The_Rev

11 hours ago, rodders0223 said:

Was he ever that good? Yes, he was phenomenal for a number of years. Truly brilliant.

The death of the old school goalie did it for him and I think his confidence crumbled when City said he was no more. 

See I'm not sure he ever was.   No I know there's little room for nuance on the internet, it's generally a case of being either the best thing ever or the worst thing ever but if we walk this back to the original comment by @KAZZAM who was questioning if any player had had such a big drop off that wasn't related to injury (see that nuance thing rearing it's head again?) then I question whether Joe Hart ever really hit those heights. Sure, he left Manchester City to do a tour of mid table football in Italy and England but he didn't leave Manchester City the European powerhouse, he left a club who were winning silverware domestically but seen as dark horses at best in Europe.  The Man City going Super Saiyan thing happened when Guardiola turned up and the first thing he did was decide the goalkeeper needed upgrading, so it's here where I say maybe Joe Hart was just a very good keeper who had a bloody good run. He's got the England caps and winners medals to back it up but he was never a star player, never a galactico and never in the conversation for best goalkeeper in the world. He was a guy who was at Manchester City before they got the money and was talented enough to hang for a while, but they wouldn't have gone out and bought him if he'd been playing at another club.  This stuff happens a lot with good players who happen to be in great teams.   The nose dive claim is a bit much too. After Manchester City Joe Hart still found time to have a year in Serie A which is probably a cool experience, and he won a domestic treble with Celtic just last season.  The guy has had a great career.  He's played 750 senior games, been to the World Cup,  the Euros and can tell himself that pretty much every time he's been moved on (certainly at Manchester City and England) it's been down to a managerial change but I just don't think he was ever in that absolute top tier for quality which is what Guardiola was looking for and what Manchester City needed when it came to moving up to the level they are at right now. 

18 minutes ago, Genie said:

How have I never noticed this before???

Maybe you started by looking at the shoulders and got bored before you reached his face? 

36 minutes ago, KAZZAM said:

I can't think of many other players who's career has nose dived in such a way that his did. 

Not injury related or lack of effort. 

Was he ever that good?  Joined Manchester City before they won the lottery, stayed in the team for a few years and eventually got upgraded on.  Still went on to win half a dozen trophies after Pep binned him. 

3 hours ago, stuart_75 said:

I have to echo this. I unsubscribed from all things Dan Bardell purely down to that Greg fella turning up. Can't stand hearing his voice.

If it makes you feel any better knowing what you’ve missed, Greg now talks about Liverpool multiple times every week. 

33 minutes ago, spiezels said:

MacPhee was part of scotland set up right 

Yes.  He actually joined the Villa and Scotland coaching staff the same time, around when Dean Smith got the Villa job. 

15 hours ago, rodders0223 said:

That wasn't Macphee, come on. That's McGinn trying to seize an opportunity 

They were on my train together earlier today heading to that London so there might be a bit of a bromance to look out for there. 

22 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

 

Man U game is now, huuuuuuuge!

 

It was anyway. We are still at the point in the season where we just need to worry about what we are doing. 

I care. I’ve always liked international football and I think this England squad is great.   Obviously tournament football is better than the Nations League but the Nations League is fun to watch as it’s one of those low stakes things where it’s not the end of the world if you lose. 

Also: It’s much easier to get to a 90,000 seater stadium in Brent then a 30000 seater on the very edge of Europe 

Chelsea have completely shut down our midfield. McGinn is surrounded by three players whenever we have the ball so we can’t pass to him and the rest of our passing has been sloppy. 

7 hours ago, imavillan said:

I've seen many a cross city line train with umpteen carriages on it. As i've said, at least 10 carriages. Now somebody has planned that

yes. They are diagrammed for the peak service.  Sometimes they’ll stay in formation for the off peak because it’s more efficient to do that than it is to have a driver uncouple them and take them back to the depot.  Train diagramming is complicated and even after 25+ years in the industry I can’t pretend to know how to do it. 

20 minutes ago, Mic09 said:

Why would 6 additional games (anything extra is a bonus) necessarily mean that we will drop places?

We’ve been able to rotate for the Conference League.  If we qualify for the Champions League we will be one of the weakest and least experienced squads in the competition and every game will be a case of the strongest XI playing at their best to be competitive. It will be a concern, but it’s something we’ve got to do. 

4 hours ago, briny_ear said:

This the team that had a game plan just forty something days ago that enabled them to take a point away from Villa Park

They got the rub of the green in a big way at Villa Park. We should have had a penalty in the first half and were unfortunate to score during VAR’s “let’s be really fussy and disallowed everything” phase which seems to have been quietly dropped by PGMOL when they realised that sucking the joy out of football was probably not a good look for them.  

Today the early goal killed Sheffield United. Once they fell behind they couldn’t park the bus and try to turn it into a 15 minute match at the end of the second half. 

Yorkshire football in general is pretty grim. I’ve got family up there and if the local news & sport is on the TV when I visit it really hits home.  
 

I do agree with @Mr_Dogg though. A city with the size and importance of Bristol never really having a successful football club is right up there in terms of anything in terms of underachievement. 

3 minutes ago, tommytenjobs said:

Love the attacking flair at times...but this performance has made me angrier than every other all season. Such an opportunity to rectify goal difference issues and just played at half paced 'professional' game management within ourselves. Every time we've trued we've nearly scored....but we've only tried about 6/7 times all night. Should have been 10 if we'd tried. I know I should be happy and yay we've beat the bottom side.....but feels like we lack urgency and killer instinct. Should have been statement win and instead its been a knock about raining match for an hour. 

you alright m8? 

Just now, bobzy said:

Deserved to be honest. **** hate it when we cruise through a half like this. It’s been relatively sloppy when we could’ve racked up almost any score. 

We’ve got Chelsea and Manchester United coming up this week. If the lads can cruise through the second half and have an easier recovery for those two fixtures then I’m all for it.  

Replaced by Morgan Rogers then?  He might have to get used to that. 

@MrBlack  Palace spent more than we did too, but it's hard to get reliable numbers once you start trying to account for loan fees.  There seemed to be a few dropping £10-15m during the window,  Spurs were the only club who spent over £25m as far as I can tell. 

Dan Burn is having a good game for them. 

3 minutes ago, Jareth said:

It's now a throwback to the 1970s, according to the commentators. 

They said that about Villa fans once remember?

I was gonna say I think Barcelona probably know what they are doing, only then I remembered everything they have done in the past three or four years.  

Can’t see it. Klopp is citing exhaustion as his reason for leaving Liverpool and he doesn’t strike me as someone who would straight up lie about that just so he could take an even more demanding job.  I think he’ll have a sabbatical and then either end up in charge of Bayern or the German national team. 

This is incredible. 38 attempts on goal to 2. Lose 2-1.