skarroki

And who was our manager back then?

The same guy who got you 12th in your first season back in the Premier League after back to back promotions from League 1.

You completely ignored the very good point that the Norwich fan made. In case you didn't realise, they were talking about teams and how many they conceded last season. Norwich conceded a lot at the back and were poor defensively. This season under the same manager we are conceding a lot and are at times poor defensively. He didn't claim Lambert was a bad manager, he wasn't bad-mouthing the guy. Why when people are talking about defensive records do you talk about Norwich's 3 previous seasons?

we have the longest injury list in the league according to physioroom.com, and looking at it the majority out are players who have at some point in their career had great seasons (N'Zog, Gabby, Ireland, Bent, Vlaar, Dunne, Petrov). Looking at that list they are probably the highest earners at the club, the most experienced players at the club and at the moment they can't have any influence on the team because they are out, which means that we have to settle with youth and players from foreign leagues.

I think we just need some old heads in the team to calm down and encourage the better of the young players we have. The rest of the young players can become back-up, as realistically that is all they should be.

i don't think playing with 1 striker will work for us so i am glad to have 2 up front, but i dont think 5 at the back is a good option. with so many defenders playing our poor midfield gets completely overrun even more and then we have to sit too far back and hope that we get in a block or good save whilst the opposition pepper our goal for a good 70 minutes. it can work against some teams and on a good day, but i don't think it is something that should be played too often.

i don't think we should tell them how good they, i think one of the reasons we've lost heavily twice is because the players started believing the hype and believing that it was going to be easier from now on

when do the players get an update on the ratings? i know there is an update on march 1st normally for all the transfers made, but i remember it being updated sometime before that too, or am i imagining that?

hi all

I've been on a teaching internship in China for several months now, i was placed in Jinan, Shandong province. I've thoroughly enjoyed my time here and have seen everything in the Shandong province that i want to check out, but now i have 3 weeks to travel to some of the main sites in China and i was wondering if people could recommend some of the best places to go? obviously i'm not going to get to see everything in only 3 weeks but i'm hoping to travel around a fair amount of the country.

After that, when my visa is close to running out i am off to HongKong for a few days, over the Chinese new year period, i am imagining it will be chaotic but exciting, i am going to book m hostel for the few days now so as not to risk not having anywhere to stay. What is best to see in HongKong at this time of year?

Thanks for any help, i'm gonna set off on the 18th Jan at the latest so still have a few weeks to plan out some stops

i get that we need to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and start again. However, this result cannot be forgotten as it's now the 3rd pasting we've had, one of which came against a newly promoted side that hadn't yet won a match. This sort of result, no matter what people keep saying, should not ever be expected unless you are a couple of divisions lower.

We absolutely have to get 3 points against Wigan now, it's vital IMO. I've already written off the Tottenham match as if we play anywhere near like that, we have less than no chance of getting a point against them

dowd could go off, we could win this now! good bit of luck

_______________

oh well ignore that, i'm off to bed, have little to no hope now.

gonna go with a 1-0 win to villa, i fancy someone other than the usual suspects of strikers + holman to score, maybe Bannan? i fell confident about this now. If we move up to 13th, 21 points, and then manage to beat Wigan, picking up whatever we can at Tottenham, we are going to start to look really strong and competitive, and other teams will finally start to take notice.

Even Savage is "eating humble pie" over us definitely getting relegated. All the fans are happy and optimistic, all the players are all together now, Lambert seems to finally be feeling comfortable with the team i think, and this huge buzz going on can hopefully carry us through the next 6-8 weeks, and then we can re-assess where we are

So yeh, 1-0 win haha

Baker, Herd, Lichaj, Bowery and Westwood have played league 2 football in recent seasons, Delph and Lowton played league 1, even Agbonlahor had a taste of it a fair few years back. These guys have all been down where the Bradford team is but have progressed to earn Premiership squad status. They should know how to play this sort of team, it will be completely different from the Arsenal game. Even Lambert has managed in the lower leagues so will know how to tackle it. I don't expect any sort of slip up what-so-ever, but that does not mean we are through yet!

