Diamond Geezers, Episode 90: Ride It ’Til The Wheels Fall Off
The Magic Man has come to us at a crucial time. A freshly-painted Chugger, sporting a brand new canary yellow paint job that was almost half price in the Brackmills Body Repair sale, has already hit the road to London where we’ll face Crystal Palace in the Premier League — and we’ll pick Deco up from Luton airport on the way past.
He’ll then learn, to the surprise of nobody, that he’s going straight into my starting team for our visit to Selhurst Park, on the right of a midfield three that also contains Frank Lampard in the middle and Kim Källström on the left, whose wand of a left foot still has a lot to prove more than halfway into our maiden Premier League campaign. Elsewhere, we boast an all-English defence for the first time possibly ever, as the excellent decision-making of Titus Bramble lines up alongside Jamie Carragher in the middle of my back four, with Chris Barker and Mike Duff at either full-back. You love to see it. Marcel Mahouvé continues to feast on the hearts of opposing forwards in DMC, and with Karadas still injured and Sam Parkin out of favour, Meysam Javan and João Paiva can torment the Eagles’ defenders with their pace and trickery… or at least, that’s the plan.
With only one of their starting eleven under 30, Palace are an ageing side; 20-year-old left-back Gregory Goossens presumably goes clubbing by himself. They’re second bottom of the league, so we should be able to have them on toast, but with prospective day-ruiner Ruslan Nigmatullin in goal, I’m not prepared to take any chances. We need to do a nice, solid, professional job today so that we don’t get champed. Give it Deco.
Thomas Flögel has Chiotis scrambling to tip a swerving shot around the post in the first minute and I’m already concerned that this could be a tougher test than I expected. After that, though, Bramble is booked for booting Cuauhtémoc Blanco into the sky, Lampard drills an effort over the bar from the edge of the box, and then both Javan and Paiva get into shooting positions only to see Nigmatullin fly around his goal to deny them both the chance to open the scoring. We’re just about on top of the game as Blanco gets ahead of Bramble and shoots just wide from the edge of the box, but in the aftermath, Titus uses every single one of his 20 for Decisions to shove the Mexican striker to the ground for no reason whatsoever. Jeff Winter waddles over and shows my young centre-half his second yellow card, and Bramble is sent off with only 37 minutes on the clock.
I drop Mahouvé into the back four for the time being so that I can assess the damage, and we limp through to half-time without being wounded further.
There’s much to decide at the break. I quickly yank Lampard, who is today’s midfielder to reach the break on a 5, and replace him with Papoutsis, who moves to centre-half as Marcel shifts up to the middle of my midfield three. The second half doesn’t start too badly considering we are down to ten men; we don’t create anything, but we stop the Eagles from doing the same, and to be honest, I’d be happy with a draw at this point. I then watch Javan shove Flögel to the turf off the ball and although I’m already taking off my jacket and throwing it to the ground in my technical area, I am relieved to see him only get a booking. It must serve as a distraction, because two minutes later, Pedro Miguel Matias lifts a corner into the box and Igor Yanovskiy rises above Papoutsis to head home the opening goal for Palace, putting us a goal and a man down with half an hour to go.
It’s time to take some kind of action. Javan is bang average and booked, so he comes off for Sam Parkin. That’s pretty much all I’ve got. However, at the very moment we need a hero, it turns out that my substitution is going to change everything — just not in the way I expected. Parkin receives a Deco pass in the penalty area and tries to go past Nigmatullin — but the keeper brings him down! What will Jeff Winter decide? Is he going to deny us a penalty like every other referee in the division? NO! It’s a red card for Nigmatullin, penalty Diamonds, and all of a sudden, it’s 10v10 and we have the chance to score from the spot!
Källström places the ball down. Byron Bubb watches on jealously from the bench. I’ve got my face buried deep in my hands as I realise I haven’t changed the order of my penalty takers for about three years. Källström takes a deep breath, and runs up to the kick…
GOOOOOOOAL DIAMONDS! Kim Källström tucks the pen past replacement GK Mark Wilson, and in one critical passage of play, we’ve gone from a man and a goal down to all square on both fronts!
