MadAmster

When we win there, would it be OTT to say "toughsheet Bolton"? 😉

Now we've got JJ and Fourns in it's a toss up between a wing back or the whole thing just fizzling out like a damp squib.

1 minute ago, Wolfie20 said:

Bet it's not as good as Charlie Buchans' Football Monthly   😉

Good God! That disappeared about 50 years ago. Nostalgia.

Gate 7133. 4000 of them were DCFC.

Looking like a natural replacement for Knight with his non-stop energy. I think the better performances since the injuries that saw Tommo come in, seem to show that a MF 3 of Smith, Bird and Hourihane doesn't have the speed/urgency necessary for this League. When everybody is fit, for me, Tommo would stay in. Bird would either be on the bench or replace Smith. Hourihane is probably safe as he's the skipper.

I like Bird. He's class. I remember last season. 20 odd games unbeaten and Bird was central to that run. He got injured and we went off the boil. 

21 hours ago, richgee1976 said:

I don't agree with what he did, but how many times have we had similair happen against us?

2 wrongs don't make a right. As that American chappie, Jackson, once said "If you wanna make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself and then make a change"...

If we want to stamp it out, it has to start somewhere. FA/EFL have made it clear that "simulation" will lead to a card. It has on a fair few occasions over the Leagues but not every one is caught by the refs. 

I'd love to see, and I know it won't happen, PW go public saying he'll fine and sub off any player who does it and his players have been instructed not to do it. He should also say that he would expect refs to card every player who does it, be it one of ours or one of the opposition.

It is, indeed "shithousery" and needs sorting.

Wildsmith went down in my estimation at the weekend.

On 27/08/2023 at 14:41, Wolfie20 said:

Totally agree with this post. 

However, whoever / whatever 442 is, they obviously haven't visited the Oatcake Fanzine forum - those Stoke fans are the vilest, most foul-mouthed bunch of scrotes who have ever lived on this Earth. 

442 (Four Four Two) is a monthly football magazine that's been in existence for over 25 years

Good opening 2 minutes then Posh got in the ascendancy. We gave them too much time and too much space. They won all the 2nd balls. No great surprise that they scored. That seemed to wake us up. We got closer, we moved, we pressed, we got the 2nd balls. We showed that we can play, that we have fight, that the squad is starting to gel. 4 first half goals including a Waggy hattrick, goals 2 to 4 coming in a wonderful 8 minute spell. Roons given a torrid time at the start but grew into it. Tommo again brilliant. Wildsmith was as busy as their keeper. There will be ups and downs along the way and it's a long hard season. Too soon to see patterns other than there are no certainties. Going into round 4 matches last week, Bolton and the Posh were the top 2. Posh have now lost 2 on the bounce and Bolton lost 0-4 at home to Wigan and only managed a draw at Burton. Fans need to get behind the team. Stop the myriad of "wrist slashing" type posts we saw when Posh scored. By HT they'd almost all been deleted. They should never have been written. Little wonder 442 labelled us as the biggest online moaners. We're supporters. Let's support. Let's be measured in our responses. Let us stop the knee jerk reactions when we concede with more than an hour still to play. No more moaning when the opposition has a good spell. They're not just going to lie down and let us walk over them. I suppose it's all indicative of the instant society in which we live. In reality, things are never a 1 or a 10 but somewhere in between.

A word about the ref. He let a lot go, from both sides. He seemed to have decided to let the game flow rather than stop it at every opportunity. That had the pleasant side effect of there being less chance for players to delay restarts. Could well have booked Rooney but let play go on and it was a good 2 minutes before play stopped and he didn't "go back" and give the card he probably should have given.

The old WM formation. That's the way it was when I was but a lad. 2 full backs, 3 half backs, 2 wingers, 2 inside forwards and a beast of a centre forward. Gave you 4 lines rather than 3, in today's parlance it would be designated 2-3-2-3.

1 hour ago, 21CSchizoidRam said:

Trump and facts do not belong in the same sentence.

they do when you use it as the verb meaning something that ranks above the rest (as in a card game)

2 hours ago, TigerTedd said:

Orange isn’t a real colour at all. Totally made up. 

Fake news, the orange man told me so... 😉

In a series of exchanges elsewhere, I have been informed that there are only 2 real green colours. Dark/bottle green and grass green. Pointing out to the other person in the correspondence that not all grass is green and even green grass has various shades of green, they are not all the same shade of green only led to personal abuse. The colour palette for "real" green shows light greens. Apparently, those are not real at all but fake, made up greens. Lime green is most definitely not a real green and anyway it's a fruit colour not a grass colour. I have also learnt that, of the >300 shades of green, only bottle green and grass green are real, all the rest are fake/made up greens.

That got me to wondering if the blue shades in the away shirt are "real" blues or fake made up ones. How many of the 270 various shades of blue are real?

Does the same apply to red or yellow or orange etc.

Isn't it great that opinion trumps fact online?

20 hours ago, Ghost of Clough said:

 

 'we should try passing the ball to a teammate a bit more'

Amended. Looks more correct now 😉

Some have commented on getting younger players in. I presume they mean players in their mid to late 20s. An age group PW spoke about, extensively, last season. Might those players be out of our current budgetary restrictions and that is why we haven't brought them in?

Based on last weekend's results, neither are Bolton or Posh...

Checking on patio furniture at Furniture Direct?

14 hours ago, IslandExile said:

He only picked Rooney when there was nobody else available and despite the fact that most supporters rate him.

So I'm not too hopeful.

He probably thought his original selections were the right players in the right places. Hopefully, he now knows Rooney is worth a starting place on the right hand side of a back 3 or a back 4 as well as being able to play centrally.

