Diamond Geezers, Episode 18: Man Utd’s Heavy Hitters Are Back
We start with our second cup semi-final fixture of the season: this time, we’re back to Loftus Road to look deep into the eyes of Queens Park Rangers. We’re suffering a bit before this one — our last game against Southampton resulted in a crushing 3–0 victory, and my battle-hardened squad are still undefeated all season, but the wear and tear is starting to show. What’s also becoming blindingly obvious is that I should have signed a left-back to provide cover for Paul Underwood months ago, but I haven’t, and now he’s stuck at 81% and I have a decision to make. We have Exeter City next, and then the second leg of the League Cup semi-final against Manchester United. I decide to leave Underwood in, despite him wheezing like an asthmatic hand dryer at the end of training, and resolve to rotate everyone for our next encounter. He’s also wanted by Fulham despite my putting his valuation up to £2m, so I grab a nearby Super Soaker to ward off any encroaching scouts.
QPR are still without Clarke Carlisle, who has done his cruciates, but otherwise they are at full strength. I imagine this could be a very different game to the one earlier in the season, where they lost almost all their best players to injuries and we turned them over with relative ease. Richard Langley and Doudou are best supporting actors to some serious firepower up front in Andy Thomson, Leroy Griffiths, Karl Connolly and Richard Pacquette. I just hope that Sir Les enables Haunt Your Old Club mode for long enough to drag us through. I clench tightly, and we’re off.
The first half is an advertisement for the kind of quality you should expect from two teams in the Vans Trophy Southern Section Semi Final. QPR, led by Doudou, are smothering us and causing all sorts of problems for my two full-backs. However, both sides can only manage efforts that are off target for the first 20 minutes — and then, the Great Dane takes centre stage. Byron Bubb plays a one-two with Pflipsen and chips the return ball onto the head of Møller, who nods past Chris Day to give us the narrowest of leads. QPR are still very dangerous, though, and it doesn’t take long for them to reply. Doudou is making mincemeat out of Underwood down our left, and his fourth cross of the day is nodded down by Thomson and Karl Connolly wallops past Pinheiro to make it 1–1 at the break.
What I said before the game about needing cover for Underwood was never truer than now. He’s on 75% and been beaten too many times for me to be happy to leave him out there. I put the pacey Wayne Carlisle on in his place and tell him to make Doudou extinct. Langley is also pulling plenty of strings in CM, so it will be the job of Mad Dog to put paid to that.
The second half starts much better. Doudou does immediately have a chance, which Pinheiro saves, but after that, he’s forced to track Carlisle’s marauding runs and eventually gets booked for fouling him. From the resulting free kick, McKinlay finds Bubb, and he launches yet another cross into the box which Sir Les rises to head past Day for 2–1. For the way we’ve come out in this half, there’s no doubt that we deserve the lead — but now the players are tired, and we are seriously rocking. Connolly is all over us and he breaks our lines again and again, but Pinheiro is a monster in nets, palming away every effort that comes his way. I switch the tiring and fairly useless Gough for Garry Monk and also take off Bubb, who is down to 1% body fat, for Farnerud.
Pinheiro saves from Langley. Griffiths crosses and Connolly’s header crashes back off the crossbar. We are creaking, and I anticipate the equaliser as we enter the 90th minute. Thomson gets some space again, and strikes… Pinheiro saves, the ball is loose — Griffiths is there! Pinheiro saves again! The ball is still free in the area, and Bignot smashes it goalwards — AND GARRY MONK CLEARS OFF THE LINE! Heroics from Monk, and that’s it! It’s all over! My god, we barely deserve it, but we’ve won against the odds once more. I am speechless, and I need a face-down nap.
In the wake of that result, I go back to my shortlist to make efforts to sign a new left back. St Johnstone instantly tell me to get my grabby hands away from Ross Forsyth. Bids are also submitted for Clint Hill and Jamie Victory, almost definitely in vain, plus I text “how u doin” to Christian Kalvenes. I also notice on my Player Search that Arsenal legend Nelson Vivas is not getting games at Inter Milan, and is apparently interested in playing here. I chuckle heartily to myself before submitting an incredibly hopeful £1m bid. He’s valued at £1.8m, but I mean, we got Les Ferdinand for £500k, so who knows?
