Clint

[quote user="AVFC-NCFC"] [quote user="Askounin"][quote user="AVFC-NCFC"]Why sign him if he has scored 1 goal?[/quote] FFs mate, you cant allways sign 20 gaol a season proven strikers can you. every heard of potential? You may aswell say why did Arsenal sign Fabregas if he had never played a game for Barcelona 1st team! [/quote] Because there is a slight difference between not getting into the Barcelona side and not getting into a Stockport side. We will see but who is he back up for? Cody? Who i''m sure could do a better job than him. [/quote] What exactly is that statement based on?  I doubt you''ve actually seen very much of Cody nevermind Oli Johnson....ridiculous statement!

[quote user="marchisio"]before you ask, no he doesnt. [/quote] Classic!

PW, apologies for not picking up on the irony in your OP, this was possibly because this is the type of sh*t that most fans would post on this message board and actually believe it!  I''m just getting a bit bored of reading Semmy bashing posts and no need for the ''knob'' insult!

[quote user="pennywise "]absolutely pathetic for the 2nd goal... what was he doing poncing about on the right ? he should have been helping out on the left hand side..he`s a bloody liability [:@][/quote] Get a grip, he''s the right back and he should maintain that position or ponce about as you call it. Lappin, Nelson and Drury should have sorted that one out but didn''t. What happens if Semmy comes tearing over to the left and the ball bypasses him over to the right and there''s no right back there - I suppose you would be blaming him then as well?!? No idea, just Semmy bashing because it seems to be ''in'' at the moment.

I found it really hard to watch because it was so sh*t!

[quote user="jas the barclay king"][quote user="Clint"][quote user="jas the barclay king"] [quote user="missing in action"]pick the best team, not the best players- alf ramsey was right [/quote] which is why Lampard and Gerrard shouldnt be in the same England team together. [/quote] Slightly OT but didn''t Lampard and Gerrard play most of our qualifying campaign together?!?  [/quote] against tin Pot opposition (easiest qualifying group in years!)... wait until the summer. [/quote] Croatia are 10th in the world rankings (we''re just above them in 9th) I would hardly them tin pot!   

[quote user="jas the barclay king"] [quote user="missing in action"]pick the best team, not the best players- alf ramsey was right [/quote] which is why Lampard and Gerrard shouldnt be in the same England team together. [/quote] Slightly OT but didn''t Lampard and Gerrard play most of our qualifying campaign together?!? 

[quote user="DGC"]damn it, was really hoping to see the forster save! [/quote] Go to club our page on the BBC site and 2 mins of highlights is there - pretty good and inc Forster''s save. Very good save but in all honesty, Forster should have had no chance, it is a really bad miss as it looked far easier to score!  

[quote user="Marty"]Clint, I feel a bit bad for not saying hi now, just being shy. My missus was more bothered about getting somewhere to sit for lunch. I was getting a little concerned after trying 2 pubs beforehand and getting stared at for asking if the game was on.[/quote] No worries mate, I had the same problem.  I''d tried a couple of pubs and Walkabout was my last chance before jumping in a cab and heading to Southbank bar so just glad to get a decent perch before kick off.  I''m very unsociable when watching footy as I just get too into it and my Mrs was feeling a bit tender from the night before so we probably wouldn''t have been much fun anyhow!!!  

[quote user="Yellow Shirt"][quote user="Clint"] [quote user="Yellow Shirt"]Possibly the most overrated player in the country. Lazy, slow and usually out of position. Thank god this means England are saved from experimenting with him. [/quote] you vilify him for not wanting to grace the same pitch as Andy Hughes and Carl Robinson.  If he does have to retire at 26 or however old he is, he will also now have enough money to live on which he probably wouldn''t if he stayed here and ended up in league 1.  How anyone can blame him for leaving is beyond me. Without a doubt, I''d rather be taking a fully-fit Ashton to a world cup than Heskey.   [/quote] No, thats what you assume. I can hand on heart say I felt he was hugely overrated when he was here. A good finisher yes and better quality than our team at the time yes. But the ridiculous praise like single handedly turning our Prem season around is SO far off the mark. Down by Feb without him? when did he sign? hmmm. We don''t see eye to eye on this, fine. But stick to your own opinions- don''t think you know what my motives are. [/quote] Whatever your motives are the stats don''t lie, when he signed (mid-Jan) we had won only 1 match in 5/6 months so he clearly made a massive difference to our struggling team.  Less fact-based but its fairly unanimous that we looked dead and buried so its pretty conceivable that without Ashton we could have been all but relelgated by the end of Feb (maybe not BY Feb).  I will always maintain that had we signed him in the summer, we would probably still be in the Prem now.  

