Getting thrashed by a League 2 oufit isnt embarrassing. Just one of those things. Getting Max Boyce on your pitch though is. Totally embarrassing. Youve got the wrong sorts of plastics down there.
oh blob the fish my romeo. wherefore art thou blob, i suspect the cup is only crap when you lose. ah well back to the loggerheads club for a pint, by blob
Scott, don't know what happened. I submitted it the usual way then got a message to say I had to wait for 30 seconds. I assumed this was because of heavy traffic. Next thing I know it has come up twice. Ironically, I posted a message to apologise for the double posting which seems to have disappeared into the ether. You are right, my post was virulent but I make no apologies for that. It is well observed and accurate. I sense that we are getting so smug about the reviews we have received for our "stylish football", that somewhere along the way the team has lost sight of the fact that it needs an end product. As for coaching and fitness, you also have a point. I wonder, apart from Buck, is the rest of the set up as professional as it should be? Put this question to him and I have no doubt that he would say, yes. Mistaken loyalty? I don't know. I do know what I have seen with my own eyes; I do know that others, including yourself, agree with me; I do know that our fitness levels have been questioned by a number of pundits and ex players in the media. Okay, perhaps my opinions and those of other "laymen" can be dismissed but when ex players say the same thing then there has to be some merit in posing the question. I tend to agree that when we get a good first win under our belt, the team will probably relax and start to produce. But we need to do this quickly. The number of games where we can realistically expect to win points is not that many, so sooner rather than later is essential. Of equal concern is this mind set that we have to do things the "Swansea Way". Is this not the worst form of arrogance? Surely we have to do things the successful way, whatever way that is. Mind you I would hate us to abandon the way we play but pure football will not keep us up. We are not good enough at it at this level, imo. Keep our style by all means but let's mix in a little bit of mean to go with it - mean as in nasty. It might be an idea to make a point of giving opposing players a nasty dig early on just to let them know we can dish it out ourselves. No names but an international defender of my acquaintance once told me that he'd always smack the opposing centre forward early on for no reason at all. We all know why. Perversely, I'm almost looking forward to the first time when we have a higher foul count than the opposition!! Anyway, Sunderland next up and they are no shrinking violets. For me, a win is a must or I shall really, really, really start to worry.
Agree Ivor, and Sunderland would be a good place to start dishing it out!.......... please log in to view this image
Bodde can dish it out!!! Hell of a shame, that bloody knee of his.................... please log in to view this image
Buck is not happy with that performance. Some strong words coming from the post match interview, including "A few of them have put their hands up to say don't pick me" http://www.skysports.com/football/match_reaction/0,19764,11065_3441805,00.html
Good for him. Strong words and well deserved. As far as I'm concerned, if players don't turn up for any game, they have no business at our club. Get rid of them wherever possible and look to sign players who are professional enough to wear the shirt with pride - no matter what the game. As a point of interest, I haven't been overly impressed with Beattie in the past. I will say this, though. I watched him play for the reserves against Bolton. He was enthusiastic and he put in a shift even if it was a low-key match in front of 425 spectators. Well done to him. I would far sooner that than tolerate players of greater talent deciding that they are going to stroll through a game for whatever reason. Buck has made it clear that some of those non-performers who shamed our football club last night are on borrowed time. Good enough for them. They had their chance to impress and, seemingly, either decided that they were above it all, or were sulking. Let them take their attitudes elsewhere and shame someone else's club. We don't want them.
just got home from work, and it's been a terrible night, i think i'm in shock. those of you who say we should try and ruffle sunderlands feather's on the weekend are in for a shock, sunderland have a nasty streak through out their team and i feel it's us who's gonna get feather's ruffled on the weekend, if we can't score against 4th division sides we may as well call it a day. the player's should be made to pay for every fan who turned up tonight, totally spineless performance.
Well said. Beattie might get injured a lot, and not be everyones cup of tea... but remember how chuffed he was after scoring that goal at Middlesborough? You can tell a lot about how much a player cares simply about "doing well" by how nuts they go after scoring a goal, I think. That guy cares and maybe there's call for him to be reinstated in the first team.
Craig Beattie might care more about gettting first team football, and that is great for the training ground but with 7 goals in 45 in the championship for the Swans, he has got no chance of playing first team football this season. This rollocking from Brendan should gee up our players enough for them to realise they have to work their socks off to get and keep positions, so with Moore and Lita and Graham and probably Dobbie in front of him, he has very limited opportunity. Probably the first time Buck has ever lost his rag with the team, and he was probably looking for an excuse just to ground them a bit. I wasn't at the game, but I have heard that Danny Graham worked his socks off last night and had no service again. Weird lineup in my opinion, to have Lita and Moore on the wings, because you lose all width with three strikers on the pitch. Especially as they would have all wanted to get in the box and nick a goal to impress the boss, so our wings would have been manned by Joe Walsh and Daniel Alfei. Obviously we should have beaten the Shrews, but I think this game shows how much we need another attacking option, whether it be a winger or an attacking midfielder, we don't have enough depth to deal with any attacking injuries.
Tommy Smith the anfield Iron? "Tommy Smith wasn't born, he was quarried." - Bill Shankly Boy we could do with a Tommy Smith in his prime now! (a Bob latchford a la 1981 wouldn't go amiss either)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/14641491.stm And this is Buck being diplomatic for the public. Would love to have been a fly on the wall post match in the dressing room. I suspect his " I can be tough when needed / my mistake was allowing sentiment to influence decisions" quote may have come to fruition last night. I bet the players (even if they were not involved last night) would not want to go through the "Buck Blower!" (as oppossed to the fergie hairdryer) again...
I think what the result shows is that while our Premier League starting XI may be good enough to keep us up (that's a big MAY at present) there's not much to come off the bench to change a game if things are going badly.
Rodgers was effectively saying his players just couldn't be bothered, and he's right. My mate, along with hundreds of others made the trip and the fans deserved better than that. Well done to Shrewsbury on a thoroughly deserved win. I can only hope that this result will give our highly paid lot a kick up the backside and spur them on to victory on Saturday. I can handle losing to lower league opposition - we've made a speciality of that over the years - but last night's display was nothing short of shameful.
Decent shout I guess. Hopefully the boys supplying our forward line will pull their fingers out. Interesting point about lack of width, as soon as I read that it struck me as almost criminal. We play a wide expansive game, but as you say, a combination of youth full backs, no real wingers on the field and a lack of coherency amongst players new to each other meant that we were certainly going to struggle to play "our" game.
Well...it was just one match and upsets happen in cups all the time. The focus must be on getting some points under the belt in the league. Confidence is the key! No sure why Rogers had to say this: "But don't forget to tell their grandchildren that they played against Shrewsbury and lost. That is the reality. It shouldn't happen." Demeans Shrewsbury a little. Is it really worth remembering for 30 years that you lost in the Carling Cup?
Considering this is supposed to be a Premiership quality squad, and with all due respect to Shrewsbury, we should be winning games like this. I think it's not so much the result, but the manner of the defeat (our players simply "not being up for it" by all accounts) which is most worrying.
I like your cheeky attempt at a wind-up, and yes we may not be in this position for another 30 years, who knows. That was the point of saying it to the players. They have got to treat this whole season as a once in a lifetime opportunity and if they don't step up to the plate now, they may regret it. He is trying to make them realise how important it is to people, and that if they don't show effort they will be remembered for it.
