Wow that pass! Step 1: Win your tackle Step 2: Play a 40-50 yard pass, without a touch, off the outside of your boot
Definitely got a good feeling about this guy. From what I've seen he can carry the ball forward and is happy to try and take it past people which is something we have missed in the middle of the park.
Just checking we're all aware this was Wolfsburg Reserves? All this talk of Neymar and the death knell for football; for clubs like us that went South a long time ago. We're playing Wolfsburg reserves in their reserve stadium with around 3000, and this is our big friendly. Meanwhile the top 6 or 7 are playing Barca, Atletico, Schalke, Bayern in well organised mini-tournaments in front of hundreds of thousands of fans. You do wonder what the point is.
Does it though? Still better players than Bradford and had a few big names in it. Veirinha, Blaszcyckowski, yannus Malli, can't actually be arsed to look through the rest. It's a pre-season at end of the day, would rather we get the confidence of beating 'Wolfsburg reserves' than get tonked by Dortmund's first team
How much does anyone know about Wolfsburg "Reserve team"? Appreciate it wasn't ALL their first team but all the players who played yesterday are listed in their 30 man first team squad from last season and the club captain got 90 mins. It was like us playing Colback and Gamez. Gomez not coming on was comparable to Gayle not getting a run out yesterday. VfL: Grun, Seguin, Guilavogui (Vieirinha 46), Jaeckel (Itter 62), Uduokhai, Gerhadt (Camacho 62), Blaszczykowski, Arnold (Knoche 62), Malli, Ntep (Dimata 77), Osimhen. Subs n/u: Casteels, Klinger, William, Bazoer, Didavi, Mobius, Hinds, Gomez.
Cheers for finding that mate, didn't know Ntep was playing, another good player, as is max Arnold, as is Robin Knoche. And that's from me who knows little about German football From Rafa's comments he picked the Hellas Verona game because he rates the coach, so I'd argue the reason we're playing these 'crap' games is because we left the decision to the manager and not some PR-whore who would rather have the team travel stupid miles and get battered by big teams all to 'increase our profile' Sunderland are in meltdown after their 5-0 loss to Celtic, imagine what a Barca would do to us
I'd say it was actually a great game to determine where we are against a young team, similar to ourselves, who struggled last season, in a division similar to the one we are going into this year. Don't follow German football either but as you say some good players in that squad. And spot on, I'd rather we were playing teams who we can at least compete against instead of globetrotting around to play big name teams and get battered throughout preseason or playing Chorley's reserve team (non league reserve) as Wigans first team did yesterday....and won 14-0. Think Rafa has organised a sensible preseason schedule, the game against Hellas Verona will be good as the head coach use to work with Rafa here and will know about the tactics we'll employ so we will have to work hard to break them down, should show us who is match ready for the following Sunday vs spuds.
Isn't the point that in a week or so we'll be playing a team considerably better than those we've faced? Or have Spurs suddenly become not the 2nd best team in the country?
Can't see we'd be ready to beat Spurs no matter who we played in friendlies. If your point is that we are going to be waxed by the better teams in the prem, no issue. If your point is that with a different pre-season things would be different, I don't follow your reasoning.
Partially I'd agree but its also about fitness, tactic's, player cohesion and figuring out the best squad. Also think that's a bit unfair to Wolfsburg and Mainz, generally Mainz float between 5th and 15th in the last few seasons and Wolfsburg had a bit of a blip last season but finished 8th and 2nd the 2 previous seasons so are nobody's mugs. Bare in mind Tottenham have signed no one, lost their best RB and will have only played 4 preseason friendlies (to our 6) by the time our game kicks off (won 4-2 vs PSG, lost 3-2 to Roma, lost 3-0 vs City and play Juventus this weekend). Pochettino coming out yesterday urging the club to get on with signing some players "or we won't be able to compete". Get what you're saying though and we could have played better opposition but think Rafa is more interested in getting the boy's playing the way he wants this year which will have to be very different from last season.
Played mostly crap in the pre-seasons of finishing 5th and after promotion, and the results weren't great either. Can always hope a bit of confidence helps, but even then over-confidence can be dangerous
http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/spor...njo-shelvey-reveals-newcastle-united-13426799 Literally just seen this article saying we are working on a completely different game plan to last year, so again I think Rafa will be focusing on the style of play and picking his players rather than the results in pre season
Against the better teams is how I read that. It seems we will play more counter attack football against the top 6/7 sides which you'd expect to be fair. From what's be said about preseason friendlies, Shelvey may get forward more which I think is a good thing because he has the guile to make things happen in the last third of the pitch.
I'm not saying it was a bad choice to play Wolfburg's weakened team, in front of a small number of locals. But I had heard that we put a good win together against a Bundesliga outfit, which is kind of overstating our win! It's maybe Rafa's choice to avoid decent teams when we're working on new playing style etc. The assessment is it's kind of where we're at.
Can you find me a season we've played good teams? At best its once here or there, even when we were playing Asia cups under Robson/Souness we were playing Birmingham and other ****e, and losing might I add. I get it bout the media but to be honest its nice seeing em behind us and overstating, they spend the majority of time on the negative, everyone but us thinks benitez will be the first to walk, says it all