firstdivision

50 minutes ago, petehinton said:

I think a striker will be high on the shopping list for the summer personally 

I think we need one, but I don’t see it being a priority. We already have so many forward options (Wells, Conway, Bell, Cornick, plus Weimann, Mehmeti and Sykes if we’re playing  a 4-3-3). I just don’t get the Cornick signing. Even more so after seeing him play. 

51 minutes ago, Cardy said:

Always injured.

Will be interesting to see how his contract situation pans out because he won’t be offered much elsewhere if he’s out for a while again now.

Apart from in nearly all of the 133 league games he’s started for us. 

6 minutes ago, WWred said:

to be honest seen this result/performance a mile off... They were going to be well up for this one and far fresher than us.

 

The lack of squad depth is going to be tricky for the remainder of the season but at the very least we need to be hard to beat.

 

As for Cornick I must confess i was never enthralled by his signing, easy to say that at this point i know but the guys career has peaked in a very workman like efficient Luton Town team. Not the sort of players that's going to take you to the next level. 

 

Mehmeti I'm not to worried about. Young lad, some performances will certainly be inconsistent, they can't all be great and exciting!

 

Onwards and updwards, grateful for the unbeaten run while we were on it! COYRRR

When Cornick signed, NP said ‘we can improve him.’ I damn well hope so. 

1 hour ago, Red Cloud said:

Laura Woods for one, not saying she hasn't achieved stuff but far less than many male footballers - you may see no problem with that but for me, she's there purely because she's a Woman and like I say, it's box-ticking

She’s a professional broadcaster who is a morning presenter on a national radio station. She was also a key part of ITV’s presentation team at the World Cup (where I thought she was excellent. And I’m not easily impressed) At the actual World Cup - you know, the biggest football tournament in the world. And her job is to present, hold the show together, elicit opinions from the pundits, take constant talk-back from the producer, make the programme flow if anything goes wrong. Very different skills from kicking a football. 
 

On 01/03/2023 at 11:58, Red Cloud said:

Agree, shame they have to follow the same box-ticking as Sky and the BBC - presenters should be there on merit NOT skin-colour/sex

Can you explain who you thought was there NOT on merit? 

2 hours ago, cidercity1987 said:

Anyone mentioned how poor these guys were last night?

We can't win a penalty every game but the push on a clean through Sykes was pretty obviously a foul in the box and therefore a penalty. Plus a red for denying a goalscoring opportunity in the box with no attempt to play the ball

I know the rules have changed somewhat this season that not every contact is a foul but Marriner then proceeded to give them everything as soon as we breathed on them?

The linesmen were equally poor, did they give offside even once against Man City? I think not, they must be the absolute experts at staying onside. 

You hear grumbles from the smaller clubs in the Prem that the big boys get every decision and that was certainly true last night.

I’ve just watched it on screen for the first time. (At the game, my immediate reaction was penalty. If it had happened at the other end,  I would have thought ‘oh, s***’. ) On screen with replays…just don’t see how it’s not a foul. Laughable. 

2 hours ago, steviestevieneville said:

To be fair we were a collective shambles that season & Zak was one of them . I never thought technically he was a bad player it was between his ears , which defines the better players with speed of thought & making the right decision on the ball . He’s doing that now & to be honest , I didn’t think he had that in him . 

I don’t think he was in 20-21. It was last season he struggled. In 20-21, he was playing in a team that had more injuries than the Light Brigade and he held up reasonably well. But it was a huge challenge for everyone. We were playing anyone with two legs in the last part of the season. 

I always like 52pts. But I’ve started to relax after yesterday’s results. 13pts clear of relegation. I think we might stay up.

Easy to forget he started 38 games in 2020-21 season when he did pretty well in different positions (including midfield). He had a dip last season but fans getting on his back was absurd. Remember the same thing happening to Gerry Gow. 

5 minutes ago, Red Army 75 said:

What a performance from him today. So important to our team. I will try not to be too positive because it upsets a minority who are ******* clueless.

Yes. Superb. Full of energy. 

3 minutes ago, MelksRed said:

Deffo pen...he had his arm out in the box.   

Clear as anything.

Yes. But, as we’ve seen, it doesn’t mean the ref is going to give them! 
 

Liam can’t come out in his Hull press conference and say it wasn’t a penalty. 

A bit of penalty karma after what happened up there.

I think it was a penalty, but I was surprised to see the ref give it. 

Not a great game but we looked so determined. Hard to beat. 

Play-offs? I can’t believe it’s even a thread. We have an intense schedule coming up with a small squad that is suffering some key injuries. Throw in the likelihood of some key suspensions. I’m just grateful we’ve pulled away from the bottom three. 

