By continuing to use the site, you agree to our use of cookies and to abide by our Terms and Conditions. We in turn value your personal details in accordance with our Privacy Policy.
Please log in or register. Registered visitors get fewer ads.
I watched a big match revisited over the weekend between Man City and Ipswich from 1982. Kevin Bond scored a fabulous equaliser for Man City. Anyway I found myself counting the number of red cards that would be issued today and got to about 7. Some of them went completely unpunished, the players just got on with it and they carried on playing football. It was glorious to watch.
As it happens Trevor Francis did get sent off for head butting someone just before half time but that's what red cards used to be reserved for.
Watching footballers get tackled without writhing about in faux agony felt completely alien. It's become such a strange sport.
I went out to the US to watch my team in a home game for the first time a couple of years ago and it completely blew me away. The noise and atmosphere and tension was completely electric. I honestly thought i was going to feint after one third down sack I was screaming so hard and could literally feel adrenaline pounding through my veins.
By comparison the UK games are absolutely awful. I'm amazed they still sell so well. The atmosphere is so neutral and exhibition-like it completely sucks the joy out of the game. You just settle in awaiting a crucial third-down snap and some prick taps you on the shoulder trying to get past to get to the bar. Unbearable. They need to find a way to segregate actual fans of the specific teams into dedicated sections for me as the entire point of going to see your team is completely lost at those games at the moment.
His point was Hayden is too old and goes against what Nourry is trying to do - Acquire players with resale value.
Signing other clubs' youngsters on loan, giving them game time, helping them develop before sending them back is no closer to that model than signing a 29 year midfielder.
Not sure I quite see the fascination with this guy. He's done next to nothing right or wrong in a Rangers shirt yet gets a crazy amount of air time.
Nourry's response at the FF was clearly cryptic. Along the lines of 'he knows what he needs to do to get in the first team' and whatever that is he clearly hasn't been willing to do it. Anyway I can't see his presence making any difference to our current plight whatsoever.
The worrying thing for me is we seem to have gone back to that horrible, grueling, slow build up with the ball, playing in front of 11 players that we've allowed to get into their desired shape. We so often slow the game down when the GK has it rather than quickly getting the ball ahead of opposition's committed attackers.
Saito and Dembele almost always have the balled played to their feet, often with their backs to goal. We need to get the ball ahead of these players to get them sprinting at defences.
This feels like it's been a problem with little let up for years. Literally. It was a plague that seemed to settle in during Warburton's last six months and we've really struggled to change it outside of a few brighter spots of form across several different managers. Given the starting XI bears almost no resemblance to when it started I can't figure out why it's still happening. It can't be by design surely?
We have pace in the team now and an abundance of ball players... In fact that's about all we have. So why do we always seem to be so slow, deliberate and risk averse when it comes to moving the ball forward? The only thing I can put it down to is confidence. Ironically teams this season have found it devastatingly easy to attack us in ways we're incapable of attacking them. There's always space, they're always running at us, we're always back pedalling. I'm so sick of it, it's awful and so frustrating to watch.
It's actually what we've clambered for on the whole for some time... The opposite to 'what the manager wants, the manager gets' that leaves you with Leon Balogun playing for Gareth Ainsworth 6 months later.
Without wanting to witch hunt though, as I'm sure the data-driven approach to recruitment has a lot of nuance... The one constant in that approach to recruitment has been Andy Belk and his model appears to have identified the likes of Ariel Borysiuk, Yeni Ngbakoto, Pawel Wszolek, David Wheeler, Idrissa Sylla, Seb Polter, George Thomas, Toni Leistner, Andre Dozzell, Charlie Kelman, Taylor Richards, Ziyad Larkeche, Reggie Cannon and now Varane, Madsen and Celar.
At what point do you chalk this up to the right idea but poor execution? We're getting even further into bed with this model, even going so far as to completely build our strategy around it? If so, our ability to identify good investments that offer a good product and a financial return is completely paramount.
In fairness it's also presumably brought us Dickie, Dembele, Chery, BOS, Willock, Field, Paal and Nardi but that strike rate, along with quite how wide some of the misses on that list were is very worrying.
If we'd have handed over the keys to Belk 4/5 years ago and not signed the gap-filling - presumably manager-led - signings such as Barbet, Begovic, Andersen, Colback, Cook, Johansen, Austin etc. not to mention the Eze and Chair lightning strikes we surely would have been relegated by now.
The thing that always amazes me about your posts and reactions is your eager willingness to slag off absolutely anything and everything about QPR given even the slightest decimal of a chance, excusing the behaviour simply by labelling the tedious repetitive tripe as opinions.
Then, when someone offers an opinion on your provocations (as Nump has rightly labeled them), you immediately lash out quite aggressively, trying to belittle anyone that offers a counter opinion to yours.
So which is it? Are opinions allowed and encouraged here as posting them is better than the MB being bland and boring? Or should we suppress them? Whatever choice you make also applies to people being able to offer their opinion on your opinions, which often seems to offend you. You're basically a walking, talking, QPR loathing contradiction. Hardly surprising people tend to cast a little shade in your direction is it?
As he was still registered at Newcastle when the transfer deadline passed, Hayden is ineligible to play for a club in England until January, whether he's released by Newcastle or not. Forget about him until the New Year at least.
Is there really anyone out there that can see a significant difference between those two goals? It's literally a contact sport. They're both square when they come together, in both goals the scorers were stronger. Anyone that has ever had even a passing interest in the game of football could see that they're both legitimate goals and I cannot believe anyone would ever doubt that fact.
And how he talked over Gary Neville after the Haaland goal to spew his latest poetic verse out as if he's just watched Michelangelo finish off the Sistene Chapel.
'Muscle and Might, Power and Poise" Oh shut up mate he's just kicked a ball in a goal FFS.
By continuing to use the site, you agree to our use of cookies and to abide by our Terms and Conditions.
