Sky Blue Sport News

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Big Task!

After two wins on the road and it was a long road, away to Ballinmallard on Tuesday of last week and then away to Institute on Saturday past, United are to have some home comfort on Boxing Day, when they entertain the Coleraine scum. Normally this fixture is looked forward to with glee by United supporters, but this year they have to do without their defensive stalwart, JT, who misses the game due to suspension.

Due to catalogue of injuries, too numerous to mention, United have one central defender in their panel, Marky McCullagh, who's been struggling to hold down a regular place on the bench, never mind the starting X1. Fergie, has other options at his disposal, he could deploy Captain Jenks, as a stop-gap central defender, or he could move Sparky from central-midfield, to central-defender, where he has filled in before.

But we at 'Sport think that he'll be reluctant to split up his central-midfield pairing of Sparky and Captain Jenks, which is only starting to bear fruit. He tried the versatile Mike Ruddy, in at central-defence, but its fair to say it wasn't a success. So we at 'Sport think he will select Marky and hope he rises to the occasion of a derby against the scum. In general derbies tend to be blood and thunder games and with a few points separating the two clubs, we expect this one to be no different.

The United panel, barring injuries, we expect to be on the same lines as that which got us two wins on the trot. But no offence to the Ducks and the Stute, this game against the Coleraine scum will be a tenser affair, with no quarter asked or given. These encounters generally call for a strong referee, but we lucked out on this score, when we got old 'see no evil' Colin Burns. We could wax long and hard about the shortcomings of old 'burns night', but suffice to say he doesn't fill us with any confidence.

Stuarty Addis, will do well to remember him, for he (Burns), let 'one cap' get away with a horrid tackle on Stuarty last Boxing Day at Coleraine and it was thought at one stage that Stuarty's football career was over, thankful he made a recovery. Not a full recovery, we might add, he has to bind two of his fingers together with tape, in order to be able to play, a brave man or a foolish one, we'll let our fans be the judge of that, but we at 'Sport think, he's brave.

Darboy and Tippers are only starting to fulfil their potential as striking partners and it will be interesting to see how they blend together on Friday, with the no nonsense scum defence, led by Howard Beverland. Surely if Beverland has any weakness, it is his arrogance, so its up to Darboy and Tippers to try exploit that feeling of superiority and get in among the goals. We know its going to tough, but its past time to be weak, we have to be tough and sent the scum home pointless.

There's rumours of a near sell-off crowd, but we believe it will be a good crowd, not a sell-out crowd. Coleraine fans are famous for coming in at halftime, when its free, in short they're miserable gets. So there could be 1200 in the away stand, but that's way below capacity. We'll have a good crowd too, say 1400 and it'll make for a ding dong atmosphere, so come on United, let's shag this Coleraine scum and send them down the A 26, in tears!