological frailties - not taking responsibility, not staying focused and, fundamentally, not playing with the belief and arrogance that a winning team needs, and, more importantly, our superiority merits.

Still, I am willing to pray to any of the numerous inexistent Gods to help us never have to see this ref again.

At this rate, there will be No Title.