| News Comment | Gambling with FFP — Column at 02:14:05
Excellent piece. It's tiresome to see so many still complaining that we are victims somehow and that our punishment was unjust. Re "I can’t begin to envisage what possessed the EFL decided to leave this very sensible safeguard out of their FFP regulations" - the original site is down at the moment but I believe I recall Kieran Maguire aka PriceOfFootball observed that the entire section relating to ground sales in the EFL guidelines was simply copy and pasted from the Premier League's... |
| News Comment | Season preview part one — promotion contenders at 10:32:13
"highly-rated winger Said Benrahama (who I have on very good authority that QPR were chasing)"[...] "throwing big money at us to nab ex QPR academy player centre back Chris Mepham " Living in their heads rent-free as usual. Dunno about that very good authority that thinks we're in for £2.5m wingers these days though. |
| News Comment | Bright, Free and Eze - Column at 16:43:37
Repetition also applies to smart boys I hear. Might be something to this coach doing some coaching lark... "the ‘Quality, Professional, Relentless’ mantra he has set for his squad" - is this a real thing by the way or just a bit of writer's fun? |
| News Comment | End of Term Report 17/18 - Defenders at 13:40:51
Not the biggest fan of Ned but was always the lesser of our evils at the back. As you say, replacing him in our circumstances not the easiest job and I do feel finding a capable right back may be much more attainable the way the game is these days - which is why I'm also okay with the idea of Furlong moving there for good - agree with "I’d rather him play there than not play at all". Give it a season and Furlong can be the new Ned. He's already the same captain material off the field - the question is whether we can afford to have him learn on the job, or rather whether the defensive coaching as a unit will be of a standard to cover his lapses while he gets there. (And it's not that high a bar either). Impressed with Bidwell by the end of the season - he didn't play half as well as that in JFH's back four. If he keeps that up and give him a simple solid role we don't have to give the position any more thought at this level. |
| News Comment | Warburton's Forest rising from ashes of disastrous ownership - Interview at 18:07:13
Another week, another set of amusingly rose-tinted chuckles. "That we spent just £2m on his replacement, Daryl Murphy, shows we're no longer a club that throws money around and the owners clearly want us to live within our means. [...] It's all about working towards sustainability [...] Even at 34 he signed a three-year deal (no doubt what persuaded him to join Forest over others)...." Sounds like sustainability to me!! Also completely shocking that Greek Tony Soprano "has done relatively little press" since taking over.... |
| News Comment | Out of the darkness? Interview at 14:21:36
Can understand their fans feeling defensive in the face of a lot of sanctimonious hypocrisy but the extent to which they're downplay Mendes' involvement is as comical as it is delusional. Without his being embedded as club "adviser" 90% of the new players there wouldn't have entertained the idea of joining them for a second (Miranda for instance is on record as arriving grudgingly, under orders.) "Nuno arrived with serious pedigree – you don't manage both Valencia and Porto in your early 40s if you're a chancer" yeah actually you do if your best mate is the most powerful agent in football - and they were disastrous spells too. That being said, however they're able to spend it, they're spending their money well - credit to them for that at least. They'll probably be tilting at top six in the Prem in a couple of years. |
| News Comment | LFW End of Term Report 14/15 — Midfielders at 07:26:45
IMO the important difference with Fer being misused compared to all the other examples is that he is (and has previously proved himself to be) perfectly capable of playing roles that aren't the glamour #10 - he just doesn't bloody feel like it. Now I don't dispute he's a lovely technician but football, and specifically a relegation fight, isn't about clubs bowing to a player's fancy vision of himself. Watch him suddenly start to muck in if he gets a nice move to Sevilla or suchlike. |
| News Comment | Ding dong Bosingwa’s gone at 13:29:17
"with an attitude to the greatest profession in the world that surely, when he’s older and wiser and looking back on his life, he’ll be thoroughly ashamed of." Lol yeah right. There is no more towering a monument to the absurdity of football than Bosingwa's glittering trophy cabinet. |
| News Comment | Learning from mistakes at 11:22:14
Everything in this article is true but I would say in TF's defence that it's not entirely fair to say there's been no thought put into a long term strategy. It's just that unfortunately that thought resulted in Mike Rigg. Kevin Gallen said himself on the podcast that he was told the club would be investing in value, future and so on - but was met with Kia's overpaid goons instead. Fernandes and the club got stung badly, it was a con job pure and simple. But if you hire someone to oversee strategy then was TF also supposed to hire someone to oversee the overseer? Where do you stop? Once the ball was rolling midseason it was impossible for TF to draw a line and restructure again - survival was everything, and Redknapp was the best man to work with the mess we had. Alas it was too late. My fear next season is that it will be another headless charge towards getting back up first go, probably led by Redknapp again. There needs to be a moment to stop and look at the bigger picture but there always seems to be an immediate fire to put out first. Would you restructure this summer and most likely upset Redknapp and jeopardise promotion? Too dangerous. Would you restructure once we come back up? too much to do, too many players to sign. and so on, and so on ... |
| News Comment | QPR head for Newcastle with hope rekindled — full match preview at 17:08:53
Hindsight certainly is a wonderful thing. When Warnock was sacked I felt there were very legitimate reasons for concern but who could have forseen just how disastrously bad Hughes would turn out? Let's be honest, Hughes would make Bryan Robson look hard done by right now. |
| News Comment | Foster wins Zamora duel as Dorrans downs QPR - full match report at 22:31:33
Six separate instances of the word "sadly" just about sums the general feeling up. Sadly. Derry had a poor game but without a change in formation to make best use of him I'm struggling to imagine what Buzsaky would really have brought to the table instead (besides the desperate hope of a long-range screamer from nowhere). |
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