Rasiak-9-

With Nasri, Ribery and Benzema, France have their full quota of white players.

To the tune of Brown Girl In The Ring? I think I have actually heard pockets of supporters try and get it going once in a while. I think I speak for everyone that I'd happily join in if like a thousand people were already singing it. ...right guys?

...and our player of the season. And we as fans don't even sing his name. Really ought to have a song.

It never ceases to amaze me how people associate ability with laziness. If you've got the ability you are by default seen as lazy and if you've not got the ability people clutch at straws to argue you're hard working! In the champo Guly was seen as a reasonably talented but very lazy and cowardly player.

Nice. How did you get into that?

Are you part-French or do you live in France? Not saying what you're saying isn't true I'm just wondering how you know all this as obviously you seem to know your stuff and be confident about it.

Interesting thought but too generous IMO as you can't simply like-for-like swap the promoted/relegated teams around.

Trouble is the slow one always gets interrupted by some kind of event on the pitch, even a tackle or fairly harmless shot gets enough of an "oooh" from the crowd to stop the song and as such, we never get around to singing the fast-paced version. The slow version on its own sounds dreary and boring Onto a broader point; our support really is pretty terrible at the moment. Beating Palace was great 'n' all but any neutral would have looked at us as a completely plastic club yesterday. Awesome support from Palace though.

Can anyone pop a youtube video up of Gaston's goal (or just a link or whatever you can)

I think the only way we'll get away with having both Lambert and Ossie in the same team is by having the two proper wingers that would enable us to go 4-4-2. An old school Bale and Lennon from 2-3 years ago type combo who'll both burn their respective full-backs and cross the ball. Trouble is Lallana can twist and turn but can't burn past a full-back the way we'd like him to and Rodriguez simply isn't a winger. Likewise neither Ossie nor Lambert are number 10s. We've condemned ourselves to playing 4-2-3-1 and as such, I think you have to make the choice between Lambert and Osvaldo, and then Davis and Ramirez.

Morgan Schneiderlin, tra lalalala Morgan Schneiderlin traaaa lalalalala (Brown girl in the ring) No need to make it any more complicated than that, easy to join in with, can get it going with clapping and jumping around 'n' ****. Just repeat ad infinitum. Feel a bit embarrassed that one of our longest serving players doesn't have a song in all honesty. I don't think there's another club out there who's had a player for as long as we've Morgan and not shown their appreciation.

The problem is that assuming we lose to Liverpool, which I'm sorry to say is really quite likely, the Palace game suddenly looks like a massive banana skin. Home team and manager under pressure playing against a team eager to win but with very little to lose, a nervous home crowd and boisterous away following...just has all the makings of the game where the **** hits the fan. Massive shades of QPR at home last season, which fortunately was a debt paid off in advance with our win against Manchester City.

The major problem as I've said on here before (and this may come down to the manager's poor English) is that none of our attacking players seem to have a designated role to play as part of an overall attacking game plan. All four of our attacking players were just thrown forward in some sort of a mish-mash with no real shape yesterday and we seemed to get the least out of all four of them even though I don't think any were particularly terrible as individuals. Rodriguez in particular never seems to know whether or not he's expected to cut inside and go for the one-two, snap a shot off, or take his opponent on and try and get to the byeline. Thats why we had no real width, couldn't work a shooting opportunity, passes were delayed etc.etc. I think changes need to be made to our set up because there is absolutely no way that our pseudo 4-2-4 can possibly work. Time and again (and we had the same thing vs Sunderland) the midfield and defence drift further and further away from each other, we have no width from the full-backs because they have no one to cover them, we never get hold of the ball, players up front get the ball out of position and don't have chances etc.etc.) The whole thing needs to change, starting with bringing Ramirez in and frankly building from there.

