When I stopped playing football. ( Early thirties.) I needed to find something else to keep me physically fit and active. I started to learn Karate, which was hosted by a tough as nails instructor named Robin Horsfall. Robin was an ex SAS soldier who had fought on many fronts, but the most famous one was the Iranian Embassy siege in 1980 in which he shot one of the terrorist dead. http://www.robinhorsfall.co.uk/ But one of the philosophies that Robin taught was that of the Samurai. '' When the Samurai went into battle, they didn't fear death.'' As they had already accepted death as part of the consequence of battle. So if you don't fear death and accept that you have already died, then you set yourself free to fight with impunity. No fear of death, live for the moment, and no fear of consequence. Bushido, way of the warrior. This for me is the way the R's need to play now. No fear go for it. Let your natural instincts do the right thing. Be the kid that you were in the park. But don't go down without at least putting up a fight. That, is completely unacceptable.
I completely agree. Our best results (if not our best performances) last year were when we'd been written off. We have a bunch of lads that, if you wiped the last 7 months from their memories and stuck them on a pitch together, would play some great football. I'm loving your inventive analogies at the moment Nines!
Don't lose like we did against Man Yoo you mean 999's??? For the 3,200 travelling R's this weekend, I hope they fight to the death and give a performance to be proud of. It would make a nice change.
You stopped playing footie in the 1930's..well done old fella, you sound pretty lively for a mid 80 yr old !
Won't work, players like Bosingwa play without fear because they'll pick up their £70K a week having a stroll while the 'soldiers' like Hill try to cover their arses...
Great post 999s. Totally agree. I've being saying this for weeks. It's killing me that we continue to employ defensive tactics hoping to pick up a lucky point here and there. That tactic just invites the opposition onto us. It's not working cause we can't score. Time to say fook it and start taking the game to the opposition. Pressing higher and denying them the freedom of the park. It's just my opinion but we're not playing to win, we're playing not to loose. Big difference. I'd love to see us surprising a few teams with a different game plan. At the moment we're too predictable and sterile. The analogy of the samurai is spot on. Play without fear. Show no respect.
Spot on nuts. This is especially important against Southampton imo. They commit many players forward and are vulnerable when they are pressed into losing the ball and then got at on the break. We need to pick Townsend and Hoilett in the wide areas to allow us to break with speed.
If we match half of the Saints pressing game we will be doing well. Totally agree these are now the matches No excuses: The Way Of The Samurai I hope Granero can at last help us with his magic: [video=youtube;TjQQhH6Jbok]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjQQhH6Jbok[/video]
You often see teams which have been demoted suddenly start to play better football and compete, pressure off no consequence football. I used to love Monkey when I was a kid, that and Water Margin, thanks DT good memories made me smile.
Perhaps if our players armed themselves with swords, bows, and arrows then they might stand a chance of staying up. If you added up all the people who claimed to have served in the SAS and had taken part in the Iranian Embassy siege, you'd have enough soldiers to fill Loftus Rd.
