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Surely the goal return from our four strikers (12 goals in 79 when I last checked) is the more relevant/concerning stat in this domain? (Kolli has been good, no beef with him.)
I think a large part of the problem is people who are unable or unwilling to separate the writer from what's written. If you write/put up anything in public space, self-consciously controversial or not, you need to expect it may be enjoyed, challenged, or criticised - or all three! That's because it's not your property any more - it's become public property. All true writers, artists and makers understand this.
Conversely, as we saw with the utter outrages perpetrated against J K Rowling's person following her piece on transgender, people instead leapt to 'cancelling' her without even, in many cases, paying her the respect of properly reading her, since dealing with a cultivated person's ideas and intelligence might shut them up for a bit. Where people start playing the man rather than the ball and, rather than dealing in opinion and argument, engage in ad hominem/abusive attacks on their self-serving images/caricatures of others, is where it quickly turns to merds.
Essentially, the currency of intelligent/cultural exchange is diminishing as society's narcissistic preoccupation with people's online images (and images of themselves) goes unchecked. It's great days for Instagram and the Twitterarti, and dark days for depth and debate. As W B Yeats put it, 'The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity'.
I disagree and have always seen Chair as a roaming 10. As someone else pointed out, he's not quick enough for a winger, and he has more to his game than that anyway.
While you're right that we've had a run of very decent results playing things one way, I don't think the 'system' we have is definitive (e.g. I'm not convinced of Varane, despite this, and Marti will have to adjust things again when Dembele is back in all likelihood), especially as Wednesday also exposed its limitations.
Going forward, literally and metaphorically, E17 is on the money, I think. We should play with two authentic wingers (Saito and Smyth) serving Frey or Kolli, depending, with Chair at 10 in the hole. That might mean going three at the back or not.
Who'd want to live in a culture where no one ever argues with anyone! That certainly wouldn't be my idea of something as ultimately trivial and vital as a football message board, let alone a country. What I like about LfW, its handful of reactionaries/virtue-signallers/moralists/cultists aside, is its feistiness, fractiousness, and fanaticism. Just about all the people here who are worth reading clearly love language, love themselves, and love (or lovehate) QPR.
I agree with this, and think the necessity of Field/Varane/Morgan running themselves into the ground for the team to 'work' is a false premise we shouldn't be over-investing in. Bannon is basically a 10, and Chair should be doing the same thing for us.
The parallel with Cantona is a stirring one, of which incident the great, one-of-a-kind Eric wrote (I'm overlooking that goal at LR): 'My best moment? I have a lot of good moments but the one I prefer is when I kicked the hooligan'. (80s kids like me are also put in mind of the 'Sweet and Tender Hooligan' from The Smiths' back catalogue ('in the midst of life we are in death etcetera'.))
As Rob Smyth memorably put it in 2020 in The Guardian,
'Twenty-five years later, the footage and images of his kung-fu kick retain an exhilarating power. It was the definitive example of what Alex Ferguson called Cantona’s “defiant charisma". [...] Cantona has also spoken of wanting to give others – in this case, United fans – a vicarious thrill. It was an instinctive demonstration of a desire to do things that others did not have the opportunity or balls to do. His greatest virtue was that he had no edit function between instinct and action.'
According to Matthew Simmons, whom, as Smyth wrote, Cantona always referred to 'with a delightful, absent-minded contempt as "the hooligan"', what he actually said was 'off! off! off! It's an early bath for you, Mr Cantona' - because obviously an oik like him from Croydon with a history of violent assault and a penchant for BNP/NF rallies spoke in real life like Julian from the Famous Five. (His actually reported words, lest we forget, were 'f*ck off back to France you French motherf*cker'.)
What I love about the 'fallout' is it really helps sort out whose side one is on in football, and in life. Ferguson and the United board reportedly initially intended to sack him, but changed their minds, and Ferguson, to his massive credit, went to Paris to sit in a restaurant for hours and woo him back to United. Brian Clough said he would have cut his balls off - no surprise there. Ian Wright confessed he was jealous.
As Smyth stirringly concludes,
'Back then, if you wanted, it was easy to avoid the nonsense. Faux outrage was a minority sport, mainly because, with the information superhighway in its infancy, most people did not have the chance to partake in a public place. You had the papers, teletext, radio and the news bulletins. That was about it. And although there were still plenty of cranks and trolls and toxic liberals about, there was less narcissism and brains were not washed quite as easily. There were no #PrayForSimmons hashtags, or online petitions for Cantona to be deported. Social networking meant going to the game.'
Thanks for reclarifying the historical picture, Northern. Oddly, I don't remember this being part of any club publicity when we went up, and I can find nothing about it online to refresh my memory. I think technically the requirements that 'mandated' this ill-positioned monstrosity come from the Premier League (albeit with Sky as their arguable overlords), but that's perhaps a tad pedantic.
Personally, once we were back in the Champ, I'd have taken it down again and reopened up all the away seats just to avoid this kind of shitty PR. It's irksome in such a small ground like ours we're constantly shaving off bits of ground capacity for one reason and another - the latest being the blocked-off front rows of the lower School End.
I guess this one will run and run until we rebuild or move on.
Is there any biological value in 'saving one's breath'? Do you live a bit longer as a result? I'm with Georges Bataille, William Blake, and the road of excess leading to the palace of wisdom. (Though I don't know why Blake had Crystal Palace in mind.)
As a freelance editor who lurches from feast to famine on a weekly basis (and recently disqualified from Income Support depsite the fact that I have no income right now by Ireland's Social Welfare Dept. - despite paying taxes and insurances to Revenue for many years), I'd love a bit of the 'precarious' lives of modern footballers.
Would you not think Barbet would have a bit in the bank to tide himself over while deciding where he's going to play?
Thery're 100% right - it's absolutely shocking! Whatever's going on with the ticket sales on the ground these days, the architect who was on the job with that 'Business Lounge' metal box obviously doesn't give two hoots for fans!
Here's a bit of grainy footage from that Pilgrims exit. Their goals look absolutely mingin' from our point of view, especially as this was from an era of pre-rotation/throwing Cup games.
There's tired and tired, I think. My reading is we were more mentally/imaginatively tired than anything and just got outplayed in that second half by one or two better players. First half, for me, our energy levels were good, and it was a balanced and very watchable game, shaded by us. On another day, it could have gone the other way.
Thanks for the positive progress report, Mr Teacher. I can confirm I'm working hard on my moral self-improvement under the watchful eyes of the more evolved grown-ups in the room.
Good point! The travel/fatigue theory can be argued either way at the very least, and is a non-starter for me, just as it was dismissed by Cifuentes himself post-match. (It's funny how it's sometimes the same fans who make Marti into a messiah are also those who happily override his own professional verdict when it suits them.) I think it's called having your cake and eating it!
The more interesting question to me is whether Jimmy could take the step up - whether with Sheff Utd or, please god/god forbid (delete according to preference), with us.
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