I'll trot out the team and then I feel the need for a cathartic rant.
| Glennon | ||||
| Regan | Anderson | Strong | Smith | |
| Ashbee | Green | Price | ||
| Dudfield | Alexander | Elliott |
"And so, Mr Molby, all those four defenders are your personal acquisitions and all four, that's ALL FOUR, are conspicuously short of the required standard. What's the point in fetching in Regan, a loan signing from Barnsley, and then bringing his modest talents into the team in place of Mike Edwards rather than the bewildered Smith? Sure, Smith had his best game for the club yesterday. And was still dreadful. So Edwards to left-back, please. Then there's Strong. I suppose that he, like Smith, must once have been quite a good footballer, and quite recently too, but all the evidence is that this is a man plunged on a very rapid descent down the slippery slope of under-achievement. Sure, you hauled Strong off at half-time yesterday and quite right too, Mr Molby, but the damage had been done by then. And while I'm on, Lawrie Dudfield, a word with you too, if you please. You have abundant talent, and it was a joy to see you back to your sleek best against Southend. But you were off the pace at Bristol, and you showed minimal appetite for the fight yesterday at Exeter. I don't want any repeat of the way you sulked your way through the later stages of last season - pull yourself together man, and do it now."
...Yes, I know, calm down, calm down, it's only three games in, and only a half-wit with the attention span of a young puppy would seriously have expected our new manager to have crafted an irresistible promotion machine out of the smouldering wreck that was bequeathed to him last April. Marathon not a sprint, yeah yeah, don't patronise ME sonny. Yesterday was plain awful. With Elliott off injured, Green red-carded (yes! that's three in three!) and Dudfield subbed after guilt was established on a charge of recidivist lethargy there were spells during the second half, in particular, where we looked like a dullard lumbering pub team, casually held at bay by polished superiors. At Exeter! Throw in a first half during which we took the lead but then rapidly threw it away, and proceeded to get ripped to defensive shreds time and again, and the mood of sullen shock that settled on a City support that had braved a fearful motorway obstacle course to win the prize of viewing this shambles was palpable and painful.
Exeter began by attacking the away end, and any expectation that we would extract maximum glee from witnessing the combined incompetence of aged sledgehammer Steve "Roberta" Flack, winsome waster Lee Sharpe and long-suffering absurdly Afro'd Don "Beyonce" Goodman was rudely shattered as it became horribly apparent that this comedy trio were far too lively and canny for our defence. Goodman set up Sharpe who transferred the ball on to Flack, and, in a penalty-box melee that owed everything to a lack of defensive leadership and decisiveness in our ranks, we were ultimately rescued only by a desperate toe-end from Regan. Sharpe looked keen to impress (though, one would suppose, any watching managers and scouts that swim in more elevated seas than the English 4th Division were the intended targets, rather than the Exeter support) while Goodman was visibly relishing being permitted the unaccustomed luxury of receiving and controlling the ball without any serious interference from opposing defenders.
It was disturbingly poor stuff, so City, quixotically, scored. A ball was knocked in by Elliott from wide on the left towards Alexander, stationed just outside the penalty area. He squared the ball with his first touch to Green, who stroked a breathtakingly nonchalant side-foot strike into the back of home net. 1-0, and we dream of the unravelling of a relaxing afternoon in the Devon sunshine and a three-point reward.
Such basking never looked likely. Exeter, to their credit, got stuck right back in. A free-kick reached Goodman in space, but he headed wide when he should have scored. Then the home side worked the ball down their right - our left: Smith's side, I add more in sorrow than anger - and when the pass was pulled back to Lee Sharpe fifteen yards out, he had time enough to take a steadying touch and roast the ball into our net via the underside of the crossbar.
Such slack, unfocused defensive organisation seems to be a chronic problem for this City side, and Exeter were by no means satisfied with their deserved equaliser. Flack headed the ball down to Goodman who held possession with supreme indifference to the feeble amber-and-black pseudo-challenges that surrounded him before sliding a pass on to Sharpe. His shot was tipped wide by a morose Glennon. Then a ball hoisted in from their left finds Coppinger, a nippy midfielder who has run unopposed from a deep-lying position, and his shot crashes noisily against the crossbar before bouncing out to safety.
