Jonh McCormick again:
Not quite half a century ago I spent a Saturday evening in the cellar of Norwich’s Orford Arms, after an overnight coach trip, a long wait until the 3pm kickoff and a defeat. By then I was knackered and only wanted to drink but some of the others who’d made it – possibly the pensioners you read on this site these days – weren’t going to let trivialities such as a loss stop them dancing on the table. After all, we were Sunderland and they were just Norwich. Then came 1985, 2013, and so on, and, maybe, we should acknowledge that the Canaries, upstarts who only reached the top rank just before we won our second FA cup, deserve their Premiership status and are entitled to dance on our grave.
Can anyone disagree? I get the impression that Rob Hutchison could but wouldn’t. Here are his one word assessments on a crap day for a crap team (but not, I must add, a crap club or crap supporters. Get crowds of 40,000, week in, week out, then perhaps you can think about gloating:)
That was the week that was after Leicester, lessons learned, home truths uttered, air cleared, yeah right. Spin me another . . . .
Pants – 5 liable
PVA – 1 anonymous
Coates – 3 wretched
Kaboul – 3 weak
Jones – 3 rubbish
Cattermole – 4 clueless
M’Vila – 5 bearable
Lens – 4 offpace
Larsson – 4 awol
Fletcher – 3 dire
Defoe – 4 laboured
Graham – 4 nonplussed
Watmore – 6 cared
A couple of bonus summer specials . . . .
Advocaat – 5 jaded
Short – 4 culpable
PVA yesterday looked like he couldn’t trap a bag of cement, he doesn’t know how to defend and appears not to care. We have let Bardsley, Sessengne Gardner leave and have made poor choices in their replacements. We appear to have no organisation or desire and the future looks bleak. Throwing money at this problem will not give us the answer we are looking for.
Just curious what people think – we had Martin O’Neill arrive as a saviour, no-one doubted his credentials as a manager. However, as we know it didn’t work for MO’N.
Then Dick arrives with a similar, if not better management pedigree than MO’N and all is fine – or was fine last season.
The point I would like to make is that now Dick no longer has his ‘right hand man’ Bert van Lingen to turn to is he struggling? Just as I believe MO’N without his right hand man’ of some years John Robertson also struggled so much and might I add they both have that ‘jaded’ look about them.
Congerton is just another snake oil salesman here to take the heat off Short . Granted ES isn’t a football man and he can’t be expected to gauge the merits of players but under he’s watch we have gone backwards . We were a better club in every department when Quinny was involved . Apologies for repeating myself , but the Quinn era is begining to look like a wonderfull memory compared to this present one and as we all know it wasn’t .
And Keane. Imagine someone of his stature coming now. His point about Short and his dictates are more moot than ever. It has been downhill since.
Congerton signed PVA and deserves the stocks. He’s crap as well.
PVA has no confidence because he has no ability. He’s crap.
To play PVA next week (at left-back anyway) would be sheer insanity. We’d be better off playing Mannone there. PVA’s confidence, as Benno said, is shot to pieces. The other squad members haven’t lost quite as much confidence yet. They’re just lazy, spineless, tactically lost and, er, crap.
I made the point to mates of mine before the Leicester game that I think Advocaat could rue his decision to let Vergini and Reveilleire go before suitable replacements were brought in. I made the same point on this site in my intro to Sixer’s Soapbox last Sunday and again in a comment somewhere. Vergini played his best games for us at fullback and at least Reveilleire knew how to defend. Both Jones and PVA are dragged out of position too often and are content to amble back after they’ve made a run upfield.
Sorry to be so repetitive but Matthews has to start next week and I’d rather see O’Shea or Larsson in the other full back slot than either of the two we had today.
Your correct Malcolm , Vergini and Reveiller are better than the disaster twins . You could see that , why couldn’t Advocaat , unless he was promised better replacements to come in . We’ll soon find out as I feel this is coming to a head .
Short does need to spend money in the coming days. But I have a little sympathy with him seeing he’s just poured £17m down the drain with Rodwell and Giaccherini.
I thought we could blame O Neill, Di Canio, Poyet, but we must face facts that the players have a mentality problem. Its a psychological issue. Apparently being paid £35,000 a week is not motivation enough to put a shift in.
Advocaat will have to abandon his “marauding fullbacks” plan and play tight.
Only one positive: Watmore.
Our marauding fullbacks play like opposing wingers , so useless and counter effective they are . God help me , I even want O’Shea and Brown back next week in centre of defense . To think we used to slag off Bruce’s signings , they’re beginning to look like relics from a bygone age compared to our recent batch of headless chickens .