@JohnF and @mikehughescq
Gents, please see the following quote from a BBC article from a few days ago. I used to have a bit of time for Lampard, but that respect is slowly dwindling. Would love for ourselves (Boro) and any other worthy club to knock them off their perch. I think a possible meltdown could be rather fun.
Southampton and Coventry City have been fined following a melee at the end of their Championship game in December, with the behaviour of Sky Blues boss Frank Lampard deemed “the catalyst” for the incident.
Coventry will improve when the weather improves and they can play on billiard tables once again. I like Coventry as a club but there is nothing about Lampard to like or respect. Boro strike me as having every chance of pipping them to the title but Coventry might yet implode spectacularly as Edwards as a coach is very prescriptive in how he plays.
Another disappointing couple of away losses for Luton; first Plymouth then Huddersfield. Both games were 1-0 but we played against 10 men in the Huddersfield game for 70 minutes after a bit of hair pulling meant an early bath for May. Despite playing against 10 men we mustered our first shot on goal in the 70th minute?!? this was actually after Ledson gave Huddersfield the lead with a lovely shot from inside his own half which sailed majestically over our keeper who was caught way of his line. We are still struggling to play a cohesive, threatening game at the moment despite much tweaking. Wilshere has realised that it doesn’t matter who we might be thinking of bringing on in the transfer window (if they would actually come!) the problem is not that easily solved. Huddersfield was always going to be a tough game and a win would have kept us on the edge of the play offs but to be honest I do see us ‘consolidating’ our position in League 1: bizarre as it sounds I would rather avoid the hope that the play offs might bring knowing that based on our current performances we would just be cannon fodder in the Championship. The fans (me included) are having their patience tested but a current poll shows that no one wants Wilshere out. Blackpool on Saturday and a win at home would resurrect all the play off talk once more but other teams are showing form in a very inconsistent League 1 - Cardiff & Lincoln are probably home & dry so it is up to who puts together a good run from here.
Norwich have just signed Mohamed Toure from Randers FC for £3.4m.
Must admit not only have I not heard of the player but neither had I heard of Randers FC. I hope he’s another Jovan Makama as he has a similar build and reputed to be quick.
Unfortunately Pelle Mattsson is now out for a few weeks and will be a huge loss as he’s been a big part of resurgence under Clement.
I hope it turns out better than our last antipodean signing (as far as I recall), Wynton Rufer, around 1982. His signing was big news at the time as he was a highly rated New Zealand international.
As with many things Norwich he never actually played for us as, again if I remember correctly, he couldn’t get a work permit! I think that’s why we never tried to sign Maradonna or Messi……
A brilliant result for Pompey today, especially with Oxford and Blackburn both losing. Goals from two of the new boys too, and Conor Chaplin of course. Let’s hope things are on the up.
Losing away to Middlesbrough 1-0 is no disgrace the way they are playing and we had our chances.
By all accounts we played well but Mattsson will be a big miss over the next weeks.
Another poor game at Portman Road. Town just can’t play against a packed defence - still the same pedestrian build up often leaving us caught on the break.
After we equalised (a softish but definite pen) we gave it a go and in one crazy minute should have had three more pens (a chop on Clarke and then two handballs both unnatural position and stopping a goal scoring opportunity. Regardless it would have been a travesty had we won.
Impressed by PNE’s Jebbison - strong, pretty quick, a ready outball, good hold up bringing others into play. Just what Town need!
Where’s Mike? Ready for another ‘just hope we scrape 17th’. Still plenty of cash to splash by the looks of things.
I think that this game should put an end to all thoughts of a playoff place. Probably a good thing, as this side is nowhere ready for the Premiership & we should now have time for Clement to build a solid side, with carefully selected transfer targets, to mount a proper challenge next season rather than making panic purchases if, by some miracle, we were to go up via the playoff final this season.
All in all, an encouraging performance against the best side in the division, plus, there is still a cup final to aim for……
Made a short weekend of it in Sheffield staying over last night with Mrs. H. as I went to the match with the offspring, their partner (Forest fan) and their two friends (Norwich fan and Spurs fan). Haven’t been to Hillsborough for a good 20 years or so. Sad to walk past what is actually quite a poor memorial and to see the state of the ground now. It’s easy to pin that on Chansiri but in reality none of their owners have maintained the place and you could see why the main stand is at constant risk of closing.
