I wasn't being arrogant, it's a fact that even the best defenses in the league struggled to keep our attacking players quiet last season. We only failed to score in 8 of our matches last season, and 4 of those were draws, 3 of which we dominated the game for 90 minutes, yet a number of your fans seem to have this unfounded belief that your defenders won't have a problem dealing with them. We had the privaledge of watching Arsenal struggle to contain Snodgrass and Gradel on no less than 2 occasions last season. Howson is as good as both of those easily, and based on his good form during preseason I expect him to have a flying start to the season, yet a lot of your fans seem to think your centre backs can "stop anyone" and "howson won't be an issue". The step up to the Championship is a reasonably big one and to be honest you couldn't have been given many worse fixtures for your first game. The pace is noticably higher, and that on top of arguably one of the top 3 (if not the top) attacks in the league is going to be a lot to contend with. We had to deal with it last season, and we were only up against Derby. Derby are crap.
Good job I'm not an English teacher, if I was I might actually give a **** about spelling and/or grammar.
We can argue till the cows come home about who has got the best players. Why don't we leave all the bragging and counter bragging to the players on the field. We will not know that answer until the end of the season. One match is not necessarily going to tell all. I will point one thing out to remind you Leeds fans............Leeds are a big club and it was a pity to see how far down the leagues you went. However our demise was almost just as dramatic albeit our return has been a hell of lot quicker. It is folly to say you have better players because in reality it is how they play on the day. You can have the best players in the world but if they have an off day it can go sour. There has been a lot of talk about arrogance, strewth to hear you guys keep saying that you would think you guys invented the word. Each one of you is as passionate as the other in regards to your club and its players. Each one of is entitled to praise and support each others team. The use of the word arrogance is well over used on these boards and is an wholly inaccurate description of the passion shown!!
I would say it's arrogance to assume a team new to the league will be storming up the table before a ball has been kicked.
My honest head to head assesments on the potential line ups with the better player in bold. Lets just remember its not indivdiuals that win games 99% of the time Davis Lonergan Cant comment as havent really seen Lonergan, Davis has his faults but a GREAT shot stopper Butterfield Connolly Fonte Andy O'brien Seabourne Patrick Kisnorbo Harding Parker If he plays! Alex Chamberlain Max Gradel Too close, maybe max edges it as he has shown what he can do in the championship Schniederlin Jonny Howson Might get shot down for this one Cork Michael Brown Lallana Robert Snodgrass Lambert Clayton Two different positions, both unproven at this level though Connolly Ross Mccormack Connolly is bang in form though
To be fair mate............what is the difference between us saying our defence will cope with your forwards....... and you saying they won't? Do we not have the same right as you to have faith in our own players? Do we not have a right to say our players will step up to this level no problems? Isn't it the same as you all thought last year? Did you not believe that you would take the league by storm with out problems? You might not agree with our views, surely you would not disagree with our right to express them though?
We have the fact that the best defence in the league conceded 4 goals to our attack to base our views on. You have a season in League 1.
I'll go for 2-1 Leeds. We have plenty of fire power, even if Becchio & Somma will be missing. As we also seem to have solved our DM problems, hopefully we'll have just enough to keep Southampton in check. Any pubs worth going to or avoiding before the game.
That is exactly what your fans were saying this time last year....albeit it was a minority just as we too have a few overconfident few. I also know that you took some stick for it. It is not arrogance to be passionate in your belief.
I don't think a single one of us thinks that our defence will keep your attack quiet without any trouble. The point that I and many others keep on trying to make - and which you and a few our your fellow fans seem to keep on ignoring, hence the accusations of arrogance - is that your defence wont find it easy to keep our attack quiet either. I've raved about your attack on here, it looks great. But so does ours.
Can't argue too much with this, seems pretty fair! My only disagreements would be at left back, isn't Parker supposed to be a weak link? Harding is a good player and runs his socks off for the team. Lallana v Snodgrass would be the other, I would put them equal as Lallana I think is our best attacking player, he can really turn a game on it's head when he wants to.
