Phoenix 0 Newcastle 1

A game of 2 halves was this one. The cliché is painful and trite but sometimes apt.

A reshuffle (which sounds forced by injury rather than tactical thinking) put Jeremy Christie over to right back (a Good Thing despite having a turning circle an articulated lorry would be embarrassed by) and O'Dor at centre back. This was nearly a Good Thing, but wasn't, although I'm not sure why. He seemed good but there were errors and communication was suspect. Karl Dodd still plays like the most put-upon man in the world, as if all the troubles of the team were laid at his door. Lochhead on the left looks like a proper footballer. Right down to the Tony Woodcock 70s bubble perm. Moss in goal looked his normal self - good on stopping, not good on handling. Mind you, I didn't actually recognise him... sorry.

The midfield had the same mushroom shape as last time, with Aloisi the anchor (in so many ways), Ferrante kind of to the right, Daniel kind of to the left and Johnson through the middle. Smeltz and Felipe were up front with Felipe playing a much more withdrawn role. Johnson didn't look fit. He played some fantastic stuff early on and then appeared simply to fade. Towards the end of the match he looked like he didn't really want the ball any more, releasing earlier and earlier and not stepping up. Daniel had a night to forget, despite some beautiful touches: the ball never seemed to beat the first man and he couldn't produce much of meaning. Smeltz, to paraphrase an observation about Inzaghi, appears to have been born offside.


That leaves Felipe and Ferrante. Little Phil looks a gem. He is tigerish and just a little cynical. His touch is excellent, and occasionally outrageous - one time the ball comes to him from behind, at an angle and in the air and then he controls it on the top of his foot and continues running. I rarely get that right (by rarely, I mean as rare as a tyrannosaurus rex). But when he fades he vanishes. I believe he took a knock, but I think he was already ineffectual by then. Ferrante, however, was the most palpable representation of the game. In the first half I was choking back my mocking words of the previous weeks and was admiring the fact that his perennial endeavour was actually matched by delivery. In the second half he was back to his old self, getting the ball and delivering it neatly to the opposition. He missed one of the few chances that our excellent possession deserved, slamming a decent opportunity way over the bar.

Coveny and Brownlie came off the bench and were ineffectual and willingly ineffective respectively. Brownlie can run and run (which is more than Dodd and Smeltz could do by the end), but kicking is not exactly his strength.

The ref was okay. Nothing spectacularly bad. His linesmen were not good: even though it is a reasonable assumption that Smeltz is offside, you really should check. And when the ref looks to you for a throw in decision, it really isn't enough to wait for him to tell you what you should have done.

The opposition was ordinary: I didn't really pick out anyone as a real threat. Their defence was solid and committed, with one particular sliding tackle to block a shot being a remarkable effort (I can't remember who missed it, but while it should have been a goal really, the defender deserves enormous credit).
The goal was frustrating. The free kick didn't look like it should have been one, the wall was massively oversized considering how far out it was (5 man wall from there!?! Who is it? Roberto Carlos?), it was probably the only free kick in the game where the ref enforced the 10 yards rule and the finish looked more like a deflection than a shot. But it counts and I'd be happy if I was them. But the Phoenix should have been 2 goals up after the dominance of the first half.

If the halves had been the other way around, the crowd (11,400 or so) would have left happy, even with the result. Instead it is disappointing. And it is, of course, my last game before going. Hopefully Forest will make up for this. Oh, who do I think I'm kidding?