Whitey Grandad

So why do we have to put up with it?

I was at a game in Vancouver where VAR stuck its nose in and interfered unnecessarily.

Offsides are nothing to do with the ref. VAR remit.

I’m not laughing.

It doesn’t have to be either play it short or hoof it long. There is such a thing as playing it out from the back but this lot just recycle it in diminishing circles. Of course playing it out needs a midfield presence which we don’t have if we play five at the back leaving our midfield empty.

The figures are for net migration and would have taken account of those who had returned. Frightening, isn’t it?

I think it was 10 years ago.

It reminds me of Hitler in ‘Downfall’. Always hoping that the ‘Steiner Angriff’ would save him.

What is this ‘tweak’ whereof you speak?

That’s because it is a chore

Of course it’s risky. And stupid. The slightest mistake and it costs us a goal. When do we ever have four players in the opposition penalty area? If the thinking behind this system is to draw the opposition in then it’s working. Once they have been drawn in then we are supposed to have more room to break free and counter but the exit pass never comes because it’s not allowed to. I wonder if Martin’s preference for five at the back is because he wants his defenders to be closer together to make the passing between themselves easier. For this reason alone he should go. He simply doesn’t like us to be attack minded.

I’m sure you’d like it to be 🥴

Yep always leave a player or two upfield. My neighbour Ivan Golac (name drop) said that he like to leave three upfield because then the opposition had to mark them with four.

The system exaggerates any mistakes and makes them more likely to lead to goals conceded. Even less talented players can be drilled to produce a tight defence. Defending is easier to coach than scoring goals but this posturing imposter has never been able to do that wherever he has been. I have no doubt that a more competent and experienced manager would have us set up better defensively. I don’t think we’d survive but we would at the least have made a fist of it.

Enough talent to get into the lead but not enough talent to defend it?

Exactly. And we all know why that is.

Football has been around since medieval times. The Laws of the Game have been in effect since 1863. It is played by over 240 million people in more than 200 countries. It has developed into the beloved sport that we all used to love. Until now. Russell Martin is no new Messiah. His beloved style sucks the life and passion out of the game. The one and only objective of it is to score more goals than the opposition and you will never do that by playing pass the parcel in your own penalty area. If there were some radical new way of playing the game it would have been found decades ago. The longer this farce goes on the more I hate Russell Martin for what he has done to our club.

As have we all. Well, some of us anyway.

Players are just that. Players. Some are better than others. But a team is greater than the sum of its players.

Same here. Going to the game used to be an escape from the turgid regularity and boredom of everyday life. Now it’s the other way round.

With the new Inheritance Tax changes coming in there must in some cases be an incentive to get rid of the old git a few weeks early.

So who will be left? Will we have enough to make a team?

Because he enjoys the risk element. He gets a buzz out of it. It’s effectively a gambler’s high.

Martin is responsible for the system that makes such mistakes more likely and more catastrophic when they inevitably occur. A related if not directly comparable situation occurs in Employment Law where it’s something known as the Principle of Vicarious Liability.

“In the cat” more likely.