Indy_Bones

Zimbo is exactly the kind of model pro that all young footballers should aspire to, shame others aren't more like him.

No, it's because Madders is coming from a relegated side who really need a rebuild, whereas Chelsea can afford to demand a bigger premium as they have necessity to sell Mount. If Leicester had stayed up, I could easily see them demanding the same amount as being touted for Mount to let Maddison go, but that's the price of relegation, and a champs club getting 40 mil for a player must be a new record - even if it's less than I think he's actually worth in relative terms.

And therein lies the difference TDK. Even when he was playing his best football with us, there was still the incessant focus on his social media, his personal appearance and numerous other factors that had nothing to do with what he was offering on the pitch from a percentage of our fan base. This wasn't love from the stands, it was a minor witch hunt from smaller minded people who wanted to focus on the non-football part of the player instead of what actually mattered. Clearly this had an impact on him on a personal level, alongside other potential issues behind the scenes (that none of us know for sure what happened), and it's no surprise that his performances and apparent attitude tipped as time went on, and it all ended up being a bit acrimonious and from that aspect I can understand a degree of potential bitterness from him about the whole. It's incredibly easy for us to sit here and look at the wages and the fame and pay no attention to how these things impact your daily life, outlook and demeanour, and I do feel that if there'd been less focus on this, and more on getting behind the lad, then it could have been very different. In the end, the move was the best choice for all parties, and I'm pleased he's back enjoying his football and getting the plaudits he deserves from the Rangers fans, because much like getting rid of Farke and Buendia, the handling of Cantwell seems to have been another failure to some degree from the club, and certainly from the fans who hounded him relentlessly, and it could all have been very different IMHO.

Lol, I think I'll still be responding to RVW related content when I retire! I still peruse the boards daily, but rarely respond these days as most threads seem to devolve VERY quickly, and I decided to ditch as much stress as possible when I improved my health and fitness (which includes my mental health), and can't be bothered with getting into ridiculous arguments and petty name calling so stay quiet most of the time to avoid it.

We weren't blind to his shortcomings, but he simply had a manager who intentionally played to those shortcomings instead of the actual strengths he had. Would he have been a world beater even then - probably not, but there was a MUCH better player in there than we saw, and that's something I'll never change my mind about.

Just to play Devil's advocate here, but have those suggesting Farke for a DoF role considered that the majority of the players he recommended who did so well for us, would no longer be available under Brexit rules? His strongest knowledge was clearly in the German market, but players like Zimbo and Trybull simply wouldn't be an option under current rules (unless I've misunderstood them?), and we have Webber and his team to thank for Buendia and Pukki rather than Farke. That aside, I'd love to see him back at the club and although I still think he suits the manager role better than DoF at present, going forwards that could be a very different story, but it would still present a rather large risk in the current situation, and like it or not, Webber's reputation isn't there for nothing either.

The irony here is that even if the decision was made to now revert back towards the 4-2-3-1 we had under Farke, I don't actually think we've got the right players to effectively carry it out anymore. The jury is still out on what Nunez's best position actually is, none of our wingers really suit the wider attacking mid roles (maybe Tzolis at a push), Dowell may not even be here and hasn't always been consistent, and we still haven't actually addressed the holding midfielder problem in the vein of a Tettey or Skipp either. I'm also not sure that Sargent would benefit from it anywhere near as much as Pukki did, and considering he's very clearly going to be our main striker next season unless we have a surprise in the summer, then it all becomes a bit pointless. We're going to have to bite down hard on the hope that Wagner can get his preferred style set in over the remaining games and in the close season, otherwise next year could be yet another misfiring team struggling for form and consistency...

For me personally, it had nothing to do with personality (in fact I always respected Hughton's professionalism and demeanour), but was simply down to the footballing style/standard of play on offer. Both Farke and Lambert played exciting football that was often excellent to watch and really got the blood pumping (as did Alex Neil at times). I always felt under both of them that we could get a result, especially with Lambert, where in the last 15 mins the number of goals we scored was superb, whereas with both Hughton and Smith, with their more passive approach and lack of fluidity made watching games a chore, and lead to some of the most dour games I've watched us play in the last 20 years, even if at times results were acheived. I seem to recall a game under Hughton where we were 2-0 down and in the 60th minute or so, he brought on a defensive midfielder and seemed happy to accept the loss, whereas Lambert would have probably doubled down on attacking and made a double/treble sub to faciliate this and try to at least salvage a draw, if not pull off an unlikely win. I've always been more of a fan of winning 5-4 with attacking intent and slick passing, then grinding out a 1-0 win with defensive football that may be in principle more effective and solid. Look at how Stoke fans turned on Pulis despite him consistently keeping them up, because the football on show was simply not great to watch despite it being effective for them. Didn't make Pulis a bad manager, but there's only so long fans will accept that style of play unless they're challenging for titles etc. So, no, it's not about cults of personality or fans have smoke blown up their backside by managers, but purely about not wanting to watch defensive football with little fluidity or excitement even if that leads to a few decent runs of games, and neither Hughton or Smith were ever likely to bring the brand of football that myself and other fans crave to watch each week.

