Sheffield Utd vs Argyle – preview

By: Jim | October 31st, 2008

Before we get started, seeing as everyone else has had their say on the Brand/Ross/Sachs affair, here’s mine. I don’t like Russell Brand or Jonathan Ross. I don’t like them at all. I think what they did was insulting, ungentlemanly, illegal and wrong. I welcome a period of respite from their tones on the airwaves and I think Andrew Sachs has behaved with graciousness and class. However, I still don’t see why that means the Controller of Radio 2 should resign, especially when you consider that most of the numpties responsible for real disasters like the credit crunch and the Iraq war remain happily in their jobs. Nor do I wish to live in a society where the boundaries of humour are decided by the readers of the Daily Mail, thanks very much. And I am bound to wonder why both the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, the Minister for Justice et al, et al, have so much free time to be able to address this in their variously pompous and condescending ways. I’d have thought they had other, rather more pressing, problems to deal with right now.

Enough! Having got away with a characteristic Luggy smash-and-grab raid at Hillsborough on Tuesday, thanks to a typical Steve MacLean goal, Argyle get the chance to make it a hat-trick of Sheffield wins tomorrow at Bramall Lane. A difficult challenge by any standards: the Blades have a strong squad and will be challenging at least for play-off honours this year. A look at their forward line gives a good insight into just how strong they are: perm any two from Beattie, Henderson, Sharp, Stokes and Webber, with another two on the bench; add a midfield (even without Brian Howard) with the likes of David Carney, Lee Hendrie, Matty Spring, Stephen Quinn and David Cotterill and a defence of Kilgallon, Ehiogu, Morgan, Jihai, Halford – it’s a strong, strong squad.

Sturrock may well be tempted to freshen things up a little: Chris Clark looks like he could do with a rest and so, despite his MoM performance on Tuesday, could Luke Summerfield. That would allow (finally) Nicolas Marin to make a full debut and Simon Walton to continue his rehabilitation. Perhaps more controversially, Rory Fallon could return in place of Gallagher, who has looked increasingly leggy over the last couple of matches. Doumbe, Mpenza and Mackie will presumably still be hors de combat. Imagine then an Argyle squad something like:

Larrieu

McNamee
Seip
Cathcart
Barker

Marin
Walton
Duguid
Paterson

Fallon
MacLean
———————-
Gallagher
Summerfield
Noone
Clark
Timar

Any sort of result would surely be seen as a triumph for the Greens. A big shout-out to all those hardy souls making the trip up there – here’s hoping they see something to warm them up a bit.