Despite all the nonsense we’ve seen in this game, it has to be said that Palace’s back four have put in career-defining performances in their attempts to stop dangerous Deco & co from running the show. As the game enters its closing stages and finally comes to a drab conclusion, Boxall, Pearce, Frampton and Yanovskiy have made 16 key tackles between them; there’s nothing more we can do to break them down, and we’re forced to swallow a bitter 1–1 draw.
It makes me absolutely sick to see that Man Utd have also only managed a draw on the same day as us yet again, meaning that rather than put a near-relegated team to the sword and reduce the gap at the top of the table, we remain nine points back from the defending champions with 14 games to go.
My moping is curtailed by a news item of great significance.
You bet your butts I’m not put off by £4.3m, especially since that’s his release clause and the stuffy bastards at IFK can’t turn it down. This isn’t the first time I’ve gone in for Lundén — in fact, this is just the first time this month — but it suddenly feels like I might be able to finally get him in. Sadly, there’s no time for any news before we’re forced to welcome Fulham to Nene Park for the first leg of the League Cup Semi Final.
As with all our previous cup games this season, my ‘second’ string will take the pitch for this game. It’s tempting to really try to go for it and get ourselves into another cup final, but our focus has to stay on the Premier League. This cup run has been a fun little bonus, but on the verge of gracing the hallowed turf of the Millennium Stadium for a third time, I’m anxious to get it right. Chiotis continues in nets but Dixon and Victory are our full-backs, Mexès and Papoutsis sit in the centre. Rhys Weston anchors the midfield because I decide to move Paulo Sousa into the middle three with De Boer and Bubb. Sam Parkin and Meysam Javan will, hopefully, get us the goals we need to take something to Craven Cottage.
I don’t like Fulham. The unannounced 4–0 walloping they gave us was too recent for my therapist and I to accept, and as such, Andrejs Stolcers still dribbles circles around me in my nightmares. However, what I am going to say is that we were playing a very different team that day. That was my strongest team. So hopefully, today, my significantly weaker cup team will be able, to… oh. We’re going to get humped again, aren’t we.
Yep. We create everything, they make hardly any chances. They score twice and we don’t score at all. Dion doesn’t show up, Rhys Evans should be man of the match after nine stunning saves. Javan slashes most of his shots into the Airwair Stand, while Barry Hayles is a sniper. I bet you never thought you’d read those words consecutively.
All in all, though the performance was far different, the end result is the same: it’s yet another pasting by Fulham. I suppose we were overdue a bogey team, and now we’ve got one, just in time to shunt us out of a cup semi-final. Fantastic.
Lundén rejects the opportunity to negotiate with us in the aftermath of this game, and to be honest, I don’t blame him. Even I don’t want to talk to me.
There’s a week until our next game against Leicester, and I’ve got a lot to think about. Looking at the average ratings of my team over the season so far is like reading a Grimm Brothers fairy tale, in that they seem like they’re going to be nice, but once you get into it you realise they’re actually pretty bloody horrible. Far too many of my players are under seven, and this issue with my central midfielders just isn’t going away. I obviously need to give Deco and Lampard more time, but players like Källström, Hysén, Farnerud and De Boer shouldn’t be playing this poorly on a regular basis. I’m not sure if my formation is the problem; I’ve been thinking of going to a 4–1–2–2–1 for a while, but that would mean removing one of my strikers, and I do rather enjoy having a front two — plus next season, if I just have Cissé up front alone, I’ve got quite a few other forwards who are going to have to be moved on. No, no — for now, we will stick with our tried and tested 4–1–3–2. I am definitely losing sight of the fact that it has taken us from Division Three to second in the Premier League, behind only one of the best teams there is in 2005.
So, here we go again. Another roll of the dice. Everything is pretty much as you’d expect, Karadas is back from injury so he goes up top, but I’ve made a decision in the middle three. I think my best recent performers have been Sousa, Lampard and new boy Deco, so they’ll be the ones who start off in there. The rest of them will have to sit back and think about what they’ve done, Källström in particular. Once a marquee signing, he’s now out for two months anyway with a torn calf, but even still, a 6.71 average rating does not cut it in my team. He’s played 22 times and can’t shift the needle even towards a 7. I have a strong feeling that he, among others, will be culled in the summer.
