coachpotato

Think you’ll find over half the people in Norn Iron might disagree with you about that worship!

Hope so!

The National Anthem isn’t that anymore. There are plenty of people in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland who don’t see it as their anthem. There are plenty of ex-soldiers who were left to fend for themselves whilst suffering financial and mental problems once they had fought for “ Queen and Country” who despise the anthem now. Even if it is assumed it is the English anthem, there are plenty of people in England who question why we should show deference to an establishment that looks after its own while showing contempt for “oiks” and “plebs” (see B. Johnson) and who believe that if we are indeed able to have a choice in things, we should have the choice to object to that establishment in any way we can, including booing the anthem they hold so dear. Never mind that the same establishment for decades have denied ordinary folk the rightful justice they deserved, and I’m not just talking Hillsborough here, and were actively trying to manage the decline of the Merseyside area, which was most vociferous in its opposition to those who are so enraptured by everything “royal”. And let’s not forget the single most important reason why it is not liked. It is a fucking dirge. Personally, I don’t sing it or boo it, as I can’t be arsed with it. Jerusalem would be more appropriate as it is about the country, not those who have been foisted on us as the rulers of the country. But I’m sure there are plenty of other songs/ tunes that would be better liked, but maybe that’s an argument for another day. So, Chap, you continue to have your opinion, you are entitled to it of course, I don’t know where you are from, but surely you shouldn’t be surprised if people associated with the club, wherever they are from, don’t agree with your comments.

Fixed……..maybe?

Any win against these is well worth it, just to boil Guardiola’s piss, and you can rest assured his will be boiling after that. Thought we did well in the first half and on the play, should have been more than the one up by half time. They came back into it in patches, they were always going to, but they seemed to be trying to get it wide then long into the box for Haaland, instead of their usual working it to the line then cutting it back, and that suited us. De Bruyne didn’t look happy with it I thought but enough of them. Salah looked up for it, and Thiago, Hendo and Fabinho played well and made them go to the flanks, stopping them playing it through the lines mostly. As a pointer to the season it’s only likely to matter in that we’ve won the first match up against them, what will matter is how we do against them home and away in the league games and if we get more points than them with the six available, then it could be the difference to lifting the title or not.

Carry On Trumo. (There’s a film in there somewhere….)

Talking of Southampton, they’ve reached an agreement for a 19 yr old French kid who scored 5 goals in 5 games for France in the u20 Toulon tournament. Has the initials SM! Sekou Mara. Expect him to sign in 25/26.

Obviously didn’t fancy the excitement of a relegation battle then.

How much did we get for him?

We shouldn’t have stood a chance at 3-0 down. There was just something about that whole run in the CL that season though. We used every penny we could lay our hands on to get there, it just seemed like it had to be done, inexplicable really, probably wouldn’t do the same nowadays to be honest. But the whole thing, not just the game. Epic.

Think I’ll put a tenner on them to finish top 10, that should do for them!

I see what you’re saying Ron, but some think Gerrard will be a likely contender and he’s not currently won anything either. To get a manager that’s won something we’d likely either be having to employ someone from one of the top four in England, or who’s been successful in one of the major leagues in Europe, but if they’re already employed by another big team then what would be the chance of that happening? I was thinking more that Jurgen might be recommending the next manager (not that it worked at United with Ferguson and Moyes) and it might be possible he’d go for a highly rated younger coach that’d keep the momentum going rather than someone who might change things wholesale.

If Cooper continues to make a fist of it at Forest, perhaps he could come into the equation when it’s nearing Klopp’s departure?

We get to home cup games/CL through the season tickets allowing us via the ACS. We lost the choice to register on the ACS for FA Cup games because we missed a couple of games a while ago. Circumstances a few years back dictated we stopped applying, apart from ST home league games, and so the credits we had disappeared and it got to the point where, for most of the games, you had to hang on the phone or online for hours, so we've just kept up the memberships out of habit really, and in case they were to affect the ST waiting list at any time.