I click Continue, and all my bids are rejected, except for one. Inter have accepted my offer for Vivas. Okay now. He’ll never actually want to play here, surely? Well, he wants to be a first-team player. I think I can stretch to that. What’s that, Nelson? You only want £7k per week? Uh, okay, let’s see… take out that £150k release clause and maybe cut the four-year contract down to one that only runs until the end of the season, and… no, no, this can’t be right. This says you accept. You mean reject with the laughing emoji, right? No? Well then.
The trip to Exeter is an excellent warm-up before the visit of Manchester United, and you won’t be surprised to hear that I go with a completely changed line-up. The Grecians are 18th in Division Three and hopefully shouldn’t trouble us. I trust my dynamic duo of Ronaldo and Darby to get the job done here.
We pound Exeter in the first half and Jamie Davies gives us a 3rd-minute lead, but wouldn’t you know it, they manage one shot on target and they score. Jay Richardson crosses for Paul Tait to head past a motionless Lama, and it’s 1–1 at the break despite our almost total dominance.
The second half starts similarly, but it doesn’t take long for absurdity to land at St James’s Park. Firstly, on 63 minutes, Martin Barlow tries to beat Wayne Carlisle, and Carlisle pushes him over. Free kick Exeter, but that’s not all — our cretinous referee decides that’s worthy of a red card, and Carlisle is sent off for one of the most innocuous challenges I’ve ever seen. And then, just to compound the situation, Alistair Otto steps up and rattles in the free-kick to put us 2–1 down with 20 minutes to go! It’s almost as if someone wanted to hear every swear word in my vocabulary at once, and they do, as Paul Buckle takes the ball from kick off and beats both my centre backs on the way to thumping an effort at goal that, this time, Bernard Lama decides to try to save, and he does. I am apoplectic as I make all three changes — Møller for Darby, Pflipsen for Carey and Underwood for Colosimo, who’s been shoved into an auxiliary left-back role. I push everyone forward as we tick into 80 minutes and I can’t believe, after all this, that bloody Exeter are going to be the ones who break my unbeaten streak.
The 84th minute comes and Garry Monk, for some reason, is standing over a free kick. He pumps the ball into the box and Jamie Davies, beautiful, wonderful Jamie Davies, rises above Hughes and slaps a header past van Heusden to equalise. Not happy with this, I continue to press everyone forward, and from kick off, we rob Exeter and Møller comes away with the ball. He whacks a shot that van Heusden saves, but rather than hold the ball he can only parry it — and the deerish Alexander Farnerud comes galloping into the area unmarked and converts the rebound! Two goals in two minutes have completely turned this game around, and our ten men have beaten Exeter 3–2 in a completely bananas second half. What a game. As if the QPR match wasn’t enough. And we’ve got United next! Perhaps some rum will stop my hands from shaking.
Wayne Carlisle is banned for three games after his vicious pushing over of Martin Barlow and I instantly appeal. That’s such a joke I’m surprised it wasn’t handed to me by a clown. A few days pass, my scouts recommend a certain Stevland Angus to me and I shortlist him for later, and then the FA come back to tell me that they find the punishment of Carlisle to be “just and fair”. I resolve to wage a personal vendetta against them forever. If we win the FA Cup, it’s going straight in the River Nene.
Okay then, lads. Extended episode today, because it’s time for our return leg against Man United, and I can’t wait. Glancing at their squad, it looks like Giggs and May will miss out again, as will Eldar Hadzimehmedovic, but they won’t worry too much about him because Becks is fit and presumably will play. Other than that, United have their whole squad to choose from, but the question is — who will turn out for them? Sir Alex steps down from their gleaming team bus with a twinkle in his eye. He fires a wink my way and disappears into the away dressing room.
