Me and Missis Pie have two neutered rabbits. One is called Bonnie. She is a Netherlands Dwarf rabbit, full of energy and, despite her size, as bossy as any cute female can be. The other is Tubbs, a lumpen mass of English black and white indifference. He should be called Meh. Anyway, we feed them this mixed bag of rabbit food which contains one particular treat, at least for Bonnie, which is dried apple flakes. Bonnie would kill for them. Tubbs, on the other hand, is happy with grass pellets.
Forest's performance against the Cottaging was such a mixed bag. There were some apple flakes. Vlad in goal was immense, because he has powers of anticipation which border on the supernatural. The defence coped reasonably well, with Perquis in particular providing power in the air and a degree of assuredness on the ground. Vaughan took his chance well and we hope there are many more of them, which means we hope that Mister Mountaineer avoids the temptation of playing lesser players just because he feels he has to. The Dark Lord Bender got his goal and should have had others. He is an intelligent player who roams to find space and frustrate his markers, but we hope he doesn't get cheesed off by the grass pellets around him.
There were, sadly, an awful lot of grass pellets. Poor old Osborn had obviously been told to close down as high as he could, but his efforts were neutered by those beside him failing to do the same, which meant his attempts to stop the opponents' momentum were largely wasted. Carayol tried hard enough, but is a bit of a brick wall merchant who doesn't track back. Kasami looked like a troubled crab, and Dumitru promised to become a skilful footballer but sadly failed. Our midfield was a mishmash of uncertain ambitions and confused intent. The Cottaging midfield, on the other hand, knew exactly what they were up to. It was a good job their forwards didn't, or that Vlad played like a wizard.
There were other grass pellets. Not playing our most progressive and exciting attacking player caused mumbles, and when he did come on, Hildeberto was again stuck at the back. Mumbles too about the extent of Britt's injury, and when exactly he will be back. Mumbles about not winning for too long, about declining performances in front of crowds who are beginning to forget the excitement of the opening weeks, about settled sides and missing Burke and Henri being stupid and stuff like that.
Tubbs would have loved that match, if indeed Tubbs could love anything. It was a point, after all, so what the meh? Bonnie would have gobbled up the dried apple flakes and then impatiently butted Tubbs in the stomach.
I'm afraid we're going to have to get used to more mixed bags, because at the moment there are more grass pellets than apple flakes, and we can't see the rabbit food producers tweaking their ingredients any time soon. For the moment, Tubbs rules.