after looking at our run of results i don't know why i haven't been optimistic for longer. We have only lost 4 of our last 13 games, and 3 of those 4 losses came against 3 of the current top 4 (Spurs, Utd, City). I have to say i am not so optimistic about this one, and to be completely honest, although obviously i would love to see us win it wouldn't bother me too much if we were to lose this as long as we don't cave in. I didn't expect anything more than a point from these 3 games so we're already 2 up on what i was hoping for.

If Terry is back i hope he gets completely shredded apart by Tekkers, if this happens then he will immediately shoot up to one of my all-time favourites

lost 4 in 15 sorry, going back to the 4-2 win at Man City

very frustrated as i am coming back to england less than a week before the league cup final, and as i have been out the country the entire season so far i was hoping to buy a half-season ticket at a reduced price just before i came back but i guess that isn't going to be an option then?

i think he's one of the best complete forwards to wear the shirt, but is he really the best player for a long time? We've had our fair share of good players in the last few years, they just haven't all stuck around/been in their prime to play in the same team at the same time together. Would rate Friedel, Mellberg, Young, Milner, etc. from the last few years. I would agree he's one of the best complete forwards we've had for a long time, however

i think he could play wing-back or CAM for us, if we put him in the gap between midfield and attack then he would have the option to roam to either flank or straight through the middle. As long as his performances continue to improve then i reckon we should keep hold of him. We know there is a good player in there and it would be annoying to take a big loss on him after 18 months, only for another team to pick him up and get him playing good again.

think if we go for a decent, quick wing-forward who is willing to track back, aka a better Agbonlahor, we will be looking a lot more decent. I think N'Zogbia could do us a shift in the CAM position now he's back, and we can wait till the summer, hope that Southampton get relegated and then buy Lallana. Very hypothetical transfer there though

That is what sports reporting sounds like in England? She sounded asleep.

post-match reports, most the time yeh. commentary can get very animated though. can't tell if you genuinely did not know this or are just having a dig

this now shows we do have real options and that we can switch players in and out without the whole team looking disjointed, which is brilliant. Also shows we can use more than 1 formation effectively which is something to marvel at after the last few years. I am greatly looking forward to the Liverpool fixture now! hoping this brings us great confidence in the league now too, there is a bit of a gap starting to separate the bottom few from the rest and we need to catch up quick before the gap widens any more.

ABSOLUTELY BUZZING THOUGH! amazing to wake up to this result, along with Arsenal out, just hoping Chelsea come back jet-lagged and uninterested for Leeds, then we've got an amazing chance! but even with Chelsea still in it i wouldn't care, lets go for this!!

Been looking through all the championship teams to see if there any player i hadn't immediately thought of, who are playing in the championship but have good experience in the premier league, and also the quality to still compete in the prem and the knowledge to pass onto the younger players. here are just a few names, could be good/bad, just a list up for discussion rather than a group of players who i want to all be signed up

Morten Gamst Pedersen

Matty Phillips

Martin Olsson

Lee Chung-Yong

Stuart Holden

Chris McCann

Jamie O'Hara

Everybody else, unless i didn't see them, i feel have dropped down from the prem because they are either no longer good enough, or i just don't rate them personally. I wouldn't mind taking a punt on O'Hara and Chung-Yong personally, think they would greatly improve the team, they are from lower leagues and they aren't too old

if we get any player from derby my money is on coutts

Really like Coutts, follow PNE and he was a great player for them there, was always going to move up a league, i don't know whether he would cope in the premier league though, still think he is a good player for the championship though so might be worth a punt, although i think i'd prefer to go for someone more like Trotter, as mentioned by others, purely for his size and the amount of games he's played for a guy who isn't that old yet. he also is more than capable of bagging a goal from midfield, cannot go wrong providing he makes the step-up!

