Last Stand!

United make the last trip this season to the 'carpet' that passes for a playing surface at Solitude, the home of Cliftonville, hoping for a much better outcome than our last trip there. On that occasion we got a drubbing, there's no other way to describe it and it's true to say we deserved it as we failed miserably to compete on the day. Admittedly the surface is not conductive to good football, but it's still no excuse for our slip-shod performance on the day. The news on the grapevine is that big Denver doesn't think he can give of his best on the artificial turf and that may initiate a change to United's starting line-up. Archie or Gazza look like the likely replacements for Denver, with possibly Colligan reverting to his leftback role if Archie gets the nod.

If Archie moves inside, Gazza will surely be recalled to centre-midfield alongside Caff who showed enough at Windsor to retain his starting place. Murray may switch to the left-midfield slot, with Sparky moving to rightback and Mikey to right-midfield. Rumour has it that on-loan striker Aaron Boyd may get a starting role but we at 'Sport think it more likely that he'll get a place on the bench. It's not known if Paul McAreavey will be on the bench tomorrow or not but one man who definitely won't be there is former Sky Blue, Ruari McClean. Ru turned down the chance to switch from 1st division Institute, saying he wants to stick with them until the end of the season as they have been good to him. He may have cause to 'rue' his decision as United need players to step up to the 'plate' now and if those who step up grab their chance, Ru may find himself left out in the cold.

One of the players in that category is George Young, who in our humble opinion showed enough when he came on at the Oval in the cup replay to warrant a start at Windsor last week. Unfortunately for George, Roy Walker didn't see it that way but we feel it'll only be a matter of time before young George makes the breakthrough. Reserve striker Matthew Boyd, who only came on for the final 13 minutes, is another who looks as if he might have something to offer and it will be interesting to see how he progresses between now and the end of the season. With both ourselves and our opponents Cliftonville out of all cup competitions, tomorrow's game should be a humdinger but hopefully United will prevail in the end. This is our last stand, we must make the best of it, so come on Sky Blues, let's shag those cavemen!