Matchday Musings: "F*cking Fosters Shandy, man"

Today at 04:12 AM

For some, Dan Neil's regrettable lunge wasn't even the worst thing we saw on Saturday.

I have been known to be a very patient man when it comes to our club. I am someone who tries to see the bigger picture, who tries to find the reason where others can't. I have pretty manageable expectations — I won't say they're low, but when it comes to Sunlun the alternative approach would have likely resulted in me throwing myself from a bridge around 20 year ago. I try to think about a brighter future away from the darkness of our everyday reality and the particularly bleak state of this world, and in this particular obsession I share with many of you - this stalker-esque following and endless intensive analysis of all things Sunderland AFC related - I have on occasion, particularly in recent years, found peace. Clarity of thought even.

I do spend a lot of time talking about our youth because I'm very protective of them all and I have spent a daft amount of my interactions with my fellow fans arguing in their defence, asking people to be patient and understanding. Rome wasn't built in a day after all.

Yet today my world has been shaken to the core, the fragile dream of Rome has vanished; the promise of renewal dashed.

Honestly, the very foundations of my belief in my club and my city and its people may have been utterly destroyed and it is all down to the ridiculous fucking decision making of one or two of the young people I constantly seek to protect from the wrath of their less reasonable elders on and offline.

I want fucking answers.

Who the fuck buys a can of fucking Foster's 3% shandy and displays it on a train on the way to a game? Who even thinks about doing that? What sort of deviant bastard psychopath would even consider advertising a can of fucking shandy as the go-to drink of a Sunlun fan on one of our famous away days?!

I can't stop thinking about it man. I can just about tolerate the Carling right because let's face it and as I discussed with the lads earlier, we've all had to, but Fosters... Fosters fucking shandy.

The defeat itself has taken a back seat really. It's taken a while to sink in, because that can of fucking rats piss sat on that train and posted where everyone can see it has clouded my mind.

Not as cloudy as my mind would be if I'd been munching on the edibles sat next to it like... but clouded enough to have prevented such intense musing (that I'm not actually contractually obliged to do) until now, but here goes.

First half we played like a group of blind lads with a ball with no bell. It was, with a few fleeting minutes of blissful nothingness aside, probably the worst we've played this season. Maybe like me the Lads had seen the shandy in question (or necked the aforementioned gummies ten minutes before we kicked off) and it caused some sort of mental break where they forgot they were actually getting paid to play something called football to a professional standard. It was just shite.

Now I could give 5000 words on why Mayenda was such a miss for us as we sat scared in our shell unable to work the press against a decent Watford side, who walked right the way through us with ease for their first goal, but it's 11pm on a Saturday and I can't actually be arsed. You probably wouldn't get it anyway.

Whatever Regis said to them at the break worked for most of the second half as we were quite simply far more ourselves, the lads looked far less disjointed, Mundle was providing a good outlet and soon Patrick Roberts found enough inner peace to knock the ball across to the terminally happy Wilson Isidor to equalise, with our summer signing scoring his first goal for the club and making that mooted Mayenda propaganda piece of mine open to attack when we're talking about positioning and goalscoring instinct.

We'll see how we manage to get the best out of both these lads in the future and it's good to have these sorts of headaches when it comes to strike options isn't it? I'm not complaining like.

The rest of the half for most of us appeared comfortable as Watford made several changes and started to sit back, allowing us to actually move the ball around a bit and their continued attempts to break started to fade.

So there I was, that shandy incident aside, pretty relaxed. Much like whoever ingested those edibles on the train I was feeling pretty good actually, thinking back.

Then another young local lad, our captain no less, decided to alleviate pressure on whoever slim shandy is and make the most ridiculously unnecessary challenge I've seen like... this week. Trai Hume might've almost got himself the red last week so I can't say it was the worst challenge but it was the fucking daftest of this season by some distance. He's come out since and said that he's taking full responsibility for losing the point that could've seen us sat at the top of the table right now and... so he should.

I'm making no excuses for Dan Neil's performances this season, in spite of our great start he has been underperforming and if we're honest with ourselves we'd probably prefer to see someone else in that role for a game or two regardless of yet another shite decision made in the heat of the moment WHEN WE WERE FINE DAN MARRA but it is what it is.

I'm not going in on him here - I'm going in on whoever put that image of an away day shandy online - and I'm not saying he's become a shit player overnight. He's just looking a little static, a little off the pace, and with his position as leader of the club on the pitch he has to start to truly learn from his mistakes and get his shit together before someone comes along and takes that position from him.

We'll see what Reg does on Tuesday. Hopefully we can bounce back on the pitch at least.

Fucking Fosters fucking shandy man, honestly.