Official attendance was 23,000 but once non-attending season ticket holders were taken out it was 15,000 with 3,100 of us. A sad sight to see. As soon as we grabbed the breakthrough they sang rather forlornly, “You’re nothing special, we lose every week.” They’re a team with nothing to play for and, whilst they look like they’ve been in most games to the hour mark, the reality is that they’re set up to offer a low block and little else. They had 3 good chances which we gifted them and had they taken any it would have been a very different game but, sadly, when you’re in their position there is simply no world in which you can buy a break. At 0-1 most teams would have opened up and risked something going for an equaliser. They literally did nothing different because they didn’t have the players to do so.
Parky almost got his team selection right. Yet again Sheaf ahead of Rathbone and/or Dobbo was bewildering. First time we’ve been able to play Cacace and Kabore together as wing backs since the latter debuted away at Norwich. Sadly the latter is currently a shadow as he returns to fitness and yet he still managed to get in the cross which won the game. Not alone in performing poorly. Sheaf and Broadhead too.
Ref and linesman to our left were awful. My Dad was listening to the radio commentary and apparently they kept on calling clear fouls only to say that the ref hadn’t given it. It kinda felt like that.
Anyways, not going to complain about 4 straight away wins. Very clear that we could finish anywhere right now from 3rd to 15th so am enjoying the ride.
A friend of mine who is a Sunderland fan said the same about his team last year. I think it’s difficult to judge readiness for the premiership and my preference would be to get my hands on the riches as soon as possible.
It’s such a gulf between the two but at least we now have an owner who can financially give it a better go than in the past.
That said I was 99% dreaming.
The (admittedly young) Norwich fan who came with us yesterday said pretty much the same thing and one of our podcasts this week had in the very annoying “analyst” Kieron Maguire.
The message was basically that no team is “ready” for promotion from any division and if the chance is there you have to grab it. That was reinforced by the fact he was saying that last season in L1 our TV money was £1.1m. This season it is £11. If any of our teams were to get in the EPL it would be £111m.
The team which got us out of the NL was not entirely ready for L2. Off the field we had pretty much zero EFL infrastructure in any part of the club except we’d pushed the streaming agenda and were the first NL club with LED adverts around the ground. Even then it was a bit like Honecker’s East Germany in that it was only the 3/4 of the ground you could see on TV.
FF to L1 and the turnover of players accelerated with an emphasis on experience. We have no training ground, a temporary stand is still in place as the complexities of building a new kop play out. There was no sense in which we were “ready” for this season. Said it before but the £33m spent was to do no more than try and keep us in the division. Now, we might fall away with 5 defeats in the trot but we’re in the mix. We still have no training facility and the kop won’t be ready until 2027 so if we went up we’d be the !st team in the PL with a 3 sided ground but… much as I despise the PL and think it will be the ruin of us as it has been others, you can see that all at the club are thinking “it’s there, why not”.
The second card-free game in a row for Mr Webb. He has “history” on that front so the odds were a paltry 15/2, but it still yielded a nice profit for those of us who follow such things.
Interesting perspective but Sunderland actually signed about 15 players over the Summer to make them prem ready. Most notably Xhaka but also a bunch of powerful AFCON players. Their championship midfield skipper (who Town have now signed on loan) couldnt get into the squad.
Town made the mistake last season of continuing to buy with development potential and future value in mind. I suppose our Xhaka was Phillips who was superb on occasion but too often injured so overall had little impact and couldn’t cover the squad weaknesses.
We made the same mistake of looking to develop rather than fewer seasoned players who knew what the premiership was about.
Great if you succeed, bankruptcy threatening if you fail.
Luton stumbled to a 1-0 win against a really poor Blackpool - two poor sides actually and such a dire game that I actually got bored. It is really getting tiring to see us hold the ball at the back with no idea of how to move it forward with all our forwards standing in a line with the defenders and the midfield just standing. Anyway, three points but no one is kidding themselves.
Interesting. I tend to judge officials on the day rather than thinking in advance “oh it’s them again.” and assuming what we’re going to get. I knew his name but it wasn’t top of my pre match priorities. As the game unfolded we became increasingly astonished at the number of blatant fouls which were right in front of him and yet neither a foul nor a card. This culminated in a ridiculous scenario where he threatened to book one of our players for daring to complain that the blatantly deliberate hand ball 2m away from him wasn’t an immediate card.