Agree with this also. But I think there are problems in the set-up further forward as well... The manager seems desperate to shoehorn in certain attacking players but without much of a plan about where they're supposed to play and what precisely their role is in whatever the system is supposed to be (Rodriguez/JWP) Lallana is another player who seems to be misused, and Pochettino has obviously annoyed many of our fans by taking off one of our best performing (but least effective) players in the past two games. For Lallana to be effective, he HAS to receive the ball in the opponent's final third as unfortunately, for all his talents, the lad cannot beat a player one-on-one and run into the space behind him as he is simply too slow/weak. I've lost count of the number of times Lallana has pulled off a wonderful piece of skill and got a big 'oooh!' from the crowd, only for the defender to simply catch him up and get shoulder-to-shoulder, forcing Adam to quickly release a poor pass under pressure or turn and lay it off to the full-back. Achieving absolutely nothing in the process. Lallana needs the chance to twist and turn and get a cross in or execute a quick one-two 20-30 yards from goal. Facing a full-back on the half way line with 30 yards of space behind him he simply doesn't have the pace and power to be a winger in the traditional sense. Lambert as well looks more and more isolated and for some reason, we haven't managed to get him knocking the ball down to players in the channels the way we used to under Adkins with Lallana/Puncheon. When Lambert does drop back, Osvaldo seems reluctant to occupy the target-man position (possibly under instruction from the manager or simply out of (understandable) impatience with lack of service. The worrying thing is that neither Lambert nor Osvaldo look like scoring despite neither actually playing particularly badly, which is actually more concerning than if their lack of goals could be put down to simply either player simply playing badly or having an off-day. The absence of Ramirez befuddles me. For me, so much of our success this season will be down to building the team around our most creative midfielder and the only one of our players who can control the game, move the ball quickly, pick a pass, make the right decision and do all of the above with a bit of directness. However, incorporating him properly will probably require us to drop one of Lambert/Osvaldo, something I don't think Pochettino is ever going to be willing to do. Ramirez only works in the number 10 role and time and again he's played out of position for short stints, doesn't play to the best of his ability, becomes a scapegoat for criticism and as such doesn't get the game time he needs to prove himself. We get the ball wide, yet can't get to the byeline and cross it with any pace. We kick it up to Lambert, but there's no-one around to receive a knock-down. Final passes are delayed or poorly selected, no-one tries to beat a man, none of our strikers attempt so much as a simple three touch shift-'n'-shoot. Our full-backs don't know whether they have the license to overlap as they have no idea who's covering them and aren't having the chance to receive the ball higher up the pitch. The whole thing is a mess going forward when you break it down. Long story short? There are going to be some tough choices coming up for Pochettino regarding our attacking players and general set-up. Choices that involve dropping certain players, giving the ones that are selected a more defined role and finally deciding on a more definitive game plan, because at the moment its very clearly getting nought but the bare minimum out of some very talented attacking players

Its been well put although its not like we can just write off the wins against Liverpool and Chelsea I guess. Time will tell of course, but put it this way. I genuinely do believe that in terms of the talent of individual players, we have a squad that is easily in the top 10 ability-wise and the only reason I'm currently letting things slide is because the players will need time to gel. Once again I'll let things go away against Liverpool but anything less than 4 points from Palace and Swansea at home and the manager will be under very serious (and justified) pressure. The fixture list gets much, much tougher starting with Arsenal at the end of November, throughout December and up to Chelsea on NY's day. It would be chronic underachievement for a squad of this ability to be looking over their shoulder at the relegation zone at any point this season and I can confidently say that should that happen, it won't be because our players aren't good enough.

