After the controversy of the last week (which won't get much mention here. Suffice to say that I can recall team mates fighting on the pitch before. if nothing else at least it showed that they actually cared), it was back to actual football, and what can only be described as a good result. Sporting are not a bad side, as demonstrated by their playing the better football for large periods of the game. Forunatly for us however, they seem to be lacking a cutting edge to their pretty patterns, and so other than one fine save from Harper we won't really too much troubled, despite some at times awful attempts to simply clear the ball. In return, at the other end of the pitch Shearer looked as if he could win every ball in the air and Ameobi, while still lacking as a striker, has a very good touch and the ability to beat a man. And Shearer looks as if he's still determined that in continuing next season he'll do so having won this club something (not to mention the only realistic way he'll be playing his final season on a european stage is to win this cup).
So we were actually quite good, considering. Were it not for some "eccentric" refereeing we could have had a more certain advantage to take to Portugal. As it is if we score then we leave ourselves able to concede too and still go through, not too bad a proposition, especially given the enforced absence of Sporting's leading scorer. Shearer's goal was a wonderful training ground exercise; Ameobi played a vital role of blocking (and yes, probably fouling) Shearer's marker which left the main man with an amazing amount of space 18 yards from goal. The header was perfection as expected, as should be noted was Robert's ball onto that head. Had the ref not had one of his worse moments a few minutes before hand then it would have been Shearer's second, having had one chalked off for nothing more than Robert's prescence of mind to take a very similarly placed free kick quickly. It was not to be the last time the ref denied us.
Having got a lead we proceded to sit back a bit much, Sporting doing all the running though their fancy football wasn't really getting too far. The loss of Given at half time might have caused more alarm bells (despite Harper's at times under rated quality) had it not been for the lack of action our keeper had actually seen. In an effort to inject something into it Robert was replaced by Milner. While the thinking wasn't bad (Robert had been ineffectual other than set pieces and Milner has been seen to have an impact before), it was still didn't really pay off. The best chance of a further breakthrough in general was probably still another set piece, which now lacked Robert's delivery. And Milner seemed determined to overdo almost everything. As it was he ended up with a glorious chance having brilliantly controlled a long ball played over his shoulder as he stampeded through Sportings defence, only to get too excited and blaze the ball badly high. Ameobi on the other hand can think himself very unfortunate after being pulled back from an open goal even he couldn't miss. Having charged down Sporting's keeper the ref somehow decided that the fact the keeper's ineffectual clearance bounced off Ameobi's hand (which was tucked into his body) was enough to get him off the hook. If that was handball so was the one by the Sporting defender the ref had played on minutes before.
So it could have been more, but importantly the win was seen out and, perhaps more importantly, no goals were conceded. And Dyer and Bowyer got to share a moment as the former was replaced having pulled up with what worryingly looked like his hamstring again (and had before that been one our most effective threats). Bowyer got a welcome better than he could have dreamed and at least tried to apply himself with energy. Perhaps we can get back to talking about the chances to win two trophies this season now, especially if we could get something from Spurs on Sunday.
(@14:04)
