maggiespaws

ACDC - Rock n Roll train. Just before I leave the office and head into Manchester for tonights gig. I'll be deaf tomorrow

For the record, I'm in the I wont believe we're going down until we are actually down. I'm also still insanely optimistic that we'll do something we've not done all season - win 3 off the belt at home! tbh, that's probably more a measure of my Insanity than anything else

To be fair we are down, we need to win 3 games to give us a 5 point lead of the mackems and hope they don't pickup 5 points from their remaining 5 games its simply not gonna happen, if the Mackems win 2 games and hull nick a result we are down even if we do win those 3 games Oi! The thread title is Insane Optimism, not Glaring Reality Keep up eh?

yeah, sure we will.

Absolutely spot on article. Nice for a change too

Fucking hell, just made my night with that post Trigger.

You're being kind to say "even" rather than "slightly". That's the kind of guy I am.... ..... outdoor apparel donned and transport is forthcoming!

That looks familiar, is it based on something else? Not the subject obviously EDIT: Googled for my own answer - it is a song by Right Said Fred. God knows why it looked familiar to me though! Top effort though HF New Edit: *shakes head and hangs it low* The song was by Bernard Cribbens and was called Right Said Fred. I need to look at things more carefully instead of trying to quickly edit my posts HF's post is even funnier if you read it with the above tune in your head

Indeed. Duff just hasn't recaptured the form we bought him on the premise of. Really, our attacking midfield demise began when SBR went. Souness was instrumental in that and Big Sam made sure we had plenty of cloggers. In one respect, a couple of cloggers is not such a bad thing as long as they can pass it to someone who can do something good with it (Copyright Brian Clough). We can't do the former and are struggling for the latter

Pre-match interview before the match was good too. One question sticks out: Interviewer (Adrian Chiles I think, I'd had a few though): When you took the job, why did you say it was only for 8 games Al: Because it was (with a deadpan look in his face) :lol:Nearly spat my beer at that point EDIT: Just re-read my first line, when else would a pre-match interview be?

We really struggle for attacking midfield players in general. I seem to recall a few times this season when we've had Enrique/Duff on the left Enrique overlaps Duff and it had the potential for working well. This is of course, ignoring the fact Duff refuses to run at anyone. On the right, Beye is happy to run forward and overlap, but again we don't have a decent right winger. We've got a bunch of cloggers in the middle of the park and little flair. Players like Guti should be providing that flair, but as yet - haven't. I agree with some of the other assessments of Guti, particularly the criticisms of his final ball; a criticism which to be fair can be leveled at pretty much our entire midfield. Apart from our midfield not creating any chances, I also think they are guilty of not scoring enough goals (although this has been the case for a number of seasons). If you look at the top 4 teams in particular; all of their midfield players chip in with goals, some of them even getting into double figures. In the past, our low scoring midfield has been protected by the fact we created enough chances for our forwards to convert. The fact we now do neither explains why we are in the position we are.

Cookies in your browser. We know everything you've contemplated posting then changed your mind on. We're compiling a dossier too Your card's been marked for a while......

Dont worry Snakey not all posts are read. It's just Stevies for now. His posts are being moderated because he's just come back from a ban. Can you imagine the workload if every post had to be approved man! aside from that fact that that's not what forums are about.

Divulge - I'm quite interested to hear this in detail. Don't get me wrong, I've only posted on here or N-O but this forum is a hundred times better than N-O. I just don't understand why someone like Danny B can post absolute rubbish with the sole intent of winding people up and allowed to continue while a stalwart poster like Stevie gets the boot. I'm an out-of-towner so no doubt Stevie would have a craic at me given the opportunity but at least his banter is good and he generally knows what he's talking about where football's concerned. (I'm at work so I'm limited to the length of this response). And for the record I disagree with the non-use of certain profanities, if it's in the dictionary it's fair game To be fair, it's not like bans are dished out for posting rubbish are they? The rules are quite simple and as yet, DannyB hasn't broken them as far as I can see. If we had a rule for banning irritating posters then fair enough but then again, we can all be guilty of that at some point or another. Granted, DannyB has a 1st Class Hons Degree in it like You have to draw the line somewhere and draw the line we have. People aren't banned on a whim, or just because one of use doesn't like them. It's a considered, democratic process by ALL the mods. In an ideal world, a lot of this wouldn't need saying as 'common sense' should dictate what is acceptable behaviour towards other people and mods wouldn't be required; but we aren't in an idea world are we? FWIW, let me be clear here. No-ones on a power trip. No-one likes having to ban people, or suspend them, or issue warnings etc as frankly its a hassle. We all have jobs to do and more important things to consider than 'Who can we ban today mwahahaha!" We aren't kids man. Life's full of WUM's some more obsessed than others but to ban people for just that would make places like these far too sanitised. It's football and supporters always wind each other up, but it's not difficult to do so and keep the right side of the line. A line which is pretty wide in our case.

