Not quite sure what happened yesterday. From what was a promising first-half, we somehow managed to ruin it all by coming out for the second with our Blackpool/Swansea/Doncaster hats on.

The difference in performance between both halves was far too noticeable. Of course, it's only to be expected when you haven't won for 3 games - most teams tend to get a little bit edgy. But why we have to take these football clichés to such bleeding extremes all the time, I really don't know.

I'll admit I was a little disappointed by the team selection when I first heard it. While you could argue Coleman doesn't have many other options to freshen things up, I was still expecting a bit more than Isaac Osbourne and Marcus Hall. Before yesterday we'd only scored in 2 of our opening fixtures. This seemed to me to be quite a big problem, and bringing in Ozzy to help us turn the corner and provide that spark in midfield didn't immediately strike me as the most positive move we could have made.

In all fairness to both of them though, they played pretty well in the first half. Hall set up the goal with an accurate cross for Best, and Ozzy gave a similarly manic performance to the Ipswich one earlier in the season. What happened to them in the second half is anyone's guess.

The same could be said for Clingan. First half, he was composed, assured and at one point had me reminiscing back to the days of Youssef Safri. Second half he completely lost his way however, and him and Ozzy were bystanders for the majority.

McIndoe was heavily involved in the first 15 minutes, and rather naively I started to believe that he might actually be a threat throughout. That never materialised either. On the flip side, this now makes our case stronger for suiing him under the Trade Description Act. Pace and skill, my eye.

The biggest disappointment however was one of the following;

a) Coleman's inability to see how poor we were in the second half, which meant he left it till 76 minutes to change it.
or b) Coleman's persistence in keeping a team on the pitch that was being so outplayed, so we didn't have a hope in hell of winning.

I'm still not sure which one is what really happened. But either way, both stink of negativity I'm afraid. He genuinely seemed pleased yesterday, which is a worry because the performance was really very bad. As far as I can see, it's 4 games in a row now when we've failed to be competitive for 90 minutes, and it's cost us lots of points.

We're going to struggle if we continue putting in performances like this. Tuesday is vital, and the one thing we need is a good performance. The players seem to be struggling with confidence at the minute, which means getting that from them is probably going to be even harder than usual. The one thing you can say though is that they are always capable of raising their game, so Coleman has to get that out of them.

I hope they're somehow able to shock us and pull something out of the bag. Facing Sheffield Utd is tough at the best of times - but an unbeaten Sheffield Utd is just about as difficult a fixture as you're going to get.

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Just been confirmed on the Offical CCFC Websiteand Andy Turner's blog that McIndoe has signed a 2 year contract.

Personally, I think this is a brilliant piece of business. If you'd told me at the end of last season that Michael McIndoe would be playing for us this year, I would have given you a stunned, and lengthy stare. Not like we've done much in the last few months to indicate we're on the up.

But anyway, I've watched him quite a few times, and although he's not getting any younger, he's still at an age where he's able to make an impact.

I'm constantly moaning about the lack of ambition shown by the club. Targets set too low, no pressure to achieve and seemingly minimal desire to move anywhere fast. Needless to say, the whole DannFox palava didn't do much to appease me, but the fact that we've signed a player who was on the verge of signing for Sheffield Utd is a very definite step in the right direction. It's just what we needed.

You now look at a possible midfield of Bell, Gunny, Clingan, McIndoe, and in that you have what appears to be a nice mix of drive, determination, technique, pace.. I best stop; getting a little ahead of myself there. It's only Michael McIndoe.

But it does look miles better than what we've been used to.

The fact that we've actually been looking at signing Peter Gilbert negates these positives slightly, but you know.. you can't have it all.

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Have to say I'm a little surprised that we're in for him. Not in a bad way, but given he was apparently on the verge of joining Sheffield Utd, and the direction things have been going for us lately, nice to see we're actually still looking at the higher-end of players.

McIndoe has always impressed me for Bristol City. One of those players who seems to cause havoc in the mandatory 3-0 home defeat to them.

There could be worse strategies than buying all the players who can't seem to help but be world beaters against us. Now all we need are Richard Cresswell, Pablo Counago, Tommy Smith and Robbie Blake and that'd be a extra few points for us next season. Wouldn't that be marvellous.

Anyway, while writing this I've found out 2 things about Mr McIndoe;

1) He has a mighty useful girlfriend called Helena Fletcher (video of her making a bit of an arse of herself on Total Wipeout, if you're interested).

and 2) he has his own official website, including ludicrously out of date blog (the lazy swine).

Official Website - Michael McIndoe

But aside from those 2 blips, from what I've seen of him he's a very useful football player. So I'd rather we didn't mess this up. If we're in for him, lets bleeding well get him.

Had a little look around on Youtube for some videos to post of him, but all I could really find was this hideously dramatic tribute to his goal for Doncaster v Arsenal a few years ago.

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