Odowda

[MATT BCFC]

It's hard to say from not going to games but quite a few of our players look bulkier to me than they did last season. Wonder how much of a bearing on all our injuries that has had? Certainly at the start of the season we played with a pretty high energy and a high work rate. 

You look at teams that play high energy football like Leeds and Man City and their players tend to have a very low body fat percentage.

Ronaldo and Ibrahimovic have also spoke about leaning down to prolong their career. 

[Rudolf Hucker]

48 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Get @Rudolf Huckerin.

That’s my chat up line. 

[Harry]

6 hours ago, CodeRed said:

DH was quoted in the EP "You can't just recall some players on January 1st - it doesn't work like that. We're in talks and we hope to get those guys in as soon as we can."

Not sure what he means by that, the terms of the loan are set out at the beginning of the loan surely?  If there's a recall clause then that's it and back they come, if it's a season long loan with no recall then it's also clear.  So why are we "in talks" ?

Everything at City seems to be more difficult than it should be.

 

I would like to see them all come back. We're short of players, these are our players, they've mostly all had loans at various levels and if they don't at least get a chance now when we can't even fill the bench...........if not now then when?  If they're not up to it then at least we'll know and they can be moved on in the summer.

I must admit, I had the same concerns with that answer. 
In fact, I didn’t like the interview much at all. 
 

1) The answer given re Ashton. Apparently he is regularly in the changing room before a game!! Why? How many clubs have the CEO in the changing room pre-match? How many managers would accept this? Also, is there some kind of covid protocol here? The players and staff are in a ‘bubble’ - why would the CEO be allowed into that bubble? Is it really necessary? What is he offering in the changing room pre-match? 
 

2) The answer given re Pato’s injury. He has supposedly seen “a couple of different specialists”. 
So, presumably he saw one specialist, so what was it about their diagnosis that we didn’t like, that he had to then see another specialist. And is this the same specialist that we’ve used for other diagnoses? Will we be using the specialist again or do we not now trust that specialist and have moved on to a new specialist? 
This injury crisis just gets curiouser and curiouser. 
 

3) The answer re loan recalls. 
This is not a “straight and honest” answer from our straight and honest head coach. 
To say “you can’t just recall players on 1st Jan - it just doesn’t work like that”, is actually quite churlish. 
The simplistics are, if they are our player and we have a recall option, then we should be in discussions, a couple of weeks ago minimum, to recall them. 
A more sympathetic answer for the fans would have been “yes, we’re looking at a number of our loanees to return and we have been talking with the clubs to arrange for their return”. To say “you can’t just do that” is quite dismissive, I feel. As stated in the post above, it’s just purposely being obtuse and making out to the fans that things are never as straight forward as we perceive them to be. A bit “I know best, stop criticising” kind of attitude. 
 

Sorry to start the year on a downer, but I’m finding “nice guy Dean’s” interviews very stand-offish, unnecessarily defensive, and beginning to be quite patronising.  

[CodeRed]

47 minutes ago, Harry said:

 

Sorry to start the year on a downer, but I’m finding “nice guy Dean’s” interviews very stand-offish, unnecessarily defensive, and beginning to be quite patronising.  

He's feeling the pressure - results aren't coming, he's aware of the crititism from fans- the buck stops with him , he hasn't had this pressure before.  When under LJ he did pre and post match interviews but any difficult questions were batted off with " you'll have to ask the gaffer" or "I don't know anything about that". The inexperience is showing.  

[Davefevs]

31 minutes ago, CodeRed said:

He's feeling the pressure - results aren't coming, he's aware of the crititism from fans- the buck stops with him , he hasn't had this pressure before.  When under LJ he did pre and post match interviews but any difficult questions were batted off with " you'll have to ask the gaffer" or "I don't know anything about that". The inexperience is showing.  

Fair.