I have been living near Derby for nearly 12 years (must persuade her indoors to let us move back to the chosen land soon!), I used to like it when Saints were televised because I could watch us and I would think the TV money would be worth it. I am now a STH and I travel to most home games , when I hear that one of our matches is going to be televised I absolutely dread it for the following reason - we nearly always seem to play badly. So far I recall we have played the following games which have been viewed - Leeds Home, Leeds Away, Portsmouth away, Blackpool Home, Blackpool away, Reading away, Leicester home. Only in the Leeds home did we show viewers what a good side we are. Why is that? 1. Is it fear? Surely not! 2. Is it because the matches selected are against the better teams? Nope! 3. Is it because they are local Derby's and therefore the form book can be ripped up and thrown away? Nope not entirely! 4. Are we just unlucky we the games that are selected? 5. Or are we a lucky side in that we aren't as good as we think we are and the TV cameras expose that? Possibly although we were certainly lucky at Elland Road I don't know what it is, I just know that we are hosting Reading soon and its being televised. Oh no! Can we afford to play badly or loose another game during this run in? Have any viewers got any feeling for why we do so badly? It would be nice to be champions but surely the main aim is to be in the top two at the end of the season, so I really don't care that we lost as WHU did as well, so we are still top and didn't loose any ground on the team in third. However the game next week won't be easy and Reading will give us a very difficult game. We need Ricky on the pitch as our talisman, as it has been shown that if he plays we normally get a favourable result, with out him normally not. So Nigel if Ricky can't play the full 90 let him play for the first 5 mins and then all the luck he gives will be there and we will win.
I think it's to do with the kick off times. When we play early think we have picked up more points but when we play later and we know the others score i think it puts a different mindset on the players. As yesterday showed we knew that if we didn't win we wouldn't be displaced so maybe that went into the game a little relaxed and sloppy. Other than that I don't know what it is.
We've got a really got record on Al Jazeera TV and I think our next game is on there so fingers crossed!
I think we are better playing at 3.00 on a Saturday or 7.45 Tuesday. Anything else and our finely tuned racehorses throw a splint or go down with colic. We have won occasionally on TV, but rarely play well. Let's hope 1 pm on Saturday suits them better, with no nasty TV cameras shoved up their muzzles.
Hey don't forget the blizzard at Brum (which I was at). Agree we seem to prefer normal or early kick off times but not late, Leeds away we got lucky with the pen shout which possibly would have changed the outcome COYS
