blades blog Two Kyles, one love

Posted: May 12th 2009
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I will eat humble pie . . . but only a small piece.

I know I’ve taken the shine off their season by talking them down all year but that’s because, as the late, great Eric Morecombe once said, the Blades were doing all the right things, but not necessarily in the right order. They were workmanlike and solid, functional and dependable – like carbolic soap is. And that’s not the style of football I like.

Flair, passion, commitment, zeal, zest, dynamism, power and verve. I like my football like my food, finely-honed technique wrapped in delicate strips of flair, oven-roasted over lush turf, a meaty heart and firm texture served on a timbale of silky smooth skills.

I’ll pay 10 times the entrance fee to see a player chase 50 yards to regain possession after giving it away. I’ll pay the same to see a player go into three or four consecutive tackles in order to emerge with the ball. I’ll pay anything to see a cool head put a foot on the ball and stroke out a simple pass when others are flailing like monkeys squealing in a cage,  and I’ll happily remortgage my house, give up my job, beg on the streets and lick the road clean to see a young man look up and spray out a crossfield pass which changes the course of the game in a single move.

But I just couldn’t see it and despite our near-constant presence in the top six I was frustrated. I believed, and still do, that the current team is weaker than the two-semis and play-off final losers of 2003 and weaker than the promoted side of 2006.

This is a somewhat controversial argument among the Shoreham Street faithful but whether it holds water or not I was happy to accept we’ve found ourselves in the play-offs and now we find ourselves on a day trip to Wemberley. Like an episode of Eastenders this Blades season is heading towards a cliff-hanging finale and the der-der der-da-da-da drum exit to titles.

And with that I’m happy to accept a modicum of humble pie. It’s true I had us fading away, it’s true I thought we’d fail in the play-offs. I hoped I was wrong and maybe, just maybe I was, although the true test of my argument will not be known until a) we are promoted and b) the Prem season begins.

The Preston games showed me something I’d not really seen all season. It was a nervy affair but there was suddenly an assuredness about us in the way that truly superior teams appear to pace themselves, unfazed by going 1-0 down, focussed and confident despite not being in possession. But most of all I’ve changed my mind, I’m coming round to us being a team in contention and it’s all because of the Kyles. Two young Blades Academy lads with talent, flair and, most importantly youth, shedloads of youth.

Twenty-year-old Kyle Naughton has been with the club since he was eight and broke into the first team this year. He made a brief England U21 appearance and was the only United player in the Championship team-of-the-season. We knew about him. We knew he was a gem and he’s played beautifully. But then comes a second prospect out of the Academy and all of a sudden the dynamics have changed. Nineteen-year-old Kyle Walker has been with the club since he was seven and he’s now made just four full first-team appearances but making his mark in a way that even he probably couldn’t have envisaged, coming as it did after just a brief loan spell at Northampton Town earlier in the season.

So there we were. Home against Preston, Killa and Morgan in the middle of the defence, flanked by these attacking wing-back kids. Fleet footed, ball always under control on the first touch and stroking it around like they own the place. Old enough to vote, old enough to play, untainted by the ravages of experience, unsullied by the weight of expectation, they refuse to be mediocre, they seek out a different pass, they speed up the play of the ball, they require others to be urgent around them and they make mistakes, but when they make mistakes, they’re quick enough to rectify them.

And how ironic that after scoring just two goals in the last six games, Halford’s stylish header to sink PNE comes from a beautiful pinpoint cross from none other than Kyle Walker. Thank god for the kids. Chairman McCabe says the West Ham cash will be spent on running the club not on player purchases. For me he can stick half of it into the Academy and the youth set-up and find every other Kyle in South Yorkshire who knows how to kick a football.

The glass half empty brigade would never forgive me if I didn’t urge caution at this point. We have few genuine match winners and we’re relatively goal-starved. Halford’s only on loan from Sunderland and there are still members of the current squad for whom a move up a division at this top level will find them out. I also shared the widespread concern on learning an hour before kick-off that we were to play the PNE second leg with 4-5-1 with Craig Beattie (who currently has the confidence of a one-legged man on a tightrope) as the lone striker. Maybe you’d call the 1-0 victory a tactical masterstroke, I think it was ill-advised. Blackwell’s former running mate Neil W was another for thinking he could survive the Prem punting up to Hulse the lone target man because he was fearful of being overrun.

But hey, the future’s not ours to see, we’re going to Wembley and that’s good enough for me.

But you know that things are bright, that success is down the road even if it’s not round the corner, when you have youth on your side.