I wrote a blog entry a while back on working in a call-centre. May as well re-post it here. The crowning Irony being that after a few months in business journalism I'm doing much the same thing with the only mitigating factor being that my pays gone up to £10.37 p/h + its super local which makes it just about bearable. For any of my fellow recent graduates who haven't quite given up the ghost of achieving their dreams of some kind of career in a competitive yet not-entirely-unrealistic field such as entertainment, sports, acting, music or in my case, journalism, this post is particularly aimed at you. Doubtless having been unemployed for a while and limping by on a combination of Jobseekers Allowance and any spare cash you might have had from a previous student/summer job things eventually look like they're about to come to a head and you're going to have to suck it up and take a big bite of the **** sandwich that is the modest selection of stop-gap jobs available. Nevertheless, you hope that the bread might be thick enough to make the whole thing bearable. Having grown tired of shaving my testicles with a cheese grater and wishing to experience agony with a greater intensity and consistency than such a comparatively tame pastime had offered, it was with reluctant hope that I successfully applied to work as a telephone fundraiser (salesman) for a professional charity fundraising organisation in London. Reluctant hope is a bit of an oxymoron, so I'll aim to illustrate what I mean. Its a little like going to support your local non-league football team playing against Barcelona and knowing that whilst victory is technically within the possibilities of the physical universe, any conscious attempt to somehow conjure some genuine optimism is met by the far more realistic part of your brain with a quick swat to the seat of the pants, instructed to sit on the step, sulk and brace itself for the inevitable thrashing. The thrashing takes the form of just about the most boring, repetitive and soul-crushing job you are likely to face. In my case, this involved making scripted phone calls on behalf of various charities to prospective 'supporters' (often unemployed or pensioners) and making patronising, pressurising requests for donations from such people who clearly couldn't afford any such thing. Any trace of humanity on my or my peers' part (in the form of courteously hanging up the phone without asking repeatedly and conning/pressuring another vulnerable member of society) is quickly dealt with through "coaching", 'coaching' being a euphemism for a stream of conflicting and contradictory advice given by the variety of middle-management drones covering over the main fact that you haven't been hitting whatever target you're supposed to. It is remarkable how a job can tick so many boxes out of low pay, awkward hours, intense work, pressurised environment, deceptive company culture, immoral or unethical activity, yet call-centre work somehow manages a clean sweep. My advice to my fellow underemployed graduate strugglers? Don't turn your nose up at for example, labouring jobs because it might seem below you at some level (many are rather better paid than you might think and offered a more relaxed working environment...although this I will admit I can only relay to you second-hand from friends of mine) and likewise, don't somehow think that the cosy office and relaxed dress code of a call-centre makes for an easy earner.

http://www.givemesport.com/377607-england-is-it-time-to-start-taking-rickie-lambert-seriously Article of mine that I recently wrote for GiveMeSport on this very issue, check it out if you get the chance!

Erm...Sunderland? WP Mail

Bump. Does/Has anyone managed to keep in contact with this fella? Has he had the chance to visit St. Mary's? I've got a fair few old shirts that I was hoping to donate to an African charity (with the ulterior motive of expanding our fanbase of course!) but it'd be great if they could go to this guy and his mates! It would be great to have some kind of update on how he's enjoyed our first season in the Premiership and relatively respectable start to our second.

Thing is, I actually don't think it would take someone particularly special to improve our side. A player with raw pace, directness and the ability to beat a man would make a huge difference to us and as I say, I don't think they'd need to be that brilliant a player to vastly improve the effectiveness of the team as a whole. Lennon would be an absolutely outstanding signing AND might allow us to actually go 4-4-2.

I wouldn't blame this on the new signings at all. The thing that stuck out the most from our win against West Brom was how well they had fitted in. Lovren was fine against today. Wouldn't blame him. Wanyama had a shocker I'm afraid. First time I've seen him play very poorly, but I wouldn't put that down to him being a new signing or any case of not fitting in. He just had a ****ter fair and square. Osvaldo obviously has ability but the reason he and Lambert don't work as a strike pair is really only a symptom of our main problem; our lack of width and consequently, our inability to play 4-4-2. If you want to go 4-4-2 you need out-and-out wingers with pace to quickly distribute the ball to, otherwise you get bogged down having to overplay the ball in the middle of the park where you're very often outnumbered and lose possesion. With Osvaldo up front we don't have a 4-5-1, we have a badly organised 4-4-2 with neither wide man a proper winger. As such, I'd rather make the choice between Lambert and Osvaldo and play Ramirez in the hole, with Lallana and (Puncheon...oops) out wide. But obviously everyone all has different opinions on the actual selection It all comes down to one thing in the end, BALANCE. Which is something that is completely crucial to any successful side and our lack of it was the reason why our team were beaten by 11 players who I honestly don't believe can match our boys for talent or ability.

Well hopefully we can all stop this nonsense about how great our attack is, with no goals from open play in 4 1/2 hours of football against West Brom, Sunderland and Norwich.

This is the wonderful thing about idiots, you accuse them of genuinely thinking they're better qualified to be the manager of a Premiership football team and they openly admit it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIT4Hk6YP5o Pablo Osvaldo....Pablo Osvaldo der ner ner ner ner (Mama loves mambo)

Myself and my friends were saying words to this effect. Teams like Sunderland don't beat us at playing football, but they 'do a job on us'. That may sound like just linguistic bulls*it, but you know what I mean right? They did the exact same thing to us in the same fixture last season and ultimately we've only scored once against them in 3 hours of football at home. Despite the 'brilliant front line' Di Canio praised us for.