Those of us who gave 12yards a try after 606 closed down will remember carrabuh's valiant attempt to single-handedly keep the 12yards forum alive for City fans. He preferred the 12yards site to Not606 and wanted it to succeed. One theme running through many of his posts was his belief that we needed to sign at least one or two established Premier League players. Whether this was what he genuinely believed or just a red rag to provoke debate I do not know. Likewise his post with his predictions for the coming season, which I thought were worth keeping if only to throw back at him come May! So here they are -- with my comments: [carrabuh's] predictions for the [2011-12] season Bennett, Morison, Johnson and Pilkington will flop [100% false] Fox, Naughton, DeLait, Barnett, C Martin will be a hit [2 out of 5 correct] We will beat Man U at Carrow Road [False] Everton will do the double over us [False] Delia will be put into embarrassiing position by the TV crews ie Gerry Harrison asking her to sing when we were promoted, cringeworthy and I actually felt sorry for her. [False so far] Mick McCarthy will be sacked and Wolves will think they are in with a chance of nicking Lambert (no chance). [True] Martin Jol will get the sack and Fulham will think they are in with a chance of nicking Lambert (no chance). [False] Aston Villa will sack Alex McLeish, erm. [False] QPR will sack Warnock after 5 games but realise there is no chance of getting Lambert and get an Italian in. [False -- though they did sack him half way through] Chris Martin will be worth 4 million by the end of the season. [False] The team which starts against Wigan will be 80% different by the final game of the season [True. Of the team that started against Wigan, De Laet is back at Man U, Tierney is injured, and Crofts is no longer a regular starter. But I don't believe carrabuh visualised the extent to which PL would tinker with formations and personnel from one game to another.] Player of the season De Lait [False] Top Goalscorer Holt or C Martin [True] Vaughan to be injured for most of the season [True] Someone will become the saviour towards the end of the season, I'm going for Chris Martin. [False -- this team doesn't need a Saviour!] QPR will finish bottom on less than 20 points [False] We sign/loan at least 4 more players between now and the end of the season [False, but we have made two great signings] Lappin and Drury will go out on loan [False] Ipswich will be ****.............again [True] We go out in the first round of the Carling Cup [False, but only just; it was Round 2!] We will be labelled "plucky" or words of a similar patronising fashion by TV persons with nothing interesting to say. [True] Alan Hansen will bring up our unprotected defence [True] We are safe with 2 games to go [True, but not in the way he meant] Lambert leaves for pastures new at the end of the season [Pull the other one!] Current score as of now: 8 out of 24 It takes a brave man to stick his neck out to that extent. What say we all have a go at similar predictions at the start of next season?
bless carrabuh. i liked his comments - he was almost always wrong about everything. he effectively said that we would get nowhere with the players lambert signed because league one contains 'players who are monkeys' (genuine quote) and he did not accept anyone who disagreed with that, even though pretty much everyone felt he was talking tripe. would be good to have him on here though
Always looked forward to his posts as they were sure to start a reaction - what happened to Wally Brain ?
Well it is nice to know I am so fondly thought of.. Actually many of those predictions were (as I'm sure you are aware) tongue in cheek. I'd say 8 out of 24 is pretty good going considering the precision of the wording. In fact if you look through another set of predictions on another thread soon after I said we would finish higher than 12th as I thought the Premiership was completely overated [very true]. I do have to disagree with the comment that I specified we needed Premiership players, it was never the case, I insisted on proven "quality" players of which the Championship or abroad was an apt place to look. Finally I still don't think the team has alot of quality, hardwork and endeavor certainly, but we are still pretty thin on the ground with a quality in passing, (I'm getting a bit tired of the long ball stuff at times and the mud is starting to stick to us)as I'm sure you will agree (most do). I Anyway, I have broken my self imposed ban on this dreadful site, I will suffer from epilepsy if I continue to cast eyes over its garish colour scheme, convoluted layout and vulgar design. I may respond tonight if anyone puts something good down. How did this place win???
Hi carrabuh and welcome! I know we didn't see eye to eye on 12 yards but I always looked for your input, I liked the way you played devil's advocate! If you persevere, you'll get used to the layout! This site won over 12 yards because we are a family on here, on 12 yards, it was set up by Wolves fans and was very Wolves orientated! Hope you stay and add to the forum!
Welcome back Carrabuh. I for one welcome alternative views. Sometimes I agree , sometimes I don't. We are all City fans at the end of the day.
Disagree a lot about the passes comment. We have been absolutely fantastic at passing over the last few weeks. At times each player has had a maximum of three touches. Yes we have played long ball, but rarely and it has worked at times this season.
I had some cracking ding-dongs with Carrabuh on the old 606 back in the dark old days of Rodent, and even more with Doomcaster - what happened to him?
Thank you Surgeryman, I just searched my name and found you to be quite defensive of altenative views which should be commended, Although my leaving has nothing, as many of you suspect to do with our successful league position and my insistance we had signed tripe. True, I still think the players are not great (don't get me wrong they are OK), but then again the Premiership stinks so we are bound to look good. Apart from Spurs, I have not seen a single great performance at Carrow Rd this season. The player I really got wrong was Ruddy, who i ABSOLUTELY lambasted at times but has been incredible, practically no errors for 6 months. The stand out players for me have been Holt, Fox, Hoolahan, Ruddy and Naughton. The new Bennett looks a fantastic player by the way, against Everton he was superb, composed, brilliant positioning and reading of the situation, he was the antithesis of Gary Doherty, excellent signing.
Munky, my personal favourites were the Doherty sagas, and most of all the Pre Colchester Theoklitos which was truly epic vitriol.
Just feel that having an alternative view is OK. You don't have to agree or overly criticise someone elses' views just because you dont see it the same way. Take what you are saying about performances at CR. I feel several teams have played well. Blackburn , for example were very good as were Wigan. But that's just my view. Good to see you have spurred debate already!
I also had been a critic of Ruddy but he has done what every player should do and that is work on his game, learn from his mistakes and get better. That is exactly what he has done and all credit to him. Certainly happy to eat humble pie on this occasion.
My God, this site is terrible, its designers and builders should be put against the wall. How can you live with the constant scrolling through empty space and this compulsion to stick a box around everything. Is there an alternative view which turns off all the pictorial gumf people stick on there responses. Why does it take half a page up to write one line answers? Utter stupidity.
I think those are (Or were) some very brave predictions, and quite a few of the more surprising ones turned out true!
Seriously, you think the passing is fantastic, fantastic is Spanish style not this two touch, pass wide, head down and cross. We are Ok, but we are not fantastic, sadly we win more games through endeavour than guile, and I don't like that. However it is only a start and I'm sure we will get more enjoyable to watch.
carrabuh - I tend to agree that the layout of '12yards' was much better, but as has been said; that was set up by Wolves fans and most Canaries fans drifted onto this site. Good to see you back - we've done well this season and the quality shown by some of our new signings as well as the performances of Holt and Ruddy have been exceptional. Hopefully will get continue to improve next season.
