By Matty Blakeman
August 24 2002

Matty Blakemans Weekly Article this time Matty Appeals to the fans to give Duffy Time. Matty also gives his match prediction and reflects on Players who could be playing and who will be missing.

Give Duffy Time

It seems that Colonel Duffy isn’t winning to many plaudits following Saturday’s poor result against Dunfermline. However, the sound of many jumping onto his back and even calling for his head at such an early stage in the season disgusts me. I understand the disappointment of a defeat against a team that we have the quality to beat and I admit that Duffy made some positional shockers in the side but that wasn’t the reason we lost on Saturday. Firstly, to give credit where it’s due, Dunfermline were excellent in the final third of the park, albeit they were aided by our absence of full backs on several occasions but the slick passing and patient build up took us apart. Even though the defensive tactics were all wrong, performances owed much to be desired. Lee Wilkie seldom looks shaky but on Saturday he showed some but few signs of comfort. Jonay Hernandez showed that he has what it takes in terms of getting forward and probably should have scored on a couple of occasions. However, he was caught out far too many times on the wing, which allowed the Pars to have far too many terrific opportunities to play in good balls. But as I said, Duffy’s defensive tactics were wrong. From the word go, the 3 at the back with wingbacks looked very shaky. I thought that we were comfortable at a flat back four but even so, it is a wonder how Gavin Rae, a central midfielder is played as a full back while Lee Mair, a full back, is played as a central midfielder. David Young, however, of the official website, wisely stated that the defensive problems were inherited, not created by Duffy. 

In contrast, we were, at times, a joy to watch going forward. Like at the other end of the park, we were aided by poor, if not, risky defending. Nacho was superb. Took both his goals well and shouldn’t have been sent off. Two very soft challenges in an entire 90 minutes shouldn’t merit two straight bookings and did anyone else see anything wrong with his goal that never was besides the fact that it didn’t count? Didn’t think so. Caballero continues to impress me immensely and every time he received the ball in the first half, he seemed to open the Dunfermilne defence with ease. Sara, I’m afraid, failed to deliver what I was hoping for. There is something perverse about a 6ft4 striker who rarely jumps for the ball when at head height, leaving him beaten most of the time. What makes this even stranger is that when he does jump for the ball, he wins it with ease.

This week, we come across a potential and probable banana skin against the pointless and Luna-less Hibernian. I don’t think that with Luna, unfairly sent-off against Rangers last Sunday, missing, things are evened up following Novo’s absence this weekend. I’d much rather they both played as Novo is much more likely to cause problems than Luna. I feel repetitive in saying that we should win this one seeing that we haven’t won yet this season. Hibs look in worse shape than ever and even a 4-2 defeat to Rangers flattered them. From what I see of them, they’re a dirty team and won’t hold back on any tackles so beware…(checks to see who ref is)…(attempts to put head through monitor screen). Seriously though, Weelie gets too much of a hard time from many Dees due to some mistakes at bad times.

As for my prediction, score draw if we’re lucky. If not, Hibs win.

Editors Note (I would like to apologize to anybody who has been looking forward to reading this article or Matty Himself I have been very busy at the hospital and not had a chance to place the article up and when I went to last night my Internet connection would connect think that was Blueyonder Broadband fault though.)