Sky Blue Sport News

Monday, June 12, 2006

Wrong Wright!

It’s been a while since our last update and to tell the truth there’s really no good reason for this, we’re actually just being lazy. There has been some new signings made by manager Wright, but really they’ve been far too predictable. Three ex-Limavady United players signed, for crying out loud, now what does that tell you? It tells us that our management team couldn’t spot a new prospect, if they came up and bit them. The signing of Mark Picking is really amazing too, the last thing we needed was yet another wide player, who is not renowned as a goal scorer. If we had signed a midfielder with an eye for goals, even if he was a winger, then it would’ve been understandable. But no, we sign yet another ‘fringe’ player from Linfield and we already have one of those and he hasn’t ‘set the world alight’, has he? Some ‘King of Kings’ he turned out to be. Added to this is the fact that we’ve released Kieran Donaghy, who prior to this season had been our best player by far. We’ve also just found out that Big Tam’s great prospect, assistant manager Jim Grattan’s boy, has not re-signed for the club and has joined Carrick Rangers, yet another prospect slips through the United net. We still have no recognised right-back, no reliable goalkeeper, no centre-midfield cover and to make matters worse, Rory Hamill is still on the ‘books’ and who can blame him, after all our board were silly enough to agree his ‘outrageous’ terms and he knows a good ‘meal ticket’ when he sees one. Forget about Tommy Wright’s media spin about Rory taking a pay- cut last season, it really didn’t happen, he took a cut in wages, but still got paid the same wage, we cannot say more without incriminating our source, but believe us, it’s true. Manager Wright also promised us some better pre-season fixtures this season, so we’re just wondering if the schedule announced in the local papers this week is a misprint. The game against Motherwell on Tuesday July 18th is a vast improvement, but games against Chimney Corner, Ballyclare Comrades and Raceview Rangers don’t exactly set the pulses racing. We at ‘Sport actually enjoyed our wee trip to Donegal last pre-season and had hoped it would be an annual affair, but alas our hopes have been dashed. Are we being too hard on the United manager, as he has failed to deliver the ‘goods’ on the friendlies? Or is this just a sign of how our season is going to unfold once again, lots of promises, but no end result? Hopefully our fears are unfounded and we will get that elusive trophy in the sideboard, but it’s going to be tough, thank God we’ve still got Kevin Kelbie, without him it wouldn’t look good!