Yep, bread is a thing of the past for me, haven't had any in months, with the closest thing to it being Salt & Vinegar Rice Cakes as a snack now and again. I went from 3 sugars in my tea/coffee, to none and now only drink Black Coffee, Green Tea with Lemon and Water (instead of the 2ltr of 'Zero' sugar pop a day I was having). Chocolate is also pretty much gone, with the only thing vaguely close to it being a daily protein bar which satisfies my sweet tooth, but with virtually no sugar and 30g of protein to boot, it's an excellent substution for me. Funny how I'm now eating far less than I used to, but feel far less hungry throughout the day. Frustrated at myself for not doing this years ago, as if I'd realised it was genuinely going to be this straightforward, I'd have been in far better health a long time ago.

Decided I'd had enough of being the size of a small cow 6 months ago, changed my eating habits, started exercising and weight training, and pretty much cut out sugar from my diet full stop. I'm now down in weight from 24 and a half stone to 16 stone 3lbs, with another 10lbs to go to hit my target weight of 15.5 stone (98kg). My type 2 diabetes has also improved massively, with my last two blood test results showing I was maintaing my Hba1C levels in the normal range for those without any form of diabetes (38 mmol), and I've already been taken off half the medication for this in the process, so just the metformin to go really. Gone from a 52-54" waist to a 38", and t-shirts have dropped from a 5-6XL down to XL/2XL depending on brand. Pretty pleased with the changes to be honest, and looking forward to seeing what happens in the next 6 months!

Reminds me a bit of the old Global Hypercolour tops (I still miss them despite how cringe they may be)!

That takes me back FTW, played it first on the SNES, then again later on the Amiga. Absolutely loved that game, shame they don't make em like that anymore!

1. B. Gunn 2. Culverhouse 3. Bowen 4. Bruce 5. Fleming 6. Hucks 7. Eadie 8. Fashanu 9. Sutton 10. R. Fox 11. Goss 12. Deehan 13. Green 14. Wessi 15. Klose 16. C. Martin 17. Buendia 18. McVeigh 19. Kenton 20. Francis 21. O'Neill 22. Pukki 23. Maddison 24. Howson 25. Pinto 26. Lewis 27. Tettey 28. A. Gunn 29. RVW 30. Bassong 31. Hanley 32. Evans 33. McGovern 34. Gibson 35. Godfrey 36. Cantwell 37. Aarons 38. Oxborough 39. VOO 40. Tomkinson 41. Dorrans 42. Gibbs 43. Famewo 44. Omo 45. Springett 46. Rowe 50. Barden 56. J. Martin

And if that's genuinely how we'd have to play to stay in the league, then I'd rather go down and have hopefully another superb champs season to bounce back up again. I have zero interest in watching the style of football played by the likes of Burnley (or Stoke in their better years), that would be like going back to watching us 2nd season under Hughton which was worse to watch than this one (or the last PL season during Covid) has been. The game has changed phenomenally since our heady days of the late 80's to early 90's, but we always managed to play good football despite not having big name players on our books, whereas now it appears almost impossible to do that in a game destroyed by money and greed, but the solution isn't to play like Burnley either, because it's simply not worth the trade-off in being able to enjoy the game just to scrape 17th each season...

Gilmour provides a stark contrast to Skipp in this scenario (despite their differing roles on the pitch). Skipp arrived without anywhere near the fanfare Gilmour did though well regarded by Spurs fans, but put in outstanding performances week after week and it was blatantly obvious not only what he was bringing to the team but how beneficial this was for us, and we loved him for it. On the flip side, Gilmour arrived being touted as the next big thing, a massive coup for a club like us, the midfield maestro who could control the game and tempo whilst flinging passes around like the new Pirlo, instead we've got a barely average performance from him pretty much every game, there's no control, little to no great passing, and his lack of physicality means he can't even really contribute on the defensive part of the game either. Does it mean Gilmour is a bad player? absolutely not, but he hasn't shown anywhere near the attributes we were hoping to see, partially because we've been pretty awful as a side for most of the season, but conversely he's barely made an impact, and when fans are clamouring for Sorensen or Rupp to play instead of him, you do have to question what's going on. I'm sure he'd look better in a side like Chelsea or other similarly talented teams as Parma points out, where they are in control of the match and he has greater time and latitude to play his game, but outside of that, and certainly in the scenario we are in as a club, he's simply not worked out at all. Would I have him on a free - absolutely, because there's no doubt there's talent there, but I also think we'd need to make wholesale changes to the squad to develop and facilitate this, and I frankly don't think we'd look to build around him in that situation, and certainly not like we would have done for a Maddison or Buendia.