One of the problems with being a club as historically successful and iconic as ours is that you’ll never be able to meet the demands of the fan base for tickets to see the team “in the flesh”. Someone will always miss out when it comes to distribution of tickets. And this is the crux of what’s happening now. Between my wife, daughter, son and myself we have two season tickets and two Memberships and my wife and daughter are currently around 3200 on the ST waiting list having been on there since 2000. We transfer our ST’s between us depending on who is working, who’s got the children etc. etc. and we enrol on the CL and League Cup ACS every season. We stopped trying for tickets over the phone/online years ago, it was just a waste of time as we couldn’t get enough credits to qualify for games and without those you were pretty much stuffed, particularly for the “big” games. We’ve been able to take our grandson the LC games in the recent past but haven’t qualified for CL final tickets in the ballots at all since Athens in 2007, we didn’t try for last seasons LC final as we were otherwise engaged when the final was happening. We’ve had the season tickets since 1981 and 1985 respectively, so through some right dross as well as good times. I doubt if we’ll ever see anything to match Istanbul again, and we were fortunate to all have been there even if in four different parts of the ground! So we’ve stumped up the money to keep the season tickets going for 41 and 37 years respectively, sometimes when the money could have been used to better ends, but I sympathise how Members must feel, many having battled to keep their credits up over the years and now find the prospect of transferring, genuinely, taking their credits away. It might be in the future if we transfer our ST’s between us it could also negatively affect us, if the club penalise us for only completing 66% of our games for instance? Ultimately, if this is the start of a real attempt to get rid of touts then it’s to be applauded, we’ve never bought a ticket above face value and don’t believe they should be sold above face value, but if it’s some cynical measure by the club to reduce the ground to one match day trippers who spend a fortune then it needs to be policed by the fan groups closely.

Jones has an additional problem that, being a local lad, he’ll possibly have to impress that little bit more than most. It has been the case that in the past, locals have had more of a focus on them, Spearing, Lee, Case etc. who were all decent enough players, but the first the crowd got onto if they didn’t excel, whereas Gerrard and Trent for instance have/had their detractors unless they’ve been pretty much excellent every game. Curtis has shown lots of promise but needs to be more aggressive, in my opinion, with his attacking play and certainly his shooting, he’s tidy enough but then again, plays safe passes as if under orders to keep it simple. That’s why he gives the impression he’s slowing play down maybe?

Off to Dortmund then? Or perhaps City or Chelsea will add him to their burgeoning numbers and he’ll be loaned out while earning a gazillion quid.

Yet our first European Cup win in 1977, we didn’t have a Scot in the team.

Thatcher???

Only geordie I know is my lad’s mate from Widdrington, a bit outside of the city, he’s a sound fella but stopped going when Ashley moved in. He likes the way we play over city, because they’re “like robots” but ours is “more flair”. Doesn’t like Everton at all because the bloos are always giving the geordies all the “we’ve won more than you, bigger history, etc.” and yet haven’t won shit since 1995. They’re annoyed because Newcastle consistently draw bigger crowds than Everton and did do particularly through the Keegan/Robson managerial era’s, and away from home too. Haven’t heard from him for a bit so not sure how he views the Saudi takeover but he did say once Ashley was gone he’d go back to games.

To answer the original question, we should be more ruthless, especially in front of goal. That’s it really.

Turned it off. So one sided it’s untrue.

If Gerrard stopped in the odd game then what was the problem? Carrying most of the teams he played in and seeing the errors that were being made at a time when he could have walked into ANY team at that time, he must have thought “What the fuck” from time to time. I’m not saying he was without any blame for some things that happened while he was here, but when that team with Reina, Hyppia, Carragher, Mascherano, Alonso, Torres and him were together, he played some of his best football, proof, if it were needed, that if he was playing in this squad, he’d be outstanding too. So no, I don’t believe his standing as the second best player should be diminished, but in time and with newer heroes around, it might well be in the same way as some of the 60’s and 70’s teams has.The big difference now is that we have much more media archive for teams in the recent past and that could continue to keep former players in the mix.

Not seen enough of Thiago on the pitch really, so it’s close, but Xabi for me as he always seemed to be in space and was like a quarter back, passing it short or long and he could score from our own half!

Darth Boris. Brilliant.