Who will turn out for us is a much easier question to answer. My team is virtually self-selecting for games like these — the only real decision I’ve made is to leave McKinlay at DMC instead of Kah, due to Mad Dog averaging 7.80 in cup games so far this season. I feel like he deserves it. Let’s head out and see what we’re up against.
It’s a strong team, but not their strongest. Giggs starts despite being orange injured, and Scholes is in CM. Yorke and Cole are up front, Barthez is in goal, but there’s no Beckham, Keane, Veron, Blanc, Johnsen, Van Nistelrooy or Solskjaer. I tell McKinlay and Mustafa to hurt Giggs and Scholes, and we’re underway at Nene Park. The mood is tense.
Ten minutes go by, and it’s been all United. Pinheiro is mountainous in goal, keeping Scholes, Yorke and Cole at bay. We’ve had nothing — until Byron Bubb collects a pass from Chris Brandon, nutmegs Wes Brown, and slams home a goal against the run of play! It’s 1–0!! We don’t deserve it, even slightly, but we’re ahead!!
United are still coming at us strong, but they cannot beat Pinheiro. He is channelling the late, great Peter Shilton and beating away everything United put towards him. Freddie the Fence is also outstanding, blocking shots from Scholes and Giggs and marshalling our defence expertly. I am roused. For a brief moment, I allow myself to dream.
That moment is just enough time for the Champ Manager gods to reach down and slap me right across the chops. Nicky Butt charges into the penalty area, Pinheiro comes out to meet him, but clips him on the way past — it’s a penalty, and it’s a red card for our mightiest hero. Hugo is off, so I hook the carded Pflipsen and put Lama in nets. We are properly stuffed, and assuming we will concede the pen, I put us to full counter-attacking mode and pray we can hold out.
Yorke does convert the penalty to make it 1–1 on the night, but the gods are not finished with me yet. Instantly, Wes Brown punts a ball ahead of Yorke, who catches a sweet half-volley that rifles past Lama. Underwood puts a free-kick on target, but Barthez eventually gathers, and launches an instant counter attack — Brown finds Butt, who plays a pass into the box for Cole to furiously strike home United’s third. As quickly as you can blink, it’s 3–1 United.
We reach half time, we’re two goals down, a man down, and we look dejected. To be honest, it’s hard to know what to do in these circumstances, so I do what I always do. I put them on all-out attack, look every player dead in the eye, and tell them to give United a second half they’ll never forget.
Risp is instantly booked for booting Andrew Cole into row Z and is lucky not to be given a second yellow card for angrily confronting the referee straight afterwards. Bernard Lama, who I often put forward as a bit of a jester, is flying around his goal and palming away efforts from Scholes, Butt and Yorke. Meanwhile, Møller and Sir Les are seeing a bit more of the ball, but they are being completely marshalled by the Neville brothers — Gary in particular is regularly in the commentary robbing my forwards of possession. However, I find myself disappointed when both of my big strikers miss the target from headers that have been meat and drink for them all season. I can’t blame them, of course, but I feel like Lady Luck doesn’t want us to play in the League Cup final this season. And I’m right — Yorke hits the bar, then Giggs hits the bar before being forced off injured (well done Tarkan), Møller has a shot saved by Barthez in the last minute, but we can’t do anything to change the scoreline, and it finishes 3–1 United, 4–2 on aggregate. Hard lines, lads. It just wasn’t our day.
I’m forced to taste my first defeat as Diamonds boss, and I have to say, it doesn’t feel too bad. Having your keeper sent off in the 22nd minute is going to stuff you in virtually any game, let alone against Manchester United. I’m still happy with the way we applied ourselves and kept going even in the face of overwhelming odds. Let’s look on the bright side: the Treble is still on.
Sir Alex knocks on my door as I get the news that Pinheiro has been banned for three games. I tell him I can only offer him a selection of hard alcohols in pint glasses. He enters, and closes the door firmly behind him.
