What a mistake. Failing to back him then sacking him then replacing him with Marsch who they then backed, sacked & left us with his deadweights. And here we are, with a worse squad than 23/4 and even more unbalanced. We attract owners who know little about football (it seems) or think our hard earned reputation will catapult us up the league. Fire sale was expected. Lack of cheaper replacements not identified, a real worry. Hopefully the USA soccer board will surprise us but Americans really donāt seem to get football (relegation/promotion, no draft etc).
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One or two more owners and they can force through whatever they want in the premier league. Itās-a comingā¦
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I think theyāre 2 short of owning the EPL.
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Exactly what @twofifty says. Fitness and match fitness are two different things. Most footballers maintain or even improve their fitness over the Sunmer break but theyāll lose their match fitness absent playing competitive games.
Fabulous 0-0 for us at Bolton today. 3,700 Wrexham fabs out sang 22,000 Bolton fans. The only thing missing was a goal. Minus Mullin still Iād say it was obvious Bolton are a level or two above us but Parky is a brilliant tactician. We set up to keep it tight and guessed correctly that if we could do that the game would eventually open up as they pushed for the home win. Took us until the 50th minute to register a shot and we survived a right lesson in fast attractive football for the opening 15. Second half opened up as we guessed but they had the clearer of the chances and only two great saves from young Arthur kept us in it although we still scared them a couple of times.
A very good lesson as to what the good clubs in L1 look like. Weāre absolutely not there yet butā¦With Mullin we might have snatched that but realistically weāve played two league games; been outplayed for 60 minutes in the first and probably 50 here yet come away with 4 points. Bolton are currently much better than us but then so were Mansfield when we somehow gita 0-0 at their place last season and we look competitive and able to adapt. So, not title winners but not likely to be relegation candidates either.
Evatt, whom I rate very highly, rather spoiled the love in by claiming Bolton ought to have had a penalty for shirt pulling. Sadly both players were clearly at it, which is what the ref apparently saud to him, but he refuses to accept it. There was a much better shoult for a pen when the ball hit our players arm whilst he was on the floor. It was blastec at him from short range as players toppled onto him but Iāve seen lesser ones given.
Very happy with that overall. Even gave in to the offspring havung a gin before midday. I had āItās five o clock somewhere thrown at me.ā.
The Mighty Whites were in control for most of the game at Hillsborough tonight, and deserved their 2-0 win.
Iād like to think that the team is gradually starting to blend together, following the rash of recent departures, and that was never going to happen overnight.
A bit petty of the ref to book Dan James for his brief goal celebration with some fans in the front row.
Get a life, Sunshine.
Three points ā¦ ā¦ ā¦ nice one.
M.O.T.
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Better tonight v a poor Wednesday. As Dave says, maybe starting to gel a bit. Iām perhaps rare as an lufc fan who wonāt miss Rutter. I never expected to get our money back tbh (most felt the same at one point) - he was 50% great and 50% appalling (canāt shoot/regularly lost the ball). Not sure we have his replacement yet but that was a team performance tonight which didnāt rely on any āmarqueeā player. Our 9 did especially well. Should have scored but his all round game was very good. And James, love him. Glad we kept him. Proper team player. Stiffer tests lie ahead but for now we can just enjoy the weekend.
Ps: Farkeās post match interview - heās exactly what we need despite fans on Twitter wanting him out. Crazy!
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I agree that Leeds thoroughly deserved their win this evening. The Owls looked very vulnerable when Leeds broke on them quickly. I still expect Leeds to be challenging for promotion but I suspect Sheff Weds will have problems at the other end of the Championship.
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Guys, I think youāre doing yourselves down here, you were the second or third best team in Div 2 last year ( Leicester were so far ahead that we can discount them). For sure, you were the team we considered as āthe one to beatā.
OK so you ran up against your ābogey teamā for last year, three times. Sh1t happens. Leeds will be challenging for promotion this year!
Thatās possibly true of last season, but you have to take into account the recent departure of 3 / 4 of our best players.
Still, weāll see.
M.O.T.
Pompey rode their luck at Middlesborough this afternoon. Always very frustrating to concede a penalty in the 90th minute which led to the draw but I would have taken a point before the game so not unhappy. We really do need to get our first choice players back from injury though.
1-1 draw with Sheffield United is never a bad result, especially as this is a transitional year but when Simon Lappin on Canary Call said having Barnes return from injury would be like a new signing I didnāt realise it was going to be that bad!
Trying not to laugh. Iāll grant you some players nearing the end of their careers donāt recognise when they need to go but the dislike of Barnes is comedic. Heās being held up as a totem of other ills. Bottom line is that, once fit, if the new manager doesnāt like him he wonāt play him. If a second consecutive manager finds a role for him then either your new people in charge donāt know what theyāre doing either or heās doing something your fans arenāt bright enough to see. I think you know which one Iām going for.
We have Steven Fletcher. His last major footballing contribution was to flee Scotland after a horrific injury to Craig Gordon. He came to us unfit; played a little; required surgery and started this season injured and unfit once again. The difference in fan attitude is startling. Instead of considering him a wage thief our fans gave him a ludicrous song (comparing him to Cristiano Ronaldo) and welcome his every introduction as a sub despite the fact that his flicks outside the box almost always give the ball away and he can pretty much only do 2 things via moscow memory. He can leap like a salmon to head the ball in the area and place it in the net calmly with his first touch when other players would feel pressure to control it first. Most fans recognise his many weaknesses at this point far outnumber his strengths but on the field heās a quiet but authoritative voice quietly directing less experienced players on where to go at set pieces etc. and off the field both he and the freak that is James McClean have been hugely influential on the whole squad.
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Didnāt make our match yesterday as had long since planned a Cumbrian Mountain Express but the goals looked superb and for the third consecutive hand we didnāt have the majority of possession but won. Itās not a pattern we can continue and life will undoubtedly get harder but weāre adapting better to L1 than anyone thought we would. Very obvious that the game at this level is much faster and refs let more of the physical stuff go but we have pace on both wings; Mullin returning and a top 10 please seems achievable on the little weāve seen so far. The difference make for us is once again likely to be the quality of our squad. Even the very best teams in this division do seem to be just teams rather than squads.
Believe me there is a lot of ironic humour amongst fans concerning Barnes.
It was the fact we are constantly told the club will be lowering the squad age and yet two very good players in their early twenties have left and another has put in a transfer request.
Hearing Simon Lappin merely made me think we were going about things in a typical Norwich way.
Itās been interesting watching similar stuff with us. We finally bought our way out of the National League using players who were mostly L2 level and a couple clearly above. None of them young. In L2 the lie Harvey told fans about building a squad in the NL for L1 was laid waste to and the squad was rebuilt with some L1 players and old heads like Fletcher.
This season thereās little role for Fletcher and Iād guess McClean as players, despite the latter being named club captain. Weāve superb cover at wing back on both sides and in central midfield. McClean is played out of position so often he looks like a player only capable of pausing and going backwards. Fletcher is lovely to watch for a few minutes but largely ineffective other than when teams forget that he can be lethal in tight spaces. Overall we donāt need them in the squad. Theyāre still here because we underestimate how much young players need old heads both on and off the pitch.
I hate to say it but Ipswich seem to be spending their EPL riches a lot better than we did. Clarke from Sunderland being their latest acquisition.
If they are relegated theyāll have a heck of a championship team.
Off to Selhurst tonight to see Palace play Norwich in the Fizzy Cup. On current form Iām not sure how it will go 
As a Norwich supporter, I can hazard a wild guessā¦
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Weāre concentrating on the league this year!
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