Andy Munro despairs at St Andrews.
Yet another defeat, but numbness has thankfully set in because we are now in the bottom three and look devoid of both fight and inspiration. The fat lady is clearing her throat and undoubtedly, if fit, I’m sure that Lee Clark would manage to slot her in to the back four.
As usual, the Tinkerman was at work in his manic determination to find starting places for both Novak and Spector. In the case of the former, this meant that we played with just one up front and resting Macheda, the only player who currently knows where the net is. Baffling, especially as Ziggy, for once, had a decent game initially but there was nobody taking advantage of him winning more than his fair share of headers.
In the case of Spector, a lightweight centre back duo of him and Thorpe must have had our nemesis Matt Smith rubbing his hands with glee. A hat trick hero at Elland Road, he had probably heard of last week’s hat trick against the Blues by the equally gangly Gestede.
We started off quite well and Adeymi , who had a decent game before fading, should have opened the scoring. Unfortunately we lacked any semblance of penetration and we were predictably made to pay in a torrid second half. It was noticeable that even Burke couldn’t put a foot right in terms of crossing and, on the other side, an out of sorts Mitch Hancox and press-ganged winger Novak failed to spark.
It also has to be said that young Huws didn’t exactly look the cross between Ronaldo and Suarez that Clark has tried to make him out to be; his deadball kicks were particularly poor.
A Matt Smith header, virtually unchallenged, and a second a couple of minutes later killed the game. They rubbed it in with a third and, in a way, Macheda also rubbed it in with an excellently taken consolation goal showing what might have been if he had started.
Unfortunately, with so much tinkering, there is no chance of securing any understanding in the team in the last two games and whilst nobody can really accuse anybody of not trying, the whole team look desperately flat. Unfortunately Clark has already proved that whatever motivational powers that he possessed are long exhausted. The trapdoor is now wide open.