Show is back on the road as positive United stop the rot
Galway United 4
Athlone Town 1
JOB done, the show is back on the road, and the play-offs are back on the horizon after Alan Murphy marked his first game as United manager with a statement of intent in more ways than one.
Murphy, who made history earlier in the season when becoming United’s all-time leading scorer in the league, guided United to a first win in seven games on Friday night to prevent the club’s worst-ever run of results in the First Division.
Results elsewhere at the weekend has also seen United make up a little bit of ground on the top four, and with Finn Harps hosting Longford Town this coming weekend, and Drogheda United travelling to Shelbourne, a win for United away to Cobh on Saturday night will see them inch even closer.
That said, no-one is losing the run of themselves after Friday’s game against a side which was the comfortably the poorest to play at Eamonn Deacy Park since 2011. That previous god-awful team was the Galway United side that lost a staggering 22 consecutive league games in that season from hell, and Athlone are right up there – or should that be right down there – with that standard.
Athlone were so bad, the team from my local out in Maree would have given United a better game. And I’m talking about our darts team. Still, a win is a win, but it wasn’t just the three points won gained that caught the eye on Friday.
Murphy made three changes to the side beaten so insipidly the previous week, with Adam Rooney coming in at centre-back for his first league start; Alex Byrne returning from suspension to start in midfield; and Conor Layng joining Eoin McCormack up front, as Murphy reverted to a traditional – and far more effective – 4-4-2 formation.
The biggest change, however, was in United’s approach. No more of this nonsense of constantly playing backward passes, and a serious reduction in lateral passes, two tactics which blighted United under both Tommy Dunne and Shane Keegan.
“United is a team that plays out now, not one that plays out and plays back again. That is something we worked on during the week, that was pleasing, getting the ball forward more, being more positive, both attackingly and territorially,” Murphy said after the game.
For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.