1 hour ago, Brailsford Ram said:

I admire your optimism and I too have always erred on the side of optimism with Derby County; it's a happier way of living than being pessimistic. But at the moment, you are in front of me in the optimism stakes.

I seem to be just a couple of years older than you at 71 and watching since 1961. I saw and enjoyed all of the promotions seasons you refer to, home and away. I haven’t given up on us going up this season but I just can’t get too excited about it at the moment. There’s still some rebuilding and a lot of improvement required for that to happen and the three latest injuries are a real knock back. But the results at the top of the table were a pleasant eye opener after the starts made by Barnsley, Peterborough and Bolton in particular. For now those clubs don’t look as daunting as they seemed on Saturday morning. What a difference a day makes and let’s hope it wasn’t just a fleeting dawn. But remember Fleetwood hit the woodwork twice, so it could have been much different.

 

COYR

1961. The year of my first match as well. Just somewhere between 5 and 8 games a season these days for me. Flights and  hotels, train from Brum, match ticket and 3 days food and beer make a huge dent in my pension. Friday to Sunday can knock me back 500. Over for Pompey and then for Charlton but flying in Saturday morning so I might get away with 350 each for those 2 trips. Back in March from the 12th to the 17th, taking in 2 games. Somewhere between 700 and 800 that trip I think. Hopefully manage 2 or 3 other games but that would be my lot unless I win the lottery

3 hours ago, RoyMac5 said:

Who, and how setup at the back?

Rooney, Nelson, Cashin. Much better than Nelson, Bradley, Cashin based on that game. Still more improvement needed though. Can they now carry on and improve as a back 3? I hope so

14 hours ago, sheffieldram said:

Kevin Hector..my favourite player when I was at school.

I was always "King Kev" when playing football. All the other kids were either Wednesday or United back in the day in Sheffield.

If only his header had gone in against Poland and not been stopped on the line.

I don't think I ever got over not making the 74 World Cup. The only other disappointment that came close was losing to Leicester at Wembley in the nineties.

If he hadn't been pushed in the back he'd have hit the back of the net with that header. Should have been a penalty.

On 19/08/2023 at 11:28, Jimbo Ram said:

I generally agree with the patient, let’s give things time to gel approach Mad, but I really didn’t expect things to start as bad as this. Three home defeats on the bounce where we have looked extremely poor on the whole is not great. It’s not just the results but the performances have just not been anywhere near good enough.

Their 0-4 away win at Bolton seems to put our narrow defeat to Wigan in a  better light. Would have been 1-1 if the ref had spotted Wyke having both hands full of Cashin's shirt....

You're right, performances haven't been good enough overall but there have been some good passages of play as well. Not all doom and gloom.

We seem to have stumbled on a decent back 3. Although we can't be certain, based on 1 game. Especially with 2 away fixtures up next at Posh and Bolton. Thommo seems to have put the grit and urgency into MF that we were missing. Remember, all of our promotion and title winning seasons didn't start brilliantly. 2 were off the back of 2 wins in 8, 1 was 2 wins in 7 and the others were all 2 from 6. Conversely, in one of Nigel's seasons we won 4 or 5 on the trot and finished 12th. Yes, improvements are necessary, totally agree. Despite the results, there has been some good play, as well as bad and some good goals and chances too.

1 hour ago, Jayram said:

Its the way we’re playing, the one dimensional tactics that make us look a shambles when they don’t work, the boring ugly style of football we’re having to endure, the hammering of square pegs into round holes Warne does week after week to try and make his rubbish system work and the total lack of a plan B when it doesn’t. These are the reasons some of us see absolutely nothing positive in any of the games. 

No good moves? No good goals? No good defending?

Of course, there have been individual mistakes. Of course, the zonal marking we seem to have adopted had a large part to play in both Oxford goals. I'm not saying it's all sweetness and light but neither is it unmitigated crap with no good attached to it whatsoever.

Time will tell if we start to click. If the performances improve. Still 12 days to see players move in or out. Still time for PW to decide the players he has need a different system/formation. Squads don't always gel instantly.

Maybe I'm too patient. Maybe others are the new generation where instant satisfaction is all they know. Maybe the "truth" lies somewhere in between.

10 hours ago, europia said:

I don't think there is actually a large contingent of supporters expecting us to 'roll teams' every week. However the general consensus in football is;  if you defend well, win your home games and get your season off to a reasonable start, there is a likelihood of progress with the possibility of some level of success. 

... and a squad that has seen a lot of players coming and going can take time to gel. This one looks that way. It might never gel. Every transfer is a gamble. Here we're looking at multiple changes. It can take time. There's also the chance that it might not work out at all.

If it doesn't work out, what then? My own view is that paying compo to PW and his staff would likely see us exceed the parameters of the business plan agreed to by the EFL. That would likely lead to a points deduction....

I think we're "stuck" with what we have.

1 hour ago, derbydaz22 said:

Interested to know what chinks of light you’ve seen so far because I can’t think of any.

You've seen absolutely nothing positive in any of the games? We were at least as good as Wigan on the opening day. Gifted them both goals. The 2nd should have been chalked off by the ref for the foul on Cash. 20 shots to their 7. 4 on target to their 3. Good win at Burton. 

Blackpool was poor. Oxford were the better team yet we almost matched them for shots both on and off target. We're not going to roll teams up every week. There's been decent passages of play. We need to cut out  the individual errors for one. We also need to stop giving players like Oxford's Harris 10 yards of space in and around the box. Zonal marking? Ever seen a zone score? We need to pressure opposition players in our defensive third. There's a fair bit that needs fixing but that's what Warne is supposed to do. Here's hoping he gets it sorted.

58 minutes ago, RoyMac5 said:

Home games? 

No, games. As stated in the post of mine you quoted. No harm in widening the scope of a discussion... it happens in life so why not online?