Paying penalty for return of hapless McShane
Things were going well, I told them. He was the sort of gritty, whole-hearted, run through a brick wall type of player that I love to see in a back four. He’d looked impressive on his debut in a win against Spurs and we’d started the season impressively.
I wondered why my praise was met with bewildered stares.
“Give it half a season,” said one hack. “He’ll start to dive in at things for no reason, make rash and insane decisions, get sent off and cost you a lot of silly goals.”
I couldn’t understand how our giant ginger would go on to let us down. But by the time of our 7-1 thrashing at Everton where McShane simply resorted to falling over instead of trying to tackle, most Sunderland fans had had enough of him.
Despite that awful November day at Goodison Park he went on to play a further 10 times before seemingly fading out of the scene for good. That was until a shock recall at Newcastle, where he conspired to give the sort of performance that even Amy Winehouse would describe as shoddy and unprofessional.
Outraged supporters demanded he never played for Sunderland again and until last Saturday it seemed they’d got their wish.
He never featured after that nightmare appearance at St James’ last season and in the summer Roy Keane somehow shipped him out to Premiership new boys Hull on loan. We thought it’d be the last we saw of his failing and flaming mop on Wearside until a shock recall from Ricky Sbragia last week. Our manager claimed he needed him as we weren’t strong enough in numbers at the back.
We have more personnel now, but our ability has weakened with his re-introduction. He is to good defending what Man City are to the global economic crisis.
Having played well and gone ahead in the opening period against Aston Villa, Martin O’Neill’s side gradually got their act together in the second half and equalised courtesy of James Milner’s arm. Cheers, ref. It was bad enough losing the goal, but we also lost half of our back four at the same time. Nyron Nosworthy’s hamstring became hamstrung and the excellent Danny Collins was dragged off after a bang on the head. The ever-dependable Phil Bardsley came in at left back but as soon as I saw McShane stride onto the pitch I knew he’d somehow conspire to lose us the game.
He immediately made a steady defence look shaky and it was no surprise that he gifted Villa their winner from the penalty spot, although the foul was committed outside of the area. It was a howler from McShane having his feet up high when there wasn’t much danger and a shocker from referee Mike Dean in awarding the spot kick. Moments after the penalty that never was, there was a clear handball from an Aston Villa player that should have allowed us an equaliser. Apparently it’s OK to give penalties for fouls outside of the box, but should anything blatant happen inside the 18 yard area then that’s a big no-no.
It summed up an abject day from the referee. There seemed little point in him wearing a green shirt; he might as well have just donned the claret and blue and not bothered keeping up with the pretence.
It was a hard choice to pick the worst man on the pitch, him or McShane.
If Ricky Sbragia thought he’d be able to shore things up at the back by recalling the worst defender on our books then Saturday has proved him wrong. Hopefully it was just an exercise in twisting Hull’s arm into buying him. Phil Brown has been public in his pursuit of our captain Dean Whitehead this week; fingers crossed recalling the cumbersome centre half was just an attempt to force their hand into purchasing McShane whilst they have their chequebook out.
The referee might have to take a large portion of the blame for our defeat against Villa, but there’s one man who was also at fault and will cost us dearly if he continues to feature in the future. Get rid of him, Ricky. Please...
* Martyn McFadden, www.a-love-supreme.com
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