Another disappointing performance, and not what I wanted to see whilst running the risk of hypothermia in block R, what with the snow showers and the sub-zero temperature!

The BBC write-up is brief but pretty fair. We started brightly enough, with a nice goal from Gallen, but they also had a few chances, with some good crosses whipped in, and we were lucky to get away without conceding. After that the game seemed to fizzle out, probably in part to do with the temperature. Overall we were in charge, but the final ball was too often lacking.

The second half was more of the same, and somehow one always felt that Wolves were likely to score. Adam Miller started warming up after about 60 minutes, and the time felt right for a change, but once again Ollie delayed and delayed and by the time he came on it was too late again.

Once again there were no outstanding performances.

It was good to see Bircham and Bignot starting, but Birch is still a shadow of his former self, and gave away the ball quite a few times which was worrying.

Rowlands started on the right, and once more it was hard to tell that he was there a lot of the time. He didn’t do much, and he seemed to lack energy or commitment, although to be fair I don’t think he made any massive blunders.

Gallen started up front, which was a relief in a way as I don’t like him in midfield. Actually, he seemed to be quite fired up, and even had a burst or two of pace! I do wish that Ollie had the guts to drop him though. It’s not that he’s bad, simply that I think other people have a decent claim on all of the roles that he finds himself playing.

Santos, as usual, was a complete dufus. I seem to remember screaming “Santos you donkey!” at one point, which is fairly drastic for me considering I normally sit there quietly like the poncy middle class intellectual that I am.

I really don’t understand what Ollie sees in Santos, and I’m still sure that he must have a contract which stipulates that he must start every game, and cannot be substituted. He wasted possession more times than I can remember, and was equally ineffectual in the midfield (where he started), and up front (where he ended up).

Furlong was tireless as usual, chased down the ball well, and nearly nicked a goal off their defenders on more than one occasion.

Edgehill, playing at left back today, looked poor. Clearly he used to be good, but he doesn’t look confident, his distribution is really negative, and he’s another player who often seems not to really care. Gino has looked a bit dodgy this season, but I don’t think he’s worse than Edgehill, so I can’t figure out why he didn’t start.

Lee Cook? He does show occasional flashes of brilliance, but he is muscled off the ball so easily that you worry he might blow away with a sudden gust of wind. The word “wuss” springs to mind. I think someone needs to introduce him to the weights in the gym - or maybe just get some pies down him ;)

The phrase “snatched defeat from the jaws of victory” springs to mind.

I don’t remember much about this one (I’ve been moving house, so I got a bit distracted and didn’t write it up whilst it was fresh!), but I do remember that we really should have won it - they weren’t at all good and we just drifted off to sleep somehow in the second half.

It’s weird, but sometimes you can feel a goal coming, and it seemed obvious to me and Neil that we needed a change quickly because Preston were going to score. Instead of that Ollie waited and waited, as he often seems to do, and by the time he finally got round to it we’d gone from 1-0 up to 2-1 down. After the game he did admit that maybe he waited too long.

The only positive was seeing Bircham, Bignot and Rowlands come on - although with only 15 minutes remaining they didn’t have much time to make an impact.

Mysteriously, Santos stayed on even after this triple substitution, and ended up playing as a striker if my memory serves. What’s all that about then? We’ve got Gallen, Furlong and Cureton on the pitch, but we end up taking Cureton off for Bircham and putting Santos up front. Huh? Surely better to swap Santos for Bircham and then juggle some combination of Cureton/Gallen/Rowlands/Ainsworth in the centre-mid/right wing/right sided striker roles. Very odd.

Phase 2 of the great Elegant Chaos relocation is about to get underway.

As a result, the web site may be down for the next week or so. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible…

“This is Dyer” said the commentator at some point during the second half. He wasn’t wrong - it was dire.

Obviously I’m just a stupid computer programmer, but I don’t really understand what Sven was up to. We seemed to be trying a weird formation, that I really couldn’t make head or tail of. Funnily enough, the players didn’t seem to be making much sense of it either. Was it a 4-3-3? More like a 4-6, with the 6 being a random assortment of players milling around in the last two thirds of the pitch. Rooney on the wing? You’re ‘avin a laugh.

It was nice to see Wright - Phillips given a try, but again the formation didn’t really do him any favours, and I didn’t really see the point of giving Downing and Johnson just 30 minutes at the end, or playing Johnson out of position.

What I’d like to see in these sort of games is:

• start with the experimental side not the ‘stable’ one
• play the new players in their correct positions
• if necessary, ‘rest’ established players in order to try new ones
• if there’s a choice, ‘rest’ players who are not performing
• give the new players a long enough time on the pitch
• if you want to bring on some crowd pleasers, do it in the last 30 minutes when the opposition are knackered, and watch them please the crowd by scoring :)

Working on this logic, I would have started with Johnson up front with Rooney, and rested Owen who isn’t really performing right now. Whether or not you think Owen should be being picked for England, I don’t really see much point picking him for a friendly - it’s not like you’re going to learn something new. Fair enough maybe try him with another strike partner, but for that to work there has to actually be a formation where he has a strike partner. If things weren’t going well at half time, I’d have swapped one of the two for DeFoe.

Again following my logic, I would have started with Downing on the left, Wright-Phillips on the right, and I would have left Beckham on the bench. Beckham doesn’t have to take this as a snub to the player, but if he chooses to, and it gives him a kick up the arse, then what’s the harm in that?

Personally I think that Lampard and Gerrard are our best players, and one of them should be the captain. It’s such a rare pleasure to see them both fit in the same team that I’d have picked them both. But if we were going to try out Hargreaves again, why not start with him, and let Lampard and Gerrard play a half each?

I reckon a side lining up like that would have looked a lot more balanced. I think that having the new players on at the beginning would give them more confidence, and the team as a whole would feel like it had something to prove.

One final thought. If Downing isn’t ready, and we have to play a right-footer out of position on the left, I have the perfect candidate. It’s criminal to play Gerrard or Lampard out of position, and everyone is clamouring to see Wright-Phillips start. Who does that leave? A certain Mr Beckham. I know he’s not suddenly become a shit player, but he isn’t exactly setting the world on fire at the moment is he? Playing him on the left would give us the benefit of his hard work and tracking back, allow him to stay captain (which I don’t think he should be, but that’s another story), and it would mean that he was on the pitch for set pieces. Perfect…

I’ve had to turn off anonymous comments, as the site was getting comment-Spam. So if you want to leave a comment, you’ll have to register.

Please don’t let this put you off! It’ll only take a minute, I’m not going to do anything evil with the information you enter (you only need a name and password anyway), and it will have the added advantage that you can set up some preferences for how you view the site.