Agree, and he needs to man up a bit at CB IMHO

He tends to get bullied off the ball too much

Clark is a liability at LB.

I'd rather see Baker at LB than Clark

I've a feeling Lambert will play Stevens though if fit

Clark is just not a full back and would get hopelessly exposed there just as he has been previously, with that line up we would be better with Lichaj at LB than Clark.

Not saying he hasn't had bad games at LB, but that was a while back now and since then the manager has changed and he has manned up a bit in general. i personally see it like this; Clark might not be good at LB, but Lichaj and Stevens wouldn't be able to play to their best in this game, and i feel Baker would be so much more effective against Stoke if he's placed in the middle of our defence.

I would go for

Would probably switch one of the midfield or attack for Bent in the second half, depending on how we are doing after the first 45. I think this could be an interesting match, if we get into the game from the off and stifle their style of play, put them on the back foot, then i can see us winning easily. if we play like we have the last 2 games we don't stand a chance. hoping for a win, not because of who we're playing but because of who we have to play in the next few games.

Despite everyone slagging off stoke i am really looking forward to this game and want to watch it. i think this is a great test to see how far we've come and where we are currently. Prove the pundits wrong, lads.

that is no where near angry enough for one of my rants

i would like to sample one of your rants, if you'd like to pick your best one it just gets me so ridiculously wound up, and someone had done it to me a minute or 2 before i saw this thread so i was just smashing my keyboard in rage.

The only albums i've got this year, and i felt a lot of album have been hit and miss this year, but 1-6 on the list i will definitely still be listening to in a few years time.

1. Linkin Park - Living Things

2. Billy Talent - Dead Silence

3. Young Guns - Bones

4. We Are The Ocean - Maybe Today, Maybe Tomorrow

5. Knife Party - Centipede EP

6. Deaf Havana - Fools and Worthless Liars (Deluxe Edition)

7. Labrinth - Electronic Earth

8. All Time Low - Don't Panic!

9. Ed Sheeran & Yelawolf - The Slumdon Bridge EP

10. LostProphets - Weapons

11. Two Door Cinema Club - Beacons

12. Enter Shikari - A Flash Flood of Colour

13. Coldplay - Mylo Xyloto

14. Mike Shinoda - The Raid Redemption Soundtrack

Man, thought I'd take the night off work tonight and have an extra long weekend with my girlfriend. Drove back to Brum earlier and thought I'd tell one of the lads there, who's also my age so we pretty much spend most the working day together, that I won't be in tonight. I actually sent the text in a jokingly way. The reply? 'word removed'. Not sure why I got so bothered by it to be honest but it put me on a right downer at the time. I wouldn't say he meant it entirely but neither did he intend it as a joke. He obviously has nobody else to speak to, and on top of being a bit of a chav and absolutely hates being wrong, I thought I'd just settle with the 'no need' reply. I daren't say anything more or he might 'knock me out'.

EDIT: In before 'word removed'. VT FILTERR

realise it's a bit of a late reply now but yeh there was no need for that. seems completely unnecessary. how did it pan out next time you saw him?

People who look over your shoulder when on the laptop/mobile. Drives me up the wall. If i wanted you to see my private messages, i would show you them, or read them out to the whole %*&@#$ office. And then they drive me irrate if they then ask "who's that"? you knowing who it ********* is you're currently reading through it! get your chin off my shoulder and get your own personal life.

Even if when i get a text or something, my roommate and a couple of colleagues will inform me i have had a text through because they heard the phone vibrate. I wish i was as excited as they were to look at the local province newspaper text in Chinese, my life would be so much happier. It's my phone, it's a message to me, it's in my pocket, and the fact they are only telling me so that they can wait for me to get my phone out 5 minutes later and then pull an exaggerated face of expectation, thinking i'm about to read aloud my conversations. well guess what i'm not telling you because if they wanted you to know they would be messaging you.

I don't have anything private to hide it just drives me insane.

Dear god i need to vent