Oval Hovel!

United put their 100% away record on the line (3 wins out of 3), when they make the trip to that dilapidated ramshackle of a place that they call the Oval. It seems Glentoran are resigned to staying there, there's no talk of leaving, no developer waving a fat cheque to get them to move. Or was that the 'deal' when this surprise benefactor gave them a donation to pay their debts? We'll never know for sure, but in light of some of the shady stuff that goes on behind closed doors, maybe that's as well. But the upshot is, Glentoran moving house is way on the back burner, the 'breakaway' league to force the I.F.A. to abandon filling Linfield's coffers as they have been doing from time immemorial, is as like the dust of the ground, blown away.

Now to the serious stuff, we wonder why United, who freeze when at home, have a 'never-say-die' attitude away from home? In the 3 matches to date we scored 11 goals and conceded 6, so on the basis of that it's fairly safe to say we might be in for high scoring game tomorrow. Glentoran, not too hot at home this season, seemed to have put that right in the last 2 matches, scoring 13 and conceding just 1. As for the make of the United team, we actually don't have a clue, but surely Conor Downey must be left on the bench. The Oval, for all it's shortcomings, is still a big pitch and we need players to be fit and mobile enough and run their heart out, Downey doesn't come into that category.

We had hoped Rory Carson was going to play himself in to contention but when he limped out of Irun Bru league cup tie on Tuesday after just 20 mins, we take he's not fit enough to play tomorrow. Eamon Murray, who had a fairly good match after coming on as sub on Tuesday is another who doesn't look fit and for that reason we can't see him in the starting line-up. We'll be surprised if Roy doesn't pick the same team, or maybe one change, that disgraced themselves so badly last Saturday. How Roy, who 'Sport believed was a proud man, could continue to be the boss of this bunch misfits after Saturday's display, it beggars belief. We have no doubt that he got a word of encouragement from some of our 'high ranking' board men or man. These misguided individuals/individual, may think they have the interest of United at heart, but we believe they are deluding themselves/themself.

We have no axe to grind about Roy Walker, we don't think he should be given the job in the first instance, but we were prepared to give him a chance. Now after over 3 years we realise he can't cut the mustard and while he has the backing he won't walk way, but for the good of the football club, his time's up. The result tomorrow may make the men in power feel justified but it's the other two matches we have at home against the joint-league leaders and our bogey team Dungannon Swifts, that'll be 'the straw that will break the camels back' and that is too horrible to contemplate. In our last three league games at home, our manager never came out of his box in the last 20 mins and that means he had given up and that's no good for us. We need manager that's fighting our corner to the bitter end, in short we need a change!