[quote user="Marty"]Ah Clint, you were not alone, I take it you had the nice table looking up at the TV above the bar? wearing a white top? I watched it on a tv behind you, it was not such a great pic but at least I got a nice comfy seat, although by about rugby time I did feel like people resented me having this on the TV! I think I remember seeing the crowd near your for a few mins wondering if the number of Norwich fans had swollen to 5 or 6. My missus quite enjoyed people watching.[/quote] Yep, that was me.  I didn''t realise anyone else was watching it.  I know what you mean about the rugby crowd, I felt very alone at that stage so I made a quick getaway at the final whistle and let them have their TV back!       

[quote user="Marty"]Did anyone watch the game in Notts? the Fellows / Approach didn''t have it on, so we went to the Walkabout and I think only 1 other person was watching it! still, good win, even with that crap beer.[/quote] That was probably me mate - I tried a few pubs but they were all showing the Welsh derby (which I could understand, had I been in Wales!!!) but ended up in Walkabout where the nice young lady behind the bar was more than accomodating and agreed to put it on just for me!  I was definately the only person to sit through the full 90 (oh and my better half but she was hungover and reading the paper so probably doesn''t count) but at 1 point I had quite a crowd forming and there must have been a massive 5 or 6 people paying cursery glance to the screen!

[quote user="Yellow Shirt"]Possibly the most overrated player in the country. Lazy, slow and usually out of position. Thank god this means England are saved from experimenting with him. [/quote] You are a clown.......when Ashton was here, most people thought he was destined for far better when he was here but when he leaves, their views become clouded and full of sour grapes.  Was he lazy, slow and usually out of position when he almost single-handedly turned our joke of a premier league season around?  Without Ashton we''d have been down by Feb but with his influence and goals we actually made it to that final day debacle at Fulham (where I might add, he had 2 goals disallowed and a blatent penalty turned down).  If Ashton could keep himself fit, its widely acclaimed that he would probably be an England regular by now but yet you vilify him for not wanting to grace the same pitch as Andy Hughes and Carl Robinson.  If he does have to retire at 26 or however old he is, he will also now have enough money to live on which he probably wouldn''t if he stayed here and ended up in league 1.  How anyone can blame him for leaving is beyond me. Without a doubt, I''d rather be taking a fully-fit Ashton to a world cup than Heskey.  

Cheers all, I''ll be off tomorrow.  Probably try the Approach as it sounds like it fits the bill and its in the centre so should be easy to find - I may struggle trying to track down Southbank bar!

Would anyone take a draw?  Rest a few senior players and get a comfortable draw -  I''d imagine a replay would be televised by Sky/ITV so more TV money in coffers plus gate receipts.  I would expect us to be able to play a few more of the youngsters in at home and still stick 5 or 6 past them! I''m obviously not suggesting we play for a draw as expect us to win on Sat whatever team we put out!

.....I''m there with the Mrs this weekend and just wondered if anyone can point me in the right direction of a decent pub/bar that will be showing the city match?  To keep her sweet, preferably a venue she can get a glass or 2 of rose in whilst I watch the match! Cheers in advance......

[quote user="Stranger44"] I just got an unexpected text from one of my friends who is a Bournemouth fan telling me what a great player Simon Whaley is! He watched Rochdale''s 4-0 thrashing of Bournemouth yesterday and was really impressed by him. I was a bit surprised but then Whaley is a confidence player and he''s probably much more at home in the north west given he''s played for Bury, Preston and now Rochdale. I saw him play for Bury many times - sometimes he was brilliant and sometimes he did absolutely nothing and ran about like a headless chicken. When he joined Norwich I thought maybe he might have become more consistant over the years....I guess he had as he seemed consistantly bad! I do think he shouldn''t be written off though because he does have potential and other people (with no pre-conceived judgements) seem to be able to spot that......   [/quote] Unfortunately Norwich fans are incredibly fickle and will write off a player after 3/4 poor matches (sometimes even before they''ve actually even kicked a ball).  Whaley had a very good pre-season and everyone was saying how great it was to have a right winger with pace as well as end product.  He then starts the season and goes AWOL along with the rest of the team in our record ever home defeat under the guidance of an apalling manager, plays under-par in a couple of games when we have no manager and then gets recalled in a match against a top half Prem team and doesn''t do too well as you would probably expect.  If he is a confidence player, its not particulrly surprising that he was anonymous in matches under these circumstances. But on the back of this, he is obviously cr*p and deserves to be released on a free contract.  Just like Martin a couple of seasons ago, Drury and Lappin last season and Doc just a few weeks back who are now all playing a vital role in our rise up the table.  From what I''ve heard Whaley has been excellent at Rochdale and has created a number of goals as well as scoring a couple himself.  I think we should get him back when his loan expires as he is certainly good enough to be an impact sub and probably a better option to Daley at the moment.  He will hopefully be full of confidence and will come into a squad thats being managed properly and brimming with confidence.   A final note is that in all of Whaley''s games, he was playing in front of, according to most on here, the worst right back in the clubs history but I suppose that would have no impact own performance......so fickle.       