And now we lose Elliott. Earlier he had been booked after sprawling across the turf under a robust challenge from an Exe. I thought the booking was for simulation, in which case the referee got it horribly wrong, for Elliott never recovered from the tumble and was now forced to limp off. However, it may be that the referee booked Elliott for a tackle over the ball in the original incident, in which case his injury was, I suppose, self-inflicted. It's often hard to tell at Exeter - the rake of the terraces is very shallow. Whatever: Johnson replaced Elliott, and slotted in on the right side, while Dudfield switched to the left flank vacated by Elliott.
Only moments later Exeter too made a change, though this seemed unforced. Don Goodman ambled happily off, to be replaced by Martin Thomas. There was no apparent injury so perhaps the bustling front-man is contractually required to play no more than a half-an-hour's cameo these days, delighting his band of admirers with a wink and a burly side-step before taking off early-doors for the sanctuary of more illicit girth-enhancing pleasures. He is surely the West Yorkshire Maradona.
The dismal charade continues. Exeter are targeting Smith's wing for most of their attacking endeavour, and Coppinger cuts in energetically from that side to smash a left foot shot just over our bar. It is a vain aspiration that we might cling on to 1-1 up until half-time, and that vision is trampled underfoot as the dismal half reaches its concluding moments. First, Green is sent off - a straight red for a high tackle. From where I was standing, this was one of those daft sendings-off, like Ronaldinho's against England in the World Cup, where a referee treats a slightly ill-timed, over-eager but wholly unmalicious challenge as a potential leg-breaker. Well, perhaps, in unusually unfortunate circumstances, such challenges might break legs, but there's something gone awry with the game's values when this type of misjudgement is penalised at the same level of severity as Roy Keane's frequent calculated on-field criminal assaults. But Green is gone and we are down to ten men, and soon after we are 2-1 down as well. It is a truly abysmal goal. The ball bounces towards Strong, in the middle of the goalmouth, six yards out. Instead of lashing it clear, he seems transfixed; have the markings on the new Official Approved Football been tested for their capacity to plunge players into a glassy-eyed trance? Strong dithers, and simply wobbles the ball a couple of yards behind him, where a surprised but grateful Flack intervenes to nudge it past Glennon and over the line.
Half-time brings immediate sanction, for the woeful Strong is pulled off in favour of Justin Whittle, while the terminally torpid Dudfield loses his place to Williams. But inside a minute of the re-start it is catastrophically 3-1, as Exe skate down their right and a near-post cross is nodded home by a flurried combination of Flack and Whittle. I don't consider this was more than bad luck thrust upon Justin. He can hardly be expected to step into the team at this late stage and immediately perform at his usual flawless defensive best, and he did all he could to block Flack's run. On the evidence we've seen so far this season, Strong would have been placidly inspecting his fingernails while Flack rammed an unopposed header into our net. Justin always competes and he is now, I trust, a fixture in our first eleven once again.
With the home side 3-1 up and City playing with ten men and deprived of our three most flairful players in Elliott, Dudfield and Green, there was little genuine expectation of a revival, either among players or fans. And so it proved. The second half was anaemic and deserves to be disposed off with maximum brevity. Flack should have scored again when Smith lost his man and permitted the delivery of a cross and an easy scoring opportunity, but the header was negligently tucked wide of Glennon's post. Alexander, lacking last season's bite, appeared to have run clear of the cover, only to be tackled pursuant to a poor first touch. In fact, the Exeter central defensive pairing of Curran and Santos was highly impressive throughout, showing mutual understanding, positional sense and commitment in the challenge. Then, up at the other end, Coppinger drifted through two tackles as he cruised from right to left before loosing a shot that Glennon held. Didn't Coppinger once score for Hartlepool
at the Ark? He was very good indeed yesterday.
More will be written by stupified others, I should imagine, not least about Exeter's willowy mascot, but I am weary with the sense of things going horribly wrong. I mean, I've only mentioned in any detail the players who played REALLY badly. There was also Williams, who came on at half-time and promptly vanished; Price, who offered nothing going forward and rarely shored up Smith's over-run emplacement (a formidably large task, I admit); Ashbee, who was booked again. It was truly an all-round shocker. I'll stop now, I think.
Report by: Steve Weatherill