Juju

Well, looks like a bunch of my old Guild-mates are rolling classic on the 27th, and I'll be there for a bit of nostalgia.... looks like Shazzrah has got the guild vote. Not going to buy playtime or roll a character til then, I'll post it's name here. - I think half the fun of the game was really it was just a glorified msn chat. It was my guild job to ensure the kids were playing nicely, sooth arguments, kick arseholes. Some weekends I'd get in from work at about 6:00pm, log in, and I;d be on more or less all weekend including too many overnights. Often never even moving the toon, just chatting, managing the guild.... It's the social things you remember - I think Ed had a mate who joined in the game with his gf, both I think, joined our guild briefly, she had an in game friend who followed and joined our guild. She got on socially with the Guild Leader and ended up dating, getting married, moving to Italy and have a fast growing child! They're still together today. And my sister... I used to speak to my sister more in WoW than I ever did in real life! Crazy really...

We would have had all 3 points, but somebody let Nyland hold them for a few minutes.........

I see what you did there!

Look. End of last season was crushing. The manager has had potentially weeks of speculation about his position. We have new co-owners who we know sod all about. We don't know what financial parameters we have to go into the season with. We had the fright with the Inland Revenue. Any "budgets" are bollox due to Fair Play Rules. Our last "sole" owner has gone into hiding, having bet the bank on back and it landed red. Our best home grown talent has had speculation all close season, as has anyone of worth. We lost our keeper, and two of our wisest oldest heads in Terry and Snodgrass. Our striker's barely kicked a ball in a year through terrible injury. And first day of the season, we went away, we scored 3. We're second in the league. If it wasn't pretty, remember, we're in the Championship. I'll forgo a little "entertainment" at the moment for stability, and points.

You know what, knowing as little about football as I do, I'm going to have a bit fat disagree with most here. Reality check - we were playing a team who were on paper, a team who should have been promoted automatically. They weren't some dead end team. They were our peers. Any game was going to be, if both teams played well, tight and edgy. Over the 90 minutes, we played better football than Fulham. It's just regrettable that a lapse in concentration cost us. There's was a good goal, we shouldnt begrudge them that. They were fractionally better in and around the box, and yes, that's important. But I thought Fulham looked fat, slow, and their league position flatters them. Unless they spend big, they're coming straight back down. Neutrals in the pub I was drinking in, all agreed, but we just couldn't do anything right in front of their goal. Most of the second half, the game was compressed into their half. What was so badly wrong there? Nor or can I criticise the subs particularly. If one had scored, you'd be praising Bruce as a genius. We hadn't scored in the prior 70 mins, and on a big pitch, on a hot day, its not a bad thing to make a couple of late subs to shake things up a bit, any game is a lottery by that point. They were, arguably attacking subs as well. Frankly we owned the second half, and the first was tight, with their goal making the difference. They played defensively, forcing a team to rely on counter attacking football to actually pass it about, which frankly we did. Disappointed, but there's not many in the team I'd identify as failing to try. Adomah had a lot of the ball, and any player who does is going to be noticed when he slips or trips occasionally. Jack dived about a bit, but that Bestesque oement when we almost danced it into the goal was lovely to watch. We had the pressure we just didnt create enough really good chances. And thats as much about Fulham, a team who frankly were way better than us in our last meeting, as it is about us. Disappointed, but not displeased with the performance, just the result. Anyone who expects a beautiful game when so much is at stake is a fool.

Ipswich are so poor, they make us look like Juventus circa 1985!

I know we get used to 30 yard blasters as being "goals of the season" but damn, that was good. Held off the defenders, got into the tiniest space, deadly accurate shot to place part the keeper from an angle to the back post. Seriously good goal.

Thought he was working really well with Hutton to service Grealish today.

That was such a "team" performance, it almost seems harsh to have a MOTM award. I'm not sure anyone didn't pull their weight today, just some players are a tiny bit better than others. But the whole team ran further, ran faster and for longer, giving each other more options, all game. Team game. Team performance. Team win.

Yeah, Hourihane has been shit, lets sub him as soon as....................wait.... what..........:-D

Clean sheet, against a team coming off a big win against Arsenal, who are all playing for their places for a new manager. Professional, if not always the prettiest. The game could have been another 30 minutes, and I don't think they'd have scored. Sometimes if you can watch a game, not as a "fan", then the last 20 mins are a bit less nervy.

If Alan Hutton is the answer, what on earth was the **** question?

Is it me or has this got 2-2 written all over it?

