This does indeed look to be nicely handled, get all that sorted and get him back into the fold well in time for the weekend. Hopefully he can show Bournemouth what they're missing
Graceful? It's just a bog standard apology. Probably downloaded from one of many others that had gone before. Glad you are all so forgiving, it does you proud. Personally, I wished he'd been shipped out, but hey ho, wasn't to be. Disgraceful, unprofessional behaviour, doesn't seem like he's particularly keen to be here, but that's just my opinion. He's still here, so as you say, let's see.
I agree with you. I guess the key thing now is how the crowd reacts to him. The fans have been put in a terrible position in my opinion. If they boo him or greet him with silence, they'll be slated for being 'disloyal' to their club. If they cheer him, the club become even more convinced that they can fob off the supporters with silence or a bit of oily PR (e.g. scouring Europe). One thing seems sure (to me at least) - this episode has increased the chance that we will go back down this season.
And perfect timing for Grabban himself, of course, who becomes available for this weekend's match. I'm starting to feel a bit disappointed in AN to be honest - it seems he has favourites after all. I guess every manager does, but why AN wastes his partiality on a player whose character is erratic, whose attitude is questionable, and whose ability is severely limited, I have no idea.
Now I'm just guessing here, a wild shot in the dark if you like, but I kinda think that through working with Grabban on an almost daily basis, having seen him in training and no doubt assessed his character, attitude and ability on both that and the private conversations that AN would have undoubtedly had with him in his office, that AN might just know a little bit more about him than you do... Just a thought...
That's no fun welly, can't we be allowed to speculate in our 'far from the nub' amateur kind of way? Edit: I was looking at some archive footage of Norfolk railways with John Betjeman, you've completely soured my mood!
Talk about catch 22 Like gandy, I'm not too impressed by this statement, if he was being honest, he would have attempted an explanation, not just "i'm sorry I did it, now let's move on!"
Disagree Dave, I don't think he needs to go into detail, it's probably fairly embarrassing as it is, whatever the reason. Just an acknowledgement that he's sorry and "on board" again will suffice for me. Hopefully he's been doing some target practice at home whilst on garden leave!
Well it's going to take a lot more than a poxy apology like that for me to forgive him. I want him out of my club fecking arsehole
I agree with Welly that AN is the one to judge what is in the best interest of the team and for me that is what matters most.
That apology was written for him if you ask me, he's a complete ****er and I hope he never pulls on a yellow shirt again. He doesn't want to be here and IF, as rumoured, we were offered £7M for him Mcnally should be sectioned for not taking the money. It's not as if he's any good he misses more chances than he takes and when he does score he invariably needs two bites of the cherry to put the ball in the net. What AN sees in him is beyond me we have Lafferty chomping at the bit who wants to play who's banging them in for fun for Northern Ireland. What he has to do to get a chance I really don't know, I just hope he gets a place on the bench tomorrow. To be honest, if AN does re-introduce Grabban to the fray I reckon it will be in an away fixture because rightly or wrongly, if he is brought on as substitute tomorrow I guarantee there will be a chorus of boos from at least one section of the crowd.
That's all very true, Welly. But even if I don't have all the evidence that AN has, I have some evidence. a) He got himself pointlessly sent off at Rotherham last season in a key game that could have meant automatic promotion for us b) He sulked off (again at Rotherham) and could have cost us a place in the League Cup or whatever it's called these days c) He very conveniently apologises once he realises that he is stuck with us until at least January and could be left to rot in the under-18s d) He is an average championship-level striker who simply isn't talented enough to be a prima donna and get away with it e) Whatever has gone on behind the scenes (if indeed anything has - I seem to remember Lambert saying that 'the truth would out' when the truth seemed to be nothing more than his own towering ambition), he has gone a long way to screwing up the start of our season.
So you were perfectly happy that you know all the facts of the Johnson situation based on one word he said ("allowing") but this time you're not satisfied with an apology and you want a full explanation of his reasons before you believe him? We don't know the whole story with this one either, there is obviously more to it than him storming out of the hotel because he wasn't picked for a cup game, but the fact AN (who surely is aware of all the goings on) has decided to Grabban still has a big part to play for us and that he will be accepted back into the squad without causing any further ructions (that's only my assumption, but it can't be far off) tells me that his is still up for it and wants to be a part of our challenge this season. It's clearly a bog standard apology, but to be honest the content doesn't bother me, the fact that there has been a public apology at all tells me that the air has clearly been cleared and this incident has been put behind him, and that's what matters for the good of the team from now on
