fearful, frightful, ghastly, grody, gross, gruesome, grungy, harrowing, hideous, horrendous, horrible, horrific, horrifying, nasty, offensive, raunchy, repulsive, shocking, stinking, synthetic, tough, ugly, unpleasant, unsightly.
Anyway, something else people haven't really heard before is me agreeing with a Steve Bruce team selection. Upon hearing today's team, I said "that's the team I'd have picked", and promptly ran off to Ladbrokes to put my entire monthly earnings on Blues to win 3-1 with Cameron Jerome scoring first. Oh how foolish I am. Seb Larsson replacing the hopeless Gary McSheffrey in the only change from the last proper game Blues played (no offence, any Hereford United fans reading, of which I suspect there'll be none) looked, to me, to be the right team to pick.
After approximately 20 seconds, or maybe even a little less, it was quite obvious that Blues were going to get beaten, and beaten hard. Not in a raunchy way either, so we still don't need that word.
After about 3 minutes, I realised that I was wrong to agree with the team selection, because Stuart Parnaby, for all his qualities (there are a few - he's not too bad) is not a left-back, and Mat Sadler, sat on the bench, is. Parnaby's left foot is for standing on, and that's it, and so Blues had no balance to their team. Sadler should have played, and if Parnaby and Stephen Kelly both HAD to play, then Kelly should have been on the left, as he can actually kick the ball with his left foot.
To bring that up makes it sound like I'm suggesting that was the reason for Blues being grody. Don't get me wrong - it wasn't. Blues could have had Ashley Cole at left-back today, and Middlesbrough would still have had the easiest walk in the park since, well, the last time they had an untroubled walk in a park. Blues were, quite frankly, appalling.
I can't really put my finger on why Blues were so dreadful, but they were unbelievably bad. I've watched Blues a lot of times, and I've seen them be bad a lot of times, but this really, really, really was bad. In fact, it was so bad, I'm almost laughing about just how bad they were. It's not that funny though, because on this showing, Blues are a 2008/09 Championship title contender waiting to happen.
It's unfair to single out any players for particular abuse, mainly because they were all so bad, and McSheffrey was only a substitute. However, I'll single out one to be kept out of the abuse - Cameron Jerome. He deserved better. No one else did though. It's such a shame for Jerome too, because after last week at Derby, you could see he was absolutely buzzing and, like most strikers, he breeds on confidence. Had Blues done ok today, and had he got a goal, he'd have been flying, but he had no support whatsoever, barely had a chance, and his confidence may well be knocked. I hope it's not though.
The defending for the two Boro goals was nothing short of, well, pick one of the 35 words from the first paragraph. Except "tough". For the first, England Under 21 international and future Bristol City and Gillingham defender David Wheater had the the most free of free headers. For the second, so did George Boateng. The header was a difficult one too - it was well over Boateng's head - and had someone so much of breathed on his ear he wouldn't have been able to nod down for Stewart Downing to take as much time as he wanted to slot the ball past Maik Taylor, but he did. It was embarrassing. Not just letting England "footballer" Downing score against us, but the defending itself.
The rest of it, well, it was rubbish. Annoyingly, Boro were 2-0 up at half-time, and never really did much. Had Blues raised their game by just one iota at any point during the game, then I think they'd have caused Boro some problems. Credit to them, second half Boro played quite well and really should have scored at least three more goals, but that was a team oozing with confidence because they were 2-0 up and their opponents looked about as menacing as Dora The Explorer. Anyone would have played with more freedom by that point. At one point Boateng skipped past three players as if they weren't there. George bloody Boateng! Cracking player, but not really a silky dribbler - he looked like Cristiano Ronaldo against us at times.
So, what was wrong? Well, everything. What's the answer? Well, that's a worry - I don't know what the answer is. Blues' squad looks thin - maybe not so much in numbers, but in quality. The likes of Daniel de Ridder, Rafael Schmitz, Franck Queudrue and (sorry irrational hatred people) Damien Johnson will all offer plenty when fit and returning, and there's the two new midfielders to come in too, but once a few players are out (like now) and you're having to rely on the likes of Parnaby, Muamba, McSheffrey, Nafti, O'Connor, etc, well, you look a bloody poor Premiership team. Bruce did a Barry Fry and made a triple change after 55 minutes and threw on Mehdi Nafti, Gary McSheffrey and Garry O'Connor. I can assure you that Gareth Southgate wasn't exactly soiling himself at Blues "going for it". There were no other options though. That was what Blues were left with. You can imagine the impact it had too. Yup - none.
Teams have bad days, and this was a really bad day. Manchester United look rubbish on some occasions, and so the performance itself, well, Blues won't be as bad again this season - I can virtually guarantee that. The performance can almost be written off. The actual inferrences that can be drawn from the performance though, well, they're more worrying. If that set of players raised their game 50%, they'd still get beat by 95% of the Premiership. Blues have taken four points so far, from games against Derby and Sunderland. Derby are the worst side in the Premier League, and Sunderland are the third worst side. I'll let you work out who the second worst side are.
Raunchy football? No thanks.