Utd. Fall Deeper Into Relegation Zone

Date Published: 12-Aug-2008

THE American playwright Wilson Mizner said that gambling is ‘the sure way of getting nothing from something’. On a night when Galway United needed something from their relegation six- pointer with UCD, Jeff Kenna took a gamble, and his side finished stone broke as UCD took all three points to shove United deeper into relegation trouble.

Rather than sticking with the defence that kept only United’s second clean sheet in 10 games in Donegal the previous week, Kenna made the cardinal error of tinkering with a winning formula, and it backfired spectacularly in the first 12 minutes of Friday night’s crucial encounter.

The former Irish international has made obvious improvement to a poor United defence since lacing up his boots last month, but as a centre back, not right back. Derry City targeted him as a weak link in the league encounter between the sides two weeks ago when he played wide right of the defence, and three of their four goals came from the left wing as they cruised to victory.

UCD did the same on Friday night, locking in on the manager’s lack of pace out wide. They had two attacks in the first dozen minutes of the contest, both down Kenna’s channel. They opened the scoring from the first and gained a man advantage from the second — with Kenna horribly exposed on both occasions — and while UCD had to rely on a late winner, those initial skirmishes meant United would struggle…