 | Forum
Thread | Brentford 3 - Liverpool 3
at 19:40 25 Sep 2021
Outstandingly entertaining game of the season so far in the Premier League. I’ve been watching the Ryder Cup but keeping an eye on the score, and I swapped over to watch the last 15 minutes. Brentford really took it to the scousers and could have won at the end. I’ll get no plaudits here for bigging up Brentford, but it’s clear to see that they have effortlessly settled in to life in the top tier. They look very impressive. They were the best team in the Championship last season and that is now evident from their 9th position in the league compared to Champions Norwich’s bottom of the table position.
Ivan Toney is a class striker and Thomas Frank is an excellent manager. They’re the best team to go up since…………Swansea in 2011. Well perhaps Leeds United might disagree with that.
[Post edited 25 Sep 2021 19:42]
|
| Forum
Thread | Crushing indictment of this season’s Championship
at 10:10 2 Mar 2021
Here’s an excerpt of the article from yesterday’s Telegraph Sport. Can’t really argue with it.
“Norwich prosper from rare moments of quality in a threadbare league
Farke’s team are a bright spot in a mediocre Championship hit by a punishing schedule, a lack of spending and empty grounds
This season’s Championship has a quality problem. In any sane reimagining of football, the second tier would be to the Premier League what American college football is to the NFL, a looser form of the game which some prefer to watch despite its inferior
This season it has been mostly formless slop; a punishing schedule of games between mediocre teams on eroding pitches played to an audience of plastic seats — watching it has felt like a chore.
The numbers support what your eyes will have told you if you have sat through a handful of games. Before this weekend, the average Championship game featured 22.2 shots, with 7.2 on target. In the four previous seasons, the averages were 25.2 and 8.2 respectively. Goals per game and passing stats are also down.
Norwich City are a rare bright spot in a dreary league. Not the division’s highest scorers (Brentford), nor its meanest defence (Swansea) they are unarguably its best team. An immediate return to the top tier beckons....”
It then continues with a report of Wycombe 0 Norwich 2 [Post edited 2 Mar 2021 10:13]
|
| Forum
Thread | Today is an historic milestone for the game of football
at 11:59 18 Jan 2021
Today is a historic anniversary for football fans and especially for footballers themselves! Today the football profession should toast the diamond anniversary of the day the Professional Footballers’ Association under the stewardship of its leader Jimmy Hill, after a steadfast, shrewdly fought campaign, defeated the Football League and won overdue reform of the terms of its employment. I repeat here bits of an article in Telegraph Sport:
“What Hill achieved was a revolution, but there had been earlier rebellions, ruthlessly suppressed. In 1950, Manchester United’s Charlie Mitten and Stoke City’s George Mountford and Neil Franklin, the England centre-half, went to “El Dorado”, the renegade Colombia league, at the end of their contracts. The federation had left Fifa, which allowed it to operate beyond its grasp, and offered players who had lost their peak years to the war, indentured on £12 a week, five-figure signing-on fees and four times their Football League salaries.
For men who had played through the post-war attendance boom and noted that record gate receipts and increased royalties from the pools companies were not trickling down, their decisions were justifiable. But when Colombia hung them out to dry by rejoining the “Fifa family”, they went home to be shunned, banned and sold.”
Jimmy Hill was an industrious Fulham inside-forward, nicknamed “the Rabbi” by one Craven Cottage wag because of a rare, beatnik beard, (- he’d have fitted in well today!) was elected chairman of the PFA in 1957. Within a couple of months, he outlined his members’ case to the 92 clubs for the abolition of the maximum wage, a League-wide agreement that had been in place since 1901 and a concept that operated only in England.
“He also pressed for reform of the retain-and-transfer shackles that allowed a club to keep hold of a player’s registration indefinitely after the expiration of his contract, with no obligation to pay him should they choose not to sell.
The League strung the players along for three years, thinking it had the upper hand, that it was easier for 92 to remain united than Hill’s 3,000 members.
He pointed out the absurdity of their lot in March 1960 when Denis Law was transferred from Huddersfield to Manchester City for £53,000. The player was limited to a £20 signing-on fee, £20 a week during the season and £17 in the summer.
Little wonder that John Charles, the best player in Britain, had already left for Juventus and £70 a week plus bonuses, an apartment and a car — and Jimmy Greaves was inviting similar approaches from Italy. In November 1960, the Football League offered the bait of an extra £10 a week on the maximum, but Hill argued for the involvement of the government conciliation specialist to arbitrate the dispute and he skilfully held his members “
I particularly like this retort to those who would question player’s earnings — granted they’ve gone a bit excessive since those days:
“… Tommy Banks, the Bolton and England left-back, made a tellingly pithy contribution to the Northern Area meeting when a lower-league player questioned why footballers deserved to earn twice as much as his father, a miner.
“If thi father wants to know why we want more brass,” Banks said, “tell him to come and play against Brother Matthews in front of 30,000 fans. That’s why we want more money.”
The League folded under the threat of strike action, abolished the £20 ceiling and a truce was hammered out at the Ministry of Labour, one that the clubs tried to renege on before and after it was implemented. It took the case of Eastham v Newcastle United in 1964 to award players greater rights at the end of their contracts.
Hill’s victory has been portrayed as a Pandora’s box moment for the game, blamed for the decadence of the past decade. It was nothing of the sort. It was a triumph of fairness over feudalism.”
A real eye-opener!
[Post edited 19 Jan 2021 9:50]
|
| Forum
Thread | Appalling officiating in the Premier League
at 23:17 27 Dec 2020
God knows we suffered from it in our time in the top tier, but it was usually Big Six syndrome - “any 50-50 decision will always be given to the Big Six club”.
But today Burnley were robbed blind by two of the most appalling refereeing decisions you’d ever see. This time though there was no Big Six involvement, it was Leeds United who were the beneficiaries. Bamford’s penalty which ultimately won the match, was bad enough - it was a perfectly valid tackle - but the decision at the other end when despite the Leeds goalkeeper sticking his knee into the Burnley forward, a perfectly good goal is scored by Burnley and is disallowed as the referee rules that it was the goalkeeper who had been fouled. If it wasn’t a goal it was definitely a penalty. What it definitely wasn’t is a Leeds free-kick. Disgraceful decision.
How can decisions like that stand when they can consult a tv replay to check if they’ve made the right decision? There is no excuse for those mistakes in the age of VAR. Dyche had every right to be incandescent which he was. In their position, Burnley do not need such refereeing incompetence. [Post edited 27 Dec 2020 23:23]
|
| Forum
Thread | BBC Sport
at 22:55 21 Mar 2020
I’ve just sent this to the BBC:
“ Just watching the replacement program for Match of the Day. Excruciating.
Can we have ‘Mrs Brown’s Boys’ back?
Is this the best you can do? Really?”
They really are a shambles. |
| Forum
Thread | Swans at Fulham
at 20:45 26 Feb 2020
Half time thoughts:
Well I suppose we’re doing all right so far, but it’s horrible to watch - frantic, disjointed kick and rush. Where’s our passing game? We literally cannot string 2 or 3 passes together. Nobody seems able to get the ball down and build an attack along the floor. Desperately poor football. Fulham are only slightly more creative, but there again they are at home.
The SwansTV commentators reckon “Swans have done everything but score.” Eh? I’d just like to see us play some football. |
| | jackrabbit
|
Site Scores| Forum Votes: | 248 | | Comment Votes: | 0 | | Prediction League: | 0 | | TOTAL: | 248 |
|
By continuing to use the site, you agree to our use of cookies and to abide by our Terms and Conditions.