steveybadger

Perhaps we weren’t as good as we thought we were. But I’m certain we’re not as bad as some think we are now.

10 hours ago, Dr Balls said:

Oh no France have equalised. That Mbappe lad looks good. Maybe we should put in a bid for him to pair up with Andi!!

Nah he ain’t getting in ahead of Antoine

43 minutes ago, shahanshahan said:

Has anyone noticed the photos of home warm-up clothing that quietly appeared on the shop website too?

Lots of Bristol references, e.g. Brunel top hat, balloon festival etc? 

20 minutes ago, And Its Smith said:

Well done to Wales.  I know how much it means to their fans to get to a World Cup.  Pleased for my Welsh friends and family. 

Yep me too. There are plenty of Welsh who will always want to beat England / see England lose, but do you know what, there are a lot of people with dual allegiances. And regardless it’s only football so I don’t get the need to express ‘hatred’ for other football fans who if you sat down and had a drink with you’d probably get along famously with.
Especially given Wales’s opposition today and the real world issues they face.

1 hour ago, Sheltons Army said:

I would think Rangnick is a great appointment for Andi - 

Rangnick wants his teams to press , pacy hardworking players 

I would hazard a guess that he may keep his place in squad for the foreseeable.

A bit of fortune that AW deserves -

from ACL to international recall at 30 after a 7 year absence , in 18 months , is some achievement,  and for me , suns up Andi Weimann

Great to see extreme hard work and professionalism get rewarded 

Yep he is defo a Rangnick type player

Pre season gets longer every year

1 hour ago, Olé said:

I had the same view of him, it's weird as I think it all came from his Newcastle days and their fans spreading rumours he was one of Mike Ashley's mates from the casinos. 

Random story - Euro 2016 I was flying back on an early morning Easyjet from Lyon after the Portugal/Hungary 3-3. Wales played in the city a few days earlier and loads of their fans were on the flight.

The queue for the gate was full of noisy half cut Welsh fans and who pops up at the back of it but Alan Pardew - carrying nothing, so I guess on a rapid 24 hour round trip to scout a Hungarian signing.

There were the usual French airport strikes which meant it took a chaotic, disorganised rabble of a queue of Wales fans over an hour to get through passport control to the gate, and the flight was full.

Pardew was the opposite of what I expected - neither aloof or self-entitled, he waited patiently at the back, spoke quietly to people who acknowledged him, he didn't push past or use speedy boarding. 

On the plane he politely navigated through loud mouth groups of Welsh fans to get to a random seat assignment right at the back - his demeanour was anything but supposed billionaires playboy mate.

Not sure why I'm sharing this, it means very little, but at the time and in the circumstances I suppose I was expecting a very different attitude based on everything that was said about him at Newcastle.

A good lesson to not judge people from afar I guess - myself included!

Never been a fan of his - always seemed a bit self serving.

But credit where it’s due - well done that man.

Initial thoughts suggest he’ll play at the back in a 3 but completely agree he gives us a tonne of flexibility. If the rumours of the FGR lad come true (no idea if true) then isn’t he a very attacking RWB / FB?

1 hour ago, Silvio Dante said:

Everyone’s right. He’s more versatile than a Colombian lap dancer.

Thought we needed a right back?

I remember thinking we hadn’t played well at all and being gutted. Then I got home, watched the highlights and thought actually we played ok and were beaten by a cracker. 

No consolation at all mind!

Anybody else sometimes wonder if it would have been better if they’d just b******** off to the Super League and not come back?
Greed, greed, greed.

3 hours ago, Monkeh said:

To be fair, no one should care, it shouldn't be a special thing coming out as gay, it should be normal and everyone should be accepting of it,

Sadly that's not the world we live in, but I do have the upmost respect for this young lad, it can't of been easy for him

Absolutely.

Encouraging that there’s only been 1 ‘who cares’ type post so far. 

 I was at St James Park Exeter when Justin Fashanu played for Torquay just after coming out. Not sure I’ve heard worse abuse aimed at an individual. I’m much more optimistic that Jake will get a better reception.

27 minutes ago, Curr Avon said:

For me, Antoine's the only City player with the 'wow' factor. He's a joy to watch, combining great upper body strength, quick feet and a turn of pace that terrorises defenders, face on or with back to goal. 

His two goals at Craven Cottage in January were top Premier League class and I'm excited for next season if he stays.

Pretty please.

And arguably most important is that he pulls defenders out of place and creates space for others. It was no coincidence that we started scoring regularly when he started starting.

Lovely, no franchise in the Championship next season. 
 

I’ll let it go in another 50 years

Hendrie’s complete lack of research is very poor.

Nor me. 

Anybody see the article the other day about WSL matches only having 1 ball available during the match? So occasionally you get huge delays at times getting the ball back from the stands. Bizarre.

2 minutes ago, cityexile said:

Imagine KdB watching on in the last 40 minutes or so from the bench. This City have never been as good defensively as they are playing on the front foot. Pep ‘let’s shore it up’ when he had no need to, and Stirling and Grealish added very little against a tired back line.

Difficult to understand how City lost that over the two ties, but somehow they managed it.

Ref was a complete homer as well. Shocking.

Tbf Grealish almost scored twice in a minute which kills the game, and any manager would’ve ‘shored it up’ with a 2 goal lead and not long left.

agree not sure how they list it mind, and Casemiro’s non bookings?!!!

58 minutes ago, Akira said:

Don't quite get the constant bashing on here over FGR. They're trying to do the right thing, which affects every single person alive today, and future generations. Other clubs with disgustingly large budgets should be ashamed that they'd rather spend £100m on players but not try to be the leading force for green football, but instead it's a low league club that's leading the way by some distance. Sure, it isn't going to solve global warming, but as a collective effort, it'll absolutely help, and other clubs from overseas might try and follow suit. Gotta start somewhere!

Fair play to FGR once again.

Nail on the head. It’s easy to mock and quite possibly hides other’s guilt at not doing enough.

7 hours ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

Unsure which thread to put it in but some excellent news.

https://www.buryfcss.co.uk/bury-back/

This is quite old news Mr P - it’s from May 2021!

That said looking at the news section on the site Gigg Lane has now been ‘tidied up’ sufficiently to hold a Bury women’s game recently - the first game there since 2019. Speaking to my brother in law recently (Bury fan who was one of those helping getting Gigg back into shape) there is still some disagreements between Those owning the stadium and AFC Bury ( basically to do with staying with the original club rather than forming a new one). That said my BIL thinks, as I do, that inevitably the 2 will come together at Gigg Lane eventually. 

This gives a good summary

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/mar/30/so-proud-bury-afcs-promotion-marks-first-big-step-on-a-different-path

1 hour ago, Bazooka Joe said:

This would explain why Williams was a bit snappy yesterday.

1 hour ago, MarcusX said:

I’m sure he’ll bounce back from this

You’re stretching out the joke here

7 minutes ago, Red Skin said:

Glad you lad had a good day.  Can we have him as mascot every week? 

Phoning the club now…..

2 minutes ago, REDOXO said:

That’s a bugger. I wish we could go back to not defending dead balls Or crosses thus conceding goals needlessly and not winning games and keeping clean sheets! We were much better then. 

Fair, to be fair!