There was so much wrong with that starting side I could have just cried. So much for all the talk that Berger was going to try a more positive approach. His team selection was straight out of the Pim Verbeek brain explosion manual. If he was serious about looking towards the future then really two of Burns, Vidosic and Oar should have been starting, instead of leaving them all on the bench.
What the hell was Bruce Djite doing even in the squad, let alone starting? When was the last time the kid even scored a goal in a competitive fixture? I know it's been more than a year, might even be something like 18 months. Burns was scoring goals last season and from all reports had a positive pre-season in the Sydney Festival of Football, shoulda been him.
Richard Garcia, what the f**k? His team isn't even in the Premier League anymore so he can't even ride on that anymore, not that he's anything more than a bit part player for them anyway, why was he given the role of attacking midfielder that we should be grooming Vidosic for? God knows.
Brett Holman seems to have won a reprieve after his world cup performances, but he seemed to revert to type in this match, with a heavy touch and some woeful decisions. He was given time and time again and he finally came good on the biggest stage, so what about Scott McDonald? Might he have done the same? He does have a much higher technical ability, and he's scoring goals now for Boro. He's the type of player we should be giving an opportunity to now.
But in McDonald's absence, we still could have kicked Holman to the curb and thrown Oar on to the wing, moving Rukavystya into the centre of the field. He seemed totally wasted out wide last night and I'm sure Oar might have proven more effective in that role.
Well, it's these kinda games where we ought to be gambling for the future. We couldn't be further away from the next world cup. The time to be testing our next generation is now. You may as well not even play a friendly if the manager isn't willing to use it to help the team's development. I just hope last night's tactics were merely a prank, a way of demonstrating to Mr Ozieck which players he should not pick for the future. In which case au revoir to the likes of Holman, Garcia, Djite, North.