Considering we started with 9 men, a boy and Sam Johnston, it looked ok really.

So is Gollini deserving of an apology yet? This clown is useless.

Dear Mr Gollini, You can have your Italian coach, please come back immediately. The present keeper is to shot stopping what Trump is to peace in the middle east.

Sam Johnstone is certainly ramming home the point in earnest that Gollini was doing ok really, considering the shambles in front of him.

To be honest I thought Gollini whislt costing a few points, earlier in the season, with a poor back four, was the least of our problems, and I don't see either Bunn or Johnstone as a upgrade, more a shuffle round, so defenders have to get to a new keeper midway through the season. Not a great move by Bruce, frankly.

A really nice bloke, who will be missed, who also happened to be a great football manager.

and for all of those bozo's old enough to remember when players were not protected by refs in the same way, George Best used to get lumps kicked out of him every game. What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger. Difference is Best used his balance to stay on his feet. Beautiful balance he had. That's why Grealish may become Great, but possible not "one of" the Greats.

We'renot a small minded fanbase.Not at all. I wasn't against Mcleish adamantly from the start because he was from the sty. No. It was because he was a ginger.

The best attacking players will win penalties. It isn't cheating. It isn't rocket science. The reason the best players win penalties, is they're half a second ahead of the player they're playing against. The defender is tackling the space that was previously occupied by the attacking player, who has moved on. What was a clean tackle becomes a foul, and does so all game. The defender can't work it out. The opposition manager (Colin rocket polisher) thinks its "cheating". It's not. Its that the defender is being "tempted" into fouling making hasty ill timed tackles, and getting frustrated and thus his judgement becomes rash, because he's second best against a player all afternoon. That's what we have with Grealish. I might not be Grealish's biggest fan, indeed a long way from it, but I think a lot of the on pitch criticism of him is unfair. He wins free kicks and penalties as he's faster than the player he's invariably up against, which means their ill timed interceptions continue to fail. Like George Best, you could kick him all afternoon, and still at some point in an hour and a half, some magic will occur which may win the game.

Let's forget who the player is for a second. It's interesting to me, how Bruce has commented publicly on the players fitness, but without it being taken "negatively"by the player as so many would. To manage to get that positive change in the player. To get the player involved and willing to change, and "buying in" to the rehab process, despite the "humiliation" of having the fitness shortcomings pointed out in stark clear terms. To get the player to respond so "positively",is incredible man management. Taking a step back, I do think the player has,if not been "unlucky" as such, has suffered more than most in the squad to the churn of managers and coaches. He was initially, due to his pace, an excellent player for us,but, without being unkind or labeling him a "1 trick pony" only had a limited suite of top class skills, and since O Neill, we've not had a manager identifiably exploit them. If any of us, at our work, had one thing we were particularly good at, like, say spreadsheets, and we got to "star performer" in our company, recognised for that ability, and then had a change of manager, several times over, where you were then sent to do almost anything but spreadsheets, and then were continually criticised for not being that "star performer" anymore, we'd probably have lost enthusiasm. Gabby is a round peg, who only ever fitted well into a round hole. Sending him out to play wide on the wings, or not utilising that pace, was always going to be a waste of time, and largely from Houlier onwards, he's not been played to his strengths. Given Bruce's "non bomb squad" approach to successfully rehabilitating even the players who looked furthest from the starting 11, means more players for selection, more options, and more players "upping their game" to get selected over and above the others. More competition for places can only be a good thing - the total antithesis of the "bomb squad". It's the most identifiable different thing Bruce has done to RDM, RG, TS, PL and all the others going back years. Yet so simple - to get the whole squad buying into the team. That alone might explain why the players are a happier, harder working bunch than 17 games ago. One squad = unity. Multiple "squads" = disunity. Gabby is simply a metaphor for a number of man/player management skills Bruce appears to have, and it will be interesting to see if he can to continue it at a decent club, with decent resources and a genuinely ambitious chairman.

I think the genius of the man to date, is not so much as he's got the team starting to play well, measurably better each week, but doing it with players he was unlikely to have bought himself had he been here at the start. For the first time, I could actually begin to see the point in a "Director of Football" where the vision of the club is to play quality,expansive attacking football, and it's the managers job to implement it. I mean, isn't that how most "management" jobs outside of football are organised.

And along with the Steve Bruce revival, we now seem to have a striker who seem's capable of troubling the scorers in the "Top Strikers". Think he's sitting at no6 in the list now.