I thought we sang Shaun Goater''s old song, feed the goat etc but rather cunningly changed the word goat to horse?!?!

[quote user="Aussie_Canary"]I''m not sure so I left him out if fit he''d start[/quote] Doesn''t that kind of deafeat the object of this post?  What''s the point in picking your team 3 days before match day as you have no idea who will be available so far in advance!  

Let''s think about this, we won 1-0 and remind me again who scored the goal?  So if the person who scored the goal, hadn''t have scored the goal, we would have drawn 0-0?  I think Mr Martin did his job yesterday then didn''t he?

To be fair to McVeigh, he''s not a central midfielder and I''m not sure why Lambert keeps bringing him on to play as part of a 3 man midfield.  I think this is the 3rd/4th time he''s done it and its never really worked.  As another poster said, its not McVeigh''s fault and although he didn''t set the game on fire yesterday, I don''t think he did a lot wrong either - just not cut out to play where he keeps being played.  Maybe its the same reason Lambert keeps brining on Cureton, I just don''t know what the reason is! To the poster who moaned about Luke Daley not being on the bench, I believe he''s injured.     

[quote user="Nigel Worthless"] At fault for both goals, due to the usual day dreaming!!! Admittedly Foster made a bad mistake initially [/quote] I think you should re-read that rather contradictory statement and then stop ''Semmy bashing''!

He''s a reasonably good keeper but he''s also a young keeper.  He''s a very good shot stopper but he doesn''t command his six yard box and his distribution in general, is pretty poor.  Unfortunately, this is what you get when you loan a Champs team''s 3rd choice keeper, he''s not going to be the finished article as he''s here for experience. I expect in a few years time, he will be a very good keeper and its a shame we won''t get the benefit of it!

[quote user="JTG"]It''s clear that we''re a superior side to Leeds. But a few things are clear; we need to get Otsemobor out of this team as soon as physically possible. Both goals were directly his fault (Abysmal goal kick aside). Spillane cant get fit again soon enough. There were two weak links in our team this evening, Otsemobor and Russell, possibly a worse passer of the ball than the infamous Andy Hughes himself. That''s saying something. Typical Norwich though, dominated for most of the game, didn''t get in front and threw it away right at the end. Thank god Gradel didn''t start though, Leeds'' best player by a mile, how he can''t get in the Leicester team I''ll never know. Play like that for the rest of the season (apart from Otsemobor) and we''ll go up. Automatically. [/quote] You clearly watched a different match to me then because Rusty was excellent tonight and our best midfielder by far (even though I thought they all played well).  Also, to single Semmy out for the second goal is stupid and simply jumping on the ''Semmy hating'' bandwagon.  It was primarily Forsters fault (as EVERYONE on Sky has eluded too) and if you''re not blaming him for some bizarre reason, if is the defence''s fault as a unit for all switching off, not just Semmy''s.    

  Not sure if its factual or not but I''ve heard that we bid less than £50k, which is the sort of money you would expect to pay for an unproven non-league player.  Whatever your thoughts on this are, Smudger is probably right and its hugely unlikely that we''ve bid a great deal more than this. I''m not saying starting low is a bad move just saying I''m not surprised they told us to go away and advertised the fact that we had made a bid.  However, if Lambert really wants him in (and we could do with him) and we fail to sign him for the sake of a further £50k or whatever it may be, then I would say that is a very bad move.  If we signed him for £100k, its still only the equivalent of 4 days wages for John Terry!