The Macc Lads

Stoke City U21 0 v Sheffield United U21 0

Stoke win 5-4 on Penalties

U21 Premier League Cup

Played at Macclesfield Town

Monday 8 December 2014

Twitter @ball_sup

Quite an impressive set up in what I assume was Macclesfield Town’s Hospitality Lounge. Nice & bright & welcoming. Lots of interesting photos on the walls. A nice little bar at one end. Two hand pulls. Always impressive when “big clubs” apparently don’t have the throughput to put Real Ale on.  Doubly impressive as one of them was from Storm Brewing Co. - one mile from the ground. The other was Marston’s Pedigree.  The Bar Lady was not fazed by me asking “when the last one of those had been pulled”. She simply & quickly said - “I’ve just pulled them both through myself before we opened”. That’s how to run a football club bar albeit Hospitality.  And, the Storm Brewing Hurricane Hubert was in tip-top condition.

Part of me still doesn’t know what I was doing here. I’m convinced when the draw had been made, we were drawn at Home! Maybe we struggled to find an available night & ground before the cut-off deadline & had to ask Stoke to help.

An odd game. It wasn’t particularly defensive, but it was as though neither team wanted to, or was capable of scoring. Chris Morgan was in charge. But Nigel Clough & some other unidentifiable backroom bods were over our side in the stand barking occasional instructions as well.  Both new signings from Ilkeston, Che Adams & Kieran Wallace started - as did Flo Cuvelier on his comeback trail.

I do detect that United are trying/managing to get the same DNA running through their teams. Happy to set up with one upfront. The keeper invariably rolls or throws the ball out quickly into possession. The defenders don’t mind playing it across themselves & backwards. The plan is to keep possession and inject pace. It just seems, that at all levels, they need to be better at executing that plan. But, I am a fan of picking a way to play & trying to do that at all levels.

Jamie McDonagh had a great chance more-or-less under the bar - spooned it over. I like McDonagh. He seems an intelligent footballer. Later on in the game, when things were getting hectic, I heard him tell one of the defenders “there was no need to foul him there, he was going nowhere & nothing was on”.

Firstly, Stoke had a guy sent off for two bookable offences. Then they had a guy limp off but had used all their Subs. So, at that stage it was 11 v 9.  Eventually, after United had used all their Subs & Otis Khan limped off, it was 11 v 10.

Too many Blades players were anonymous and missing for too long periods of play. They’d move the ball out & I’d think “who has got that, oh it’s Otis, I’d forgotten he was playing”. Even Reed & Dimaio seemed to be missing at times.  Anyway, without it being boring, it inevitably drifted to Penalties. Kieran Wallace & Joel Coustrain missed and we’re out.

(Tue 22/7 58/139)