Appearances & Goals To Date

Kevin Main (GK)		46 apps	-
Jevan Anderson		72 apps	3 goals
Craig McKeown		115 apps	19 goals
Johnny Crawford		130 apps	10 goals
Stuart Smith		234 apps	23 goals
Stuart Anderson		200 apps	33 goals
Andrew Greig		60 apps	22 goals
Graeme Rodger		181 apps	62 goals
Aaron Norris		29 apps	2 goals
Garry Wood		138 apps	70 goals
Archie MacPhee		83 apps	59 goals
Conor Gethins (sub)		105 apps	42 goals
Kieran Lawrence (sub)		56 apps	2 goals
Liam Burnett (sub)		75 apps	8 goals

Starting Lineup

Matchday Squad

First Team Debuts

Milestones

The few who turned out for this game in the hope of seeing a goal bonanza for the home team in the match before their appearance in the final of the Highland League Cup Final against Cove on the following Saturday were offered something well different from what they had hoped or anticipated as a well organised, grimly determined yet remarkably young Lossie side offered far stouter resistance than anyone bar themselves, perhaps, could have anticipated. At the heart of it all was a stunning display of goal keeping but commanding the goal area and the many defenders in it as well] by young Trevor Dear.

It took no more than a cursory look at the team sheet to realise that the starting eleven for this game was going to be the Cup Final starting eleven. The absence of recent signings Garry McGowan along with Jordan Leyden who hadn't, was a bit of a giveaway: those two were benched for this league match, for which they were both eligible, because they would be ineligible for the final by dint of being “cup tied” after having played in previous rounds of the same competition for their original clubs (Huntly and Locos respectively). No doubt about it, this was dress rehearsal time for the final.

Matches where players are “playing for cup final places” can seem at one level to suggest that they will burst a gut to prove their credentials for the big game, but at another, there is at a least as strong a subtext of avoiding the risk of injury that would sideline them from the event. At the end of the day no-one in the home team appeared to have picked up any injury but at the same time no one really set the heather on fire either: you pay your money and you take your pick.

Even though the driving force for Lossie here was likely to be damage limitation against a side almost 60 points and more than a dozen places above them in the league, they tried a wee press forward to open with and managed a long over the top kind of ball up to Stuart who had a pop from twenty yards or so. It was struck more in hope than expectation and drew no more effort from keeper Main than to take the resulting goal kick.

From then on United pressed hard and strong. Their back line was promoted to half way and they kept the ball almost continuously in Lossie territory which inevitably was densely populated, particularly in the final third. Their first of many corners came in the 4th minute. It was taken short by Greig but played in by Norris to Crawford who held the ball up more or less on the penalty spot trying to find some chink through which to get it to Wood or Rodger. He was eventually crowded out by a swarm of Lossie players and the pressure subsided temporarily.

There was little respite and the pattern of near incessant United pressure being contained by keeping 8 or more Lossie players behind the ball and whenever Wood looked like holding it up in a dangerous position, mobbing him like crows at an eagle. Every run that a United forward or midfielder made was tracked by Lossie player. MacArthur, Ure, Bellingham and Campbell in particular were indefatigable in this but as they seldom left more than one player up front (Stuart), virtually the whole side could be credited in this respect.

Shots on goal were at a premium but in circumstances made very difficult for them, United produced passages of good quality football. In the 13th minute Crawford made a strong run down the right and played in Norris who found MacPhee with a short pass threaded between Campbell and Ure. He exchanged passes with Greig to gain the space for a well struck shot that the keeper managed to tip round his left post for an unrewarded corner.

In the 16th minute Campbell wrestled Wood to the ground about 25 yards out and a touch left of centre. MacPhee curled an absolute peach of a free kick. It looked goal-bound all the way until with an outstanding leap to his right Dear got a strong fingertip to deflect the ball via the upright to safety. Lossie were pretty well under the cosh at this point and United managed the breakthrough their pressure had indicated. Corners were coming thick and fast and Lossie breakaways were as frequent and fertile as the droppings of a rocking horse. Something had to give.

In the 18th minute, full back Smith made a run to near the left corner to slip the ball inside a few yards to Greig. The ex Brora man delivered a beautifully flighted in-swinger to MACPHEE who had just enough time and space to despatch the ball neatly over the 5 yards it needed to beat Dear.

Any expectation that Lossie would then start to crumble let alone come apart was dispelled. They stuck doggedly to their defensive strategy and it continued to work for them. Perhaps United, finding the Lossie penalty area so crowded might have tried more shots from distance but any home player who had the ball in shooting distance was very swiftly closed down by an outstandingly energetic and surprisingly nippy rearguard. Lossie won at least their hare of second balls. The lock out at 1-0 down was just as skilled and determined as it had been before the goal. Probably the nearest United came to extending their lead in the first half came just short of 10 minutes after the goal when Norris from a tight angle wide of the right post headed a Greig cross onto it or when the keeper got down low to his right to stop a Rodger snapshot from about 8 yards range.

The second half began much as the first had ended with United hammering away at the goal at the village end and the massed ranks of Lossie holding grimly on. This situation persisted through a number goalmouth incidents and top drawer saves by Dear from McKeown, Greig, Wood, Rodger and MacPhee and United struggled with the same problems in the over crowded final third. They looked at times as if they were trying to open things out and build from deeper but faced essentially the same difficulties as the visitors bust a gut to close down anything that moved in vaguely their direction.

Midway through the second spell they brought on a couple of subs and play began to open out a little – at least to the extent they mounted a few attacks. The build up was generally quick, simple and direct but there was never enough guile to cause United any sweat at the back. Placing the ball for goal kicks aside, Main only handled it once in this game and that was to throw it over the head of a pestilent Elliot.

United brought the scoreline into the realms of respectability right at the very end. With the corner count at 16-1 in their favour and still enjoying by far the lion's share of possession CRAWFORD at last found unoccupied space in the box. A charge down the right and a one-two with Lawrence set Rodger in position to swing over a cross that the full back headed powerfully home at the back stick for 2-0.

Match report by Colin Keenan



Photography by Ian Rennie

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