"It's better to have taken part and lost than never have taken part at all!" Cobblers! This could have been our year. Yes. I'm pissed!
Suffolk Calling Chin up my bonny lads . We were never outclassed but experience at the top level will nearly always come through. In way a blessing in disguise, we were never going to win it , and pain was always around the corner so better to get it over . Top 4 will be easier as others will suck themselves dry with little reward in the end . FA cup winners no excuses , the year may not have a1 but after 5 pints of Pigs bladder IPA every year ends in a 1. Update , oil delivery today got through today, since that bloody snow we had to ration a tin of hot water . First one in a week, blimey the old girl wasn't bothered as it kept her knicker elastic dry. On a health detox , eating black pudding 3 times a day . According to Farmers Wife's mag top seller in these parts it's the perfect superfood. This months cover has old Bill "jumpin " Chediston missus showing off her turnips . Tractor duties to attend to and little Chas and Dave to sweeten the mood. A keep your pecker dry Sid .
I agree with that but a player with Brearleyesque leadership qualities would be beyond our price range
It's a silly Law that a slightly mistimed genuine attempt to get the ball results in a 90% chance of scoring. While a deliberate foul a few yards away gets a yellow card and buys time to organise the defence. Football skills would be better rewarded if it was the other way around. I was quite near the incident and in real time I thought that Jan had touched the ball and not made contact with the player. On the replays he misses the ball by a gnat's cock and catches the Juve player on the follow through.
Possibly so, but it shouldn't stop us from looking. We've found jewels in the dirt before, like Dele or Eric Dier or Ben Davies or....Graham Roberts was a non-league find and he had 'the right stuff'. For some reason, great captains are a real rarity nowadays. Southgate can't find one for England, whereas in the 60's every team had one. Vincent Kompany has 'it' but I'm struggling to think of too many others in the upper reaches of the PL that do. However, it is something that would lift us if we could find someone who lifted the collective through dint of their own personality. We should be looking for it. I do like the look of young Oliver Skipp. He has a Stevie P look to him. Maybe he has 'it' in him?
The "right stuff" is not always found in a player who is the best in their position in their league etc. And most top clubs don't go out with a "captains" shopping list (though the Sugga Daddy FCs would if they could) . I thought it might be Toby. I thought Dier was a possibility. At the moment nobody has emerged to the fore, and there have been a few occasions where the team could have done with one.
here's my take nearly 24 hours on ... this is the league table after game 18 (we had just lost 4-1 to city) 1. Manchester City 52 (44) 2. Manchester United 41 (27) 3. Chelsea 38 (18) 4. Liverpool 34 (18) 5. Arsenal 33 (11) 6. Burnley 32 (4) 7. Tottenham Hotspur 31 (13) In the following 11 league matches we have gained 12 points on Chelsea, 15 points on Arsenal, 1 point on Liverpool, 6 points on United and 1 point on City. That is with us coming to terms with Wembley. In that time we have played Arsenal, Liverpool and United. We are unbeaten in the league in that time winning 8 and drawing 3. I mention this cos it should put yesterday's set back into perspective. people will talk about lack of bottle and leadership yet we have had to effectively play 29 league games and 15 cup games away from home this season and to have only lost 1 game in the last 18 (drawing 6 and winning 11) is excellent and in my opinion can not be achieved without bottle and leadership. what we lacked yesterday was experience imo. We learned from our experiences last season in the CL as we showed throughout the group stages. We learned lessons from our failure to catch Leicester in 15/16 when we won 12 out of our last 13 matches in the 16/17 season. I have no doubt that we will learn more from this season. At bit more experience would have seen us take another chance or two and not to have been rattled after they scored. The big test is going to see how we respond. We need the same response to being battered at city where we won the follow 3 matches...If we do something similar we have a great chance of getting a top four finish and getting to our first fa cup final since 1991. RCLs take is that we were ****, my subs on here were ****...Kane was **** ... Vertongen was **** and Dier was dysentery and we'd have won with Sissoko
I thought that Poch should have brought on Moura at half time. With Juve playing so far up the pitch he would have provided, along with Son, an even greater counter-attacking threat against an aging defence.
Seems like a young Scotty Parker with a bit more composure and technique on the ball, even does the 360s at times! Definitely a future baller. Ironic that his current manager is no other than... Scotty Parker.
Powerspurs' point was a good one though. Michael Dawson was our most recent 'proper' captain. Exemplary pro on and off the pitch, pre-game huddles and constant encouragement throughout the game, and he gave 100% every game. But we are now blessed with 2 possibly 3 CB's who are superior to Daws in every department of the game other than leadership qualities. Would we drop Toby or Jan, or for that matter stall Dave's progress in order to install a Dawson in the back line wearing the armband? The argument is circular: a proper captain helps the team dig themselves out of a rut. But if that captain isn't equal to or better than what we already have, we'll find ourselves in more ruts to begin with. Short of spending £50m to sign someone of that calibre, I think the next best thing is to give Kane the armband next season. Hugo isn't a vocal player, nor is he that confident. Apart from kane our most vocal player is actually Trippier. I have always been impressed with how frequently he communicates with the players around him. But he is definitely not captain material. Most of our players play the game in near total silence. Eriksen, Alli, Toby, Jan, Davies, Dembele...you'll barely hear a peep out of them all game. There is no simple solution but at the same time we can be doing a lot better than Hugo.
In the past couple of seasons a few people on here have said Dier should have the armband, although this season I can't recall many people suggesting that.
It's easy to confuse hotheaded passion with 'leadership qualities'. To be honest, that Chelsea game more or less highlighted who was and who wasn't captain material. Kane was one of the few who didn't lose control.
