Badger

Heroes all of them from the Alehouse Days. McGrath was a favourite player of mine. Fisher wasn't the same after his broken leg though.

Saw a link to this on the old thread this morning. Wondered if it was another defensive masterclass from future superstar Jack Whatmough, and even checked their line up for the Bristol Rovers match and apparently not, he wasn't even playing. Seems Whatmough has got some competition for their 'Bestest Player of the Season' award then.

The two tackles on Djenepo yesterday were easily on par with the one he was sent off for against Newcastle last season.

Interesting that he talks about leaving the club as we wanted to raise funds to buy Charlie George, and the club had Steve Moran coming through. Rumour at the time was that Funnell had a bust up with Lawrie’s son who was also a junior at the club.

One of the hopes of VAR was that it might remove the ‘big club bias’ and allow an objective review of an incident. All it seems to have done is move the ‘bias’ to Stockley Park, and bring in a new strand of incompetence.

Shilton was also my first thought on reading the post you were replying to. Friend of mine said during the 1990 World Cup semi-final as it neared penalties England should take Shilton off with a couple of minutes to go and replace him with Dave Beasant, as Shilts doesn’t save penalties. A good point, but very few would select Beasant ahead of Shilton in their line up.

No, they have in recent seasons been in the top half, often pushing for Europe. Fair point but they seem to have come out of the other side of that experience intact and now stringer. That’s two poor appointments to contrast with three we had after Koeman left before Ralph arrived to steady the ship. Like us they now have a better manager who is likely to be sought after but don’t appear to have left themselves financially up shit creek in the process. Leicester have managed to retain many of their better players they want to keep (albeit by paying higher wages than us) and where they have sold (Maguire) have made decent investments (Maguire barely missed, Maddison not Elyounoussi, £40m was it for Tielimans ?). Think it’s a case of red and white striped glasses not to see they’ve managed things better over the last few years and are in a better position because of it.

Annoying thing about Leicester is that is how we could be, and might have been. But they're a well run club with an ambitious owner and not handicapped by the Les Reed years.

Poor Spurs and Daniel Levy having to pay massive compensation to Jose if they get rid.

I was at both those matches, great support and atmosphere. Memorable nights. At Orient I was on the side terrace you mention, yes it was rammed full, and no surprise when the wall at the front collapsed as we all tried to celebrate on the pitch after. Always regret not being able to go to Luton away in that run-in towards the end of the season where I believe Saints had three sides of the ground.

Thanks for posting the link above. This lead to the next installment - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_j6Dl-6GHAhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_j6Dl-6GHA Always felt sorry that he didn't get a run once we'd got promoted, perhaps like Billy Sharpe he was probably thought of as not having the pace for the top flight. Nice of Cherries fans to make something for us!

You mean he comes across as reasonably intelligent and articulate rather than some of the gum chewing types that are often rolled out in front of the cameras ? Not sure Ings has any more gravitas about him to make him a better captain than JWP, probably not to be honest. Don't necessarily disagree with you about MF being an ideal position to influence things on the pitch (Ball and Case being obvious examples), but I recall an interview with Keegan saying that in his view defenders were the best placed to lead as they were constantly trying to organise on the pitch. . He also suggested this is why they made better managers than forwards - his view at the time before he took the Newcastle job. Chris Nicholl was the example he used

Good, detailed analysis Dusic. Thanks for putting some context around the recent results.

Interesting point, what’s the answer though ? Allow him to bring in another coach of his own choice perhaps. not sure what his sidekick’s (Bitchkicker or whatever) area of expertise is, but does seem a defensive coach wouldn’t go amiss.Attracting one mid-season though might be difficult.

No but if you say it quick enough, getting rid of Gao, seems a easy and plausible route to go... just wish it was that simple. No not particularly scarred by MLG, just know certain issues and comments will bring him hurtling out of his cave !

I did point this out to my sons when we went top in October. I didn’t expect it to come back as a prophesy to bite me on the arse. It shouldn’t and I hope it doesn’t but every season someone seems to drop like a stone.

In the past some of the best captains have been experienced, or just respected by the rest of the squad. Not sure “respect” for anyone else is something the modern footballer understands as a concept nowadays. Which is why I mention Ball and the 11 millionaires in the post above. More likely they look at whose got the biggest 4x4 or most tattoos on an arm.

Does he normally play on the left though ?

How do the club “get rid of Gao”? He’s not going to ‘sack’himself as our majority shareholder is he ? Apart from that, yes keep Ralph, and pray for divine intervention and someone better to buy the club (whilst accepting that the Almighty might have what He considers more deserving cases for intervention in the pending tray at the moment). (Have I just set MLG up for a rant about divine intervention?)

Agree totally. Honourable mentions to Fonte and VVD even, but I’ve not really seen any driving leadership on the field since Jimmy Case left. I always thought Schneiderlin might be destined for the role but obviously not. One thing that occurs to me though is how modern professional footballers would react to someone like Ball giving them an on field bollocking on the pitch whilst playing together and if they’d respond and step up, or just think “oh, fuck off, not taking that from you” and downing tools further. Remember it was Ball who told the story of his time at Man City and looking round the dressing room at half time thinking ‘what’s the point ? I’m talking to 11 millionaires here, they’re not interested”.

I raised a similar point to this in another thread earlier in the week (possibly the Ralph thread). There’s are great deal of talk about ‘plan B’ but very few managers we’ve had have been able to implement one. As in the previous thread, I think Hoddle was the last manager who we had that was considered able to change a game tactically with a sub or a switch. But he failed spectacularly to do this at Tranmere. The plan B we’d like is to defend a lead. I’ve lost count of how many times this has been our undoing, yet other teams seem to defend a lead against us for half a game or more, or when down to 9 men.

Don't agree with you. You've seen the calibre of managers we've had since Koeman left, and Ralph is an upgrade on all of them. Why would the Brentford manager be interested in us ? He's working at an ambitious and well run club, perhaps that's the key as to where things have gone wrong.

To be replaced by ??? This is not an attractive job for any manager with ambition given our current ownership and finances. Like many I'd like to see RH given the resources to build his own squad, but that seems unlikely at present. Did an excellent job at Leipzig although he did have the steadying hand of his DoF, Rangnick, there as well.

Interesting statistic, especially after today. How many did FF save for us out of interest. My recollection was that FF was a lot less agile than McCarthy but I was reminded the other day that he had saved one at Anfield.

McCarthy for me. Big question though is if FF remains our GK for Cup matches, does Ralph keep him in for the semi-final, then final should we make it through to the semi or beyond, when he's publicly stated McCarthy is his No 1 ? Would seem harsh to drop FF if he's performed well in previous rounds, but then he would be criticised if he doesn't play what he considers the strongest team.