Leicester are doing well in the league, rumbling along in 8th, but I’m not too interested in looking at them in detail. I want to see my team instead. I want improvement, I want results. I want the Premier League title.
The opening period comes and goes with no shots on target for either side, and I’m not even on the edge of my seat any more — I’m prowling my technical area. We’re restricting Leicester, which is good: the presence of two DMCs in the side, despite Sousa being in the midfield three, means I’ve man-marked both of Leicester’s central players, and with my full-backs also following their wingers everywhere they go, their creativity is being stifled. However, in doing so, I’ve also shut down my own attacking threat. Paiva has both of our efforts, shanked off target because of the presence of the Foxes’ defenders, and we reach the half with very little action. It’s not exactly what I wanted, but I at least feel like we’re a little more rigid than we have been recently. It’s just that we’re also a bit… stiff. And not in a fun way.
I leave the team intact for the second half, and it starts promisingly. Within five minutes, both Sousa and Karadas have put efforts on Simon Royce’s goal, but the Englishman parries them both to safety. At the other end, Mike Duff is pulled up and booked for a scything tackle on David Dunn that gives Leicester a free-kick on the edge of the box. Matthew Etherington checks the wind speed and direction, looks down at the dead ball, then curls it right into the top corner to give Leicester the lead with their first shot on target. I’m getting just a little bit tired of watching my team concede. I shove Javan on for Paiva with virtually no hope that it’s going to make any difference.
Deco then breaks forward and hits a stinging drive that Royce turns over the bar. He walks up and takes the corner, and puts it right onto the head of Karadas!! Off the crossbar! The Leicester defence is creaking and groaning as Paulo Sousa then glides through midfield with the ball and lobs it into the box. Karadas is there, and nods down — Javan is arriving! JAVAN! GOAL DIAMONDS! It’s the equaliser we surely warrant! WHAT? Deco is offside?! HE WASN’T INVOLVED IN THE PLAY! WHY? WHY DOES THIS KEEP HAPPENING?!
The match fizzles out and we’re beaten yet again. I just don’t understand what’s going on these last few games.
My team have gone from all-conquering to gun-shy. I’ve finally gotten a midfield three to finish the game on 7s, so my full-backs, goalkeeper and striker all gets 6s instead. Why the f — k won’t my players just all show up on the same day? What am I doing wrong?
Plus, you’ll never guess what else happened today.
The game is trolling me at this point. We’re 9 points behind Man Utd, but all we can manage is to match their results, win, lose or draw. We’ve flown too close to the sun, and the SI Gods have descended to clip our wings.
Oh look! More good news.
I have no f — king idea what’s going on right now. What’s happening? We had so much goodwill, harmony, happiness just three games ago… then we don’t win for a fortnight, and Marcel is throwing his toys out of the pram? Because I substituted him in the 88th minute for an AMC when we were losing a game?
I slump back into my chair, stunned at the sudden levels of complacency and insubordination I’m seeing. I can hardly believe it, actually. Even Chugger’s wheels normally stay on longer than this. The morale of the squad is all at least ‘Ok’, with Mahouvé perched on ‘Good’ despite his recent whinge. He’s going to keep playing, of course; not only is he too important to leave out, but I need to cheer the bastard up. Or perhaps I don’t… maybe angry is good for Marcel. Wind him up and point him in the direction of Birmingham City? It could be a tactic. God knows my current ones aren’t getting me anywhere.
Deco and Sousa have to come out because they’re knackered from actually putting shifts in against Leicester, so Bubb and Hysén, my only two other midfielders who might get 7s, start either side of Lampard, with Farnerud on the bench. Paiva has also not been at the races recently and Javan looks threatening when he’s come on, so he can have a start alongside Karadas up top. Perhaps a spell on the side has reinvigorated my wayward striker. How long until Cissé arrives?
I drive myself back to Nene Park after the game. It’s been a while, but I need some time with my closest allies: the drinks globe I found in a bin outside Kings Dock, and the wall in my office, which is overdue a long, hard stare.
If you’re enjoying Diamond Geezers, please consider clicking and holding the Clap button to recommend the series. It really helps! Thank you ❤
