KeelyWatch (minor rant alert)
Every once in a while, one encounters so gross a violation of sacred footballing principles and tenets that partisan affiliations must defer to one's more objective sensibilities as a follower of the game. Very occasionally (and this only happens if you're really unlucky) the same stimulus contrives to offend against both impulses at once. Dublin City's performance (as directed by Mr. Keely) against Sligo Rovers on Thursday night fell into this latter category.
Let me make it clear from that outset that it is not bad football, per se, to which I principally object. I did, after all, endure bad football all last season without complaint. It's cowardly football I can't stand. The kind of cowardice exhibited by a team which finds itself unexpectedly and undeservedly ahead after three minutes, courtesy of an opponent's obliging boot, and then proceeds to mount (at home!) a maladroit defence of that scoreline for the remaining 87 minutes. This, to echo the famous words of Charles Talleyrand, was worse than a crime; it was a blunder. The ingenious game-plan was forcibly curtailed by an inevitable equaliser in the 74th minute, by which time the grim defensive mindset was too firmly and inflexibly embedded in the team's collective consciousness to permit any serious pursuit of a second goal.
A one-off miscalculation? Hopefully. Perhaps Keely, intoxicated by the early own-goal and sensing that his footballing creed might finally attain its ultimate apotheosis (i.e., to win a game without registering a shot on target at all) merely lost the run of himself. If, however, Thursday night's events provided us with a foretaste of what to expect from DC this season, then Dermot needs to be disabused of some very dangerous misapprehensions.
Keely hypothesis: It is possible to defend a one goal lead at this level of football.
Status: Incorrect
It is possible to defend a one goal lead at this level of football with roughly the same degree of assurance as would be afforded by the toss of a coin. You will simply never command sufficient control over the relevant variables. There will always be a bad refereeing decision (and let me say at this point, positioned as I was directly in line with the incident, that Sligo's missed penalty resulted from what was both a dive and a valid award; the two are NOT mutually incompatible), or an elephantine first touch, or a wayward ricochet off a small hillock waiting to thwart your efforts.
Keely hypothesis: The most appropriate way to reward a striker for his singlehanded retrieval of a two-goal deficit is to consign him to the bench for the following game.
Status: Indeterminate, but it's not looking good.
Okay, I'm being glib, because I wasn't in Kilkenny and can't say for sure whether Michael Holt's performance merited continued inclusion. But when his replacement contributes the square root of f*ck all, it's hard not to be sceptical.
Keely hypothesis: The creators of table football had the right idea. The front four players should always attack and retreat in unison, as though connected by an invisible iron rod.
Status Discredited.
There were times on Thursday night when I almost began to believe that I'd blundered through some temporal distortion into an alternate timeline in which the 1860s law which forbade players to pass the ball forward had never been rescinded, such was the static nature of our attack. That was, until I saw Sligo regaining a stake in the game precisely by putting the ball into the corners and forcing our back four to face their own goal, something Dublin City managed maybe twice in the entire game.
Perhaps I'm being unwarrantedly harsh at this embryonic stage of the season, but what concerns me is the manager's tactical approach to the game, something which requires urgent revision if we're challenge for the championship this season (and challenge we must, considering the squad we've assembled and the concomitant pressure on the club's finances.)