Gather up the family and have an all day party. Lucky for me, the reason I'm in Manchester is we moved to Chester when I was younger, so my parents are only an hour away and have a nice house in a little village with a big garden. BBQ party at my parents house would be my answer

the notion that we first and foremost needed good defenders a few years ago - was bollocks - as is the notion that having good defenders is the most important part of a team. Fact is, the best teams have the best attacking players, who control the game, keep possession and dictate the pace of the game. This has been our problem ever since Bellamy and Robert went, and since Shearer called it a day, which made it worse. Solano, Bellamy, Shearer and Robert shot us into the Champions League, with a couple of average defenders behind them. Trouble is though, the attacking players, the talented attacking players, cost the big money. If Owen had stayed fit [unfortunate and nobody could have known how long he would be out] and we had replaced Bellamy and Robert properly [or kept Bellamy at least] and/or replaced Shearer with a good striker along with Solano and Dyer with a player who actually played, accepting that breaking the world transfer record was a one off for us, then we would have done a lot better and still would be. Basically, I think any premiership team with Ameobi leading their attack is in shit street, because he's nothing other than a hopeless knacker who does nothing other than lose the ball, if he gets it in the first place, and you can't build anything around him at all. Central midfield's been shite for ages as well. You'll never dominate matches - even against poor sides - if this is the case. aye, I hesitated to mention Dyer, because for his last few years he hardly played and never fulfilled his potential. But aye, its all the attacking players, in midfield and up front. It's no coincidence that our best team of the last 15 years had a player in it who was the complete midfield player and the best in the premiership for 3 or 4 years bar Roy Keane ie Rob Lee. LM: Agree (mostly) with what you initially said. I wasn't meaning those earlier defences were really, shit - I just think who we have now is the best we've had for a long time. Looking back, I don't even think our defence was that bad when we had the likes of Bez, Albert and Peacock - it's just that our attacking style of play left us open. Totally agree about Rob Lee too. Funny, I was saying exactly the same to my Dad at the weekend when we were discussing this very subject We could have the best strikers in the world playing for us (and IMO; in Owen we still have one) but they are about as much use as a busted hip (or Shola) if we can't get the ball to them. The defence wouldn't be under half the pressure its gets if our midfield could keep/take possession of/create chances with the fucking ball. We create so little, that we desperately need our strikes to convert the scraps we give them. If a good striker has an average strike rate of 1 in 2/1in 3 and an average one is 1 in 4+ (i'm using these figures to illustrate a point - they might not be true); a midfield creating 2 or 3 half chances all game doesn't give us much chance of winning a game. It's made worse when 1/2 the strike force has a first touch worse than my Grandma. Another unfortunate problem we have is that we actually have lots of midfield players, it's just most of them are dross. We will have to sell before we buy and I can't see who we could offload them too.

I can only assume that Shearer had a plan for Stroller, which got screwed up when Martins pulled a sicky. That being said, would it have been better to change two strikers as a result of Martins being out (2 players being Martins & stroller) or keep most of the team the same as originally planned and just change 1 (Martins for Guthrie was it?). Just a thought. FWIW thought, I agree with the sentiments aimed at Stroller. Hasn't been good enough for years now and Carroll should start above him. That being said, our midfield desperately needs to create more. They are the primary reason we're in the shit we're in IMO. This season we might go down, with ironically the best defence we've had in years.

Thought I recognised him, couldn't think where from! Today it's a blue cow story..... He did a story once about cats and I swear, at one point I thought he was going to go "Ooooowwwwww!!!"

Does kids TV these days I think. Plays the Storyteller in "Storymakers"

Maybe, maybe not. It was a stretch to expect a win against them (athough that what I'd expect us to try for) but a loss in this manner is crap. Colo had an awful game and we didnt create enough in midfield. On the whole though, yeah, we have 7 games to get it sorted; although by the above logic we only have 6 if we discount the loss against the scousers. The next 3 games will make or break us tbh. If we can get results, then that will give us the confidence for the scousers. EDIT: I should add, I don't expect a loss against the scousers. We have as much chance as anyone to get a result. They aren't invincible

Wish the commentators would fuck off. Since the 2nd goal they are completely over Chelski

That should have been 1 fucking 2

On the plus side, wor kid has a bet on for a draw. I believe

I have to wash the conservatory windows after this. At this rate, I'll be so pissed off there'll be no windows left!