Stroller, I can't think of anyone who delights more in attacking, attractive, entertaining football than COL. Not one Board member. So the fact that he, above all people, constructed such an OP despite the industriousness of our current style, shows me that the guys slating the team at the moment (yourself and Flyer), really are for the birds. If COL can appreciate what's going on at the moment even though we're not nice to watch, then I think its time you evaluated your position mate because you're coming across more and more like you've escaped from the funny farm or sumink.
I'm totally with the positive crowd, fed up with negative comments when we are clear at the top. Over 500 minutes of clean sheets now. That is champions material.. No doubt when we lose our first game the negative people will be back with i told you so. Would love to sit next to them in the ground. Imagine, some poor sod has to sit next to flyer !!! We're quuens park rangers , we're top of the league...... If your not happy piss off down the road to fulham.
Attacking wise we aren't very good mate, clearly we are very good at the back. You know that was the case against Birmingham and we were even less effective against Brighton. We spent more time running backwards with the ball than forwards, our mobility was poor and poor old Charlie Austin must have been considering changing his deodorant. I think these 1 - 0 wins are far easier to enjoy away from the ground.
I have only been to one game and watched the live one of TV and highlights, so I'm not the best to judge tbh. I agree that we are way off what this squad is potentially capable of. But I can't believe that we haven't had quite a few very good individual performances from our players...............for example, most people have been very complimentary about: Green/Simpson/Dunne/Hill/BOE/Barton. Quite a few people have been impressed with Henry/SWP/Austin/Phillips. These individual performances have got us to the top of the league, along with some luck here and there. Would you agree that maybe it's a total team performance that has been missing and that, as I have intimated, that the quality in the squad is getting us past teams?
Championships are built on clean sheets. This have to be the #1 priority imo, something it seems the management team believes also. The foundations are there, now is the time to improve our attacking play. If it where the other way around, free scoring but prone to conceding, then I wouldn't be as optimistic as I am now. Example: When Blackpool were relegated in 19th place in the Premiership they scored 55 goals, the same as Tottenham who finished 5th, outscoring 11 other teams in the process.
I don't need to re-evaluate my position Swords, thanks very much. What's wrong with healthy cynicism?
It is a great point. When you consider that 7 out of the 11 ( 64% ) of our starting players in our last few matches weren't even playing for us last season, then it's an incredible achievement up until now. We have a solid back six which reminds me a bit of The Arsenal Invincibles from 2003-04 all be it in Championship form... ( Stop laughing at the back! ) We just need to get the front four to click and we'll be away.
Dixon - Adams - Bould - Winterburn. Those guys were hard to break down, especially with Seaman behind them. Agree very much with ya Ninesy. We're missing that Bergkamp factor though...
Ah, glorious failure. There was a thread earlier in the week about some of our fan base preferring to look good and lose to looking bad and winning. And as I said that time, that mindset is a disease.
I thought you Irish were meant to be romantics. Best settle for miserable inglorious failure like us last year. If you don't hope you can never be disappointed, play it safe.
No, I'll settle for dreadful looking winning football like we're producing now. If Ollie had of been a bit more pragmatic that year and a bit less gung ho, they mightn't have failed in their task.
West Ham got out of the Championship playing very un-West Ham-like football pissing a lot of their fans off. Sam knew how to succeed and to hell with romanticism, Harry will do like-wise. I'll settle for 1-0 over 2-3 every time...
They used to be ringing in 606 every weekend calling for Sam's head even though they had just won. I remember one bloke saying it was far better the year before - in the PL when they lost every week - and the presenter saying he didn't know whether to laugh or cry. For the life of me, I can't get my head around that kind of mentality. As its showing on this very Board, we have plenty of those types among our own ranks too.
In a few years time, the history books will sasy we won the league with 1-nil wins. They will name the scorer and the players. Nobody wil know, remember or care how we played...only that we won. Clear at the top of the league and people are complaining...are you sure?
We have played to your expectations based IMO on how we all expect us to play ... Most knew that Harold would before anything else would close up and build on that Stephen the same You can't build confidence without foundation We have not been lucky at all we have dominated most of our game play We should if scored more goals We have the best team and squad in the division any of our players would be first choice in all the championship teams and possibly half the premiership A team is due a thrashing soon by us and then you will see everyone unite on here and more importantly at our home games If I was being critical then we should have 24 points as both our drawn games were winnable Most fans who think we aren't any good or lucky are suffering because we used to play with flair and I believe we will do so again ... It's simply the change in styles that is keeping fans flat ... Who what's to be a stoke and our last few years have all been about events and passion but here we are not even at 25% of our potential and top by 3 points ... It must piss all the other team off as they think we have mega money ... We may well have and we will not be popular and everyone will try and beat us ... I said that in the past that jealously will become an foe Next up the Boro and maybe that thrashing will come there who knows ? One thing is for sure we aren't going down this year We will look at our faults and focus on them ... Natural after our last three years but I am DT and this team is very strong in this league and we will be going up at this rate ... No doubt in my mind
I beg to differ. I've seen 3 Div 2/ Championship promotions. 2010-11 I remember because of Adel and Faurlingate (yes I know the defence was good too), Tel's promotion in 82-83 was almost expected, we were far too good for the rest, but the one I look back to most warmly was 72-73, when we were playing great attacking football under Jago. In my admittedly dodgy memory we seemed to win 5-0 at home every week. And we only finished second. Real fans remember not only the results, but the circumstances of the results, how they were achieved, what was going on in their lives at the time. Our team becomes punctuation for our experiences. If getting promoted playing the way we are now is the best we can do, fine, I'll take it. The point some of us are trying to make is that we have a very good team for this league and a very experienced, normally attack minded manager, we can ( and I think will) do much better in terms of entertainment. I really don't understand how this can be seen as negative. I like watching good football (how good were Swansea yesterday?!), settling for the minimum to get by is not in my nature. Actually I believe that lack of concern with quality is a peculiarly British state of mind that should be resisted.