29 minutes ago, Hxj said:

Depends what you mean by tried, and I never said they did.  I know for a 'fact' that the club is always in the market for what the club considers to be a player with potential at the right price.  I also know for a 'fact' that several midfielders were considered or suggested by agents etc.  It is also clear that the FFP position has been well and truly sorted (even without Semenyo's sale).  Therefore the purchases of Cornick and Mehmeti didn't stop other targets being signed, if they were available at the right price.

Well, tried as in they tried to bring in Currie from Wimbledon and O'Brien from Palace. But they failed because they couldn't agree terms with their clubs.

My point is that, to me, a midfield player was a priority, so you go after one, like we clearly went after Mehmeti (because he's what we needed). I don't think we needed Cornick and I'm surprised we didn't prioritise a midfield player over him. I thought you might have known that we pushed for someone but you obviously don't. 

11 minutes ago, Hxj said:

The club could have signed both and a centre back, but only Cornick's deal made financial sense.

They tried to sign a midfield player? Do you know that for a fact?

39 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

…if Rob is out for a while?

Jamie Knight-Lebel?

Josh Campbell-Slowey?

or if double-barrel names, how about…

Duncan Idehen-Reprieve?

 

The squad is definitely going to be tested over the next month.

I know we tried to sign a centre back in January. But I think we're light in midfield as well, especially with JW and AS one booking away from a ban. Can't see the rationale behind the signing of Harry Cornick in January over a midfield player (with money quite tight). Perhaps we were trying. Anyway, it's left our squad strangely lop-sided. With Mehemti and Cornick cup-tied, the bench is going to be interesting for Man City.

(Btw - good old Gavin Ward - always said he was a top referee.)

1 hour ago, E.G.Red said:

Thought the pen we got was less clear cut than the one we didn't get.

I didn't. I thought Sykes forced the contact. He goes into their player rather than the other way round. Too many refs get deceived by that sort of thing.

On 13/02/2023 at 01:18, Davefevs said:

Gordon Owen?

Might as well be. Chances of scoring it probably zilch. Could get David Moyes to hobble on instead. 

Anyone think we needed a new midfield player rather than Harry Connick-Jones in January?

Our small squad feels very unbalanced. We're a booking/injury away from having to play Andy King in midfield. And two bookings from perhaps having to play Vyner as an emergency defensive midfield player with Kalas at centre back. Seven games in 22 days coming up (from Hull onwards).

3 hours ago, RoystonFoote'snephew said:

Injuries aside, if a football player can't recover from a game within 48 hours he ain't much of an athlete. A modern game may last nearer to 100 minutes than 90 but it rarely requires a player to make intense effort over that time. They train ofcourse but no more intently than participants in other sports who must look at footballers and what they earn with dismay. 

How do you know that (the 48-hour assertion)?  

20 hours ago, Robbored said:

Nige is impressive and the kinda of guy I’d want to be alongside the trenches. He’s a natural leader and well respected wherever he’s been. I like the way he communicates, open and candid and within 18 months he’s got the entire club adopting a positive attitude and recent form shows that he’s got the team playing well.

 

Depends which year. If it were the start of 1916, you’d be suffering trench foot and he’d be the miserable so-and-so saying, ‘let’s be realistic, it’ll be another two years before we can turn this round. We might get the Americans in but, realistically, we don’t have any money.’

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

Low in “pretty football” qualify.

High in “grit, guts, physical, hardworking” quality.

Yep. Low in softness; high in hardness - softness being a 'quality' we've demonstrated for too long and seemed to have abandoned, the softness we demonstrated when we played prettily at Norwich in September...and lost.

One thing I remember NP saying a while back was he wanted a side the opposition hate playing against. I thought that was us today. We weren’t that constructive going forward but we didn’t give them a moment’s peace. Good to see this trend in recent weeks after being soft for so long.
 

We no longer look like a team waiting to concede soft goals. Admittedly, Max did give Preston a goal last week but we still won the Medieval battle on the rest of the pitch. I’m not a fan of Medieval battles but sometimes you have to fight them. 

9 hours ago, elhombrecito said:

Surely they still do...

Just to clarify. Pro players say they need three full days between games to recover sufficiently. Under the previous arrangement, Swansea would have that; we would not. Now we have three full days. 

I can understand supporters who’ve made arrangements being fed up with a relatively late change. But it’s actually beneficial to the team. We have Luton away on the preceding Wednesday evening. The change gives us an extra day’s preparation after a tough away match, especially off the back of a busy month.
 

Swansea play on the Tuesday that week as well. They would have had an extra day’s rest plus no travel.