General Football Thread

Loved this bit:

At Cambridge, it was apparent that the ball is a valuable commodity. Only as a last resort and not on a Ryan Bennett whim will it now be pumped aimlessly forwards. From place kicks we saw defenders (shudder) dropping to their own by-line to receive the ball. From there they'd even exchange passes all around their own box. Jesus wept. If we're to make any ground adjustments before the new season I'd suggest St Johns Ambulance taking permanent residence in the River End along with the RSPCA; that way the heart failure and litters of kittens that will be had can be adequately cared for.

Maybe I'm sadistic but there is a part of me that wishes we'd retained Bassong just to see/hear the howls and screams as he knocked a loose pass inside to Russell Martin when the keeper could have lumped it.

 

Bizarre scenes in last night's (hard fought) win over Spain.
Ref awarded a penalty to Spain, didn't consult line staff, then reversed her decision?
If this clip shows it, our player was making a sliding block and the ball ricocheted up and hit her arm
in the blink of an eye - no way could it be judged 'deliberate' and to be fair to the Spanish, there were few, if any complaints from them.
England just (?) need a draw against Portugal to go through to the later stages - come on Lionesses, the cricketers showed you how to go about it
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/40701230

 

She apparently changed her mind when the England captain reminded her of the wording of the law!

 

Women playing and refereeing football! what ever next?

Bah!

 

And so say Andy Gray, Richard Keys...and General Melchett!

 

Why can't they be content cooking, washing, ironing and looking after the kids ?

 

Richard Keys and Andy Gray do the ironing ? I'd pay money to see that !

 

Ironing is the one chore that I refuse to do since the missus buggered off with lover boy. Life's too bloody short to stand in front of an ironing board for two hours, much rather spend the time drinking beer !

 

I've never ironed anything apart from a shirt for a wedding.

Pointless.

 

I don't do ironing either, one of my darts team mates is ex military and he hates people not ironing.

Bah!

 

I 'multitask'!!! Whilst I'm ironing, I can watch TV and quaff the occasional beer.

Edit - 8 years ago today, the fans who opted not to accept the rebate for us being relegated to League 1 enabled the club to buy GH!!!!
The rest is history. #stuffoflegends

 

West Ham get Hernandez for 16M?! That's proper business! What a bargain!

 

They do seem to be building quite a team of individuals, but I wonder how they'll perform as a team.

Today's offering on DF from PD - http://www.edp24.co.uk/sport/norwic...ith-norwich-city-chief-daniel-farke-1-5119245
“It is always about the players. Of course, I can have some ideas about what we need in the game but if the players don’t follow me or try to fulfil my ideas it is just an idea,” he said. “It is always about the players. In the beginning we had some problems where we are not dominating in the 4-1-4-1 so we tried 3-5-2 to get pressure on the long balls because that is how Bielefeld always play and we wanted to protect our centre. “That was the reason we dominated more and more because the guys took on the basic information. It is not so easy to switch during the game, it is very important for us to be flexible in that game and different games. That is key”
Yes, but it needs a manager/head coach who HAS some ideas!!!!

 

Also from that article:

Alex Tettey appears to have a key role in Farke’s developing strategy, with his ability to protect the defence.
“Alex missed some games because in pre-season, he had some problems with his knee and he is an older guy. It is important he plays and gets his fitness,” said the City head coach. “I planned to only give him 70 minutes (against Bielefeld) but he was so important with his physical presence and tactically winning his one against ones. I wanted to win the game and he had to play the 90 minutes. It is vital for us that although he might be hurt he can do good things on the pitch.”

Firstly I hope that Tettey can up his game if he is to be regularly involved, because his distribution has often slowed us to a crawl in the past.
Secondly, it's intersting to see him say that he kept him on because he wanted to win the game. I know there is this common wisdom that results don't matter in pre-season, but I'm not sure I fully subscribe to that thinking. I think they are important though not critical.

For one, wins breed confidence, confidence individually, in the team and in the coaching methods. I think that is especially important with a new coach and radiaclly different way of doing things.
And what of the alternative, keep losing and what confidence can the players have when it actually matters? Can the coach know his system works with his players if they lose?
Performance is key, but if they are not winning, are they not understanding the system, if so then is there a problem?

For all the Journos who state emphatically that results don't matter only fitness, how many managers outwardly state this? They want to see progress and understanding of their philosophy and the best and most positive sign of that is by winning whilst understanding their instructions. If they weren't fit enough, the preceding points would be very difficult to achieve.

Bah!

 

I think what most of us have said is that it is not win at any cost, it's about getting mileage in the legs and learning what the HC expects of you and applying that knowledge, then winning will become a result of that tutoring

 

Master of the understatement!!
He makes 'sideways' Sammy Clingan look like a world-beater

 

Big Match Revisited on BTSport 2 in ten mins (08:00PM) features Norwich City v Bristol City from 17th April 1977 !
I have no idea what the result was and I'm not gonna Google it either !

 

Well City won 2-1 with two blinding strikes from Martin Peters and Kevin Reeves

 

Those were the days KIO!