Paul Lamberts Disciple

Just seeing what the general take up is. I can''t wait personally!Always a good game, if a little edgy!

Yet another dose of excruciatingly weak sarcasm from Mr Chops, this time needlessly & ham-fistedly "sending up" a perfectly legitimate earlier post by City Angel.

Just grab a few tinnies and sit in Anglia Square.

[quote user="Jason Shackells limp Tackle"][quote user="morty"]Do you deliberately post things that absolutely no one gives a flying frig in a doughnut about, or is it coincidence?[/quote] Do you deliberately post on behalf of the entire messageboard. [/quote]That seems to be his role, doesn''t it? I''m petitioning Archant to start charging the guy for bandwidth, seeing as he regularly accounts for two-thirds of it.

[quote user="lappinitup"]You mean you make up words and then look ''em up later to see if they''re actually.........words? [/quote]Blyblybabes simply quoted it from the Guardian.Pay attention.

[quote user="Bethnal Yellow and Green"]For me, a lot of those comments are very much correct. If you want to see how a diamond works at its best, then look at Chelsea or Milan from a few years ago. These teams play/played the perfect version of this formation. If you consider that Crofts = Essien, Smith = Ballack (last year)/Ramires , Surman/Lappin = Malouda and Hoolahan = Lampard. Essien certainly doesn''t go tearing around the pitch chasing everything down, but sits carefully in front of the back four and choosing his moment to close down when he has cover, or coming out wide when there is a threat on either flank. I''m not saying Crofts is a bad player for doing this, it is just the difference between a good Championship player and a world class player. I see a lot of similarities between Ramires and Smith, both are high energy, good in a tackle and excellent work rate. Their job is to do the tearing about, they have to cover the centre and the wings so must cover a lot of ground (hence why an aging Ballack was allowed to leave). Malouda, like Lappin/Surman is more naturally a wide player moved towards the centre (although Surman isn''t a winger he naturally drifts wider to take greater advantage of his ability to deliver a killer ball) and like Smith/Ramires has to track back and cover ground. Basically, if the attack comes from the centre, it should be easily dealt with due to the extra numebrs and Crofts holding, if an attack comes from the wings we will be more exposed, but in theory either Smith/Surman should close the player down along with one of the fullbacks, a centre back should shift wider to cover the space and Crofts should move deeper to cover the centre back. Watch Chelsea, you will see this tactic applied countless times every game. When it comes to strikers, they should play wider that a traditional centre forward dragging the centre backs wider, allowing Hoolahan/Lampard to move into space in the centre. However, if they both go too wide at the same time it is easy to defend against. At Chelsea Anelka will often drift out to one of the wings and Drogba will stay central to score the goals, but this is often switched as well with Drogba wider feeding Anelka/Lampard. I think the issue with Holt moving wide is that he will go wide right as Martin moves wide left, leaving Hoolahan alone in the centre. However, looking at our goals this season and last, it is common to see Holt out on the right supplying a ball for Hoolahan, Crofts, Smith or Lappin to get on the end of. Just from goal kicks, or balls coming from deeper Holt needs to be in the centre to hold the ball up, or if Hoolhan and Martin are both out wide he needs to bust a gut getting into position in the box (which he usally does). Thus concludes my long and boring post... [/quote]It was anything but mate. Best post I''ve seen for a while.

[quote user="Shack Attack"]That would be fine if it stayed in that particular studio but it doesn''t. It seeps into every other football programme and influences the content of shows that should be offering serious analysis of the game rather than being ''a bunch of mates having a laugh in a studio''. So we get Adrian Chiles and Colin Murray and their painfully unfunny skits on MOTD2 and ITV and Lineker''s embarrasing puns and jokey links with Hansen and Shearer on a Saturday night. All influenced by Soccer AM and the dumbing down of the sport in general. It''s our acceptance of such nonsense that allows Alan Shearer to announce to the nation that he knew nothing about Hatem Ben Arfa after he scored his first goal for Newcastle the other week. Sorry Alan but that''s your job. You''re the expert and we''re the viewer. You''re supposed to impart your knowledge to improve our experience of watching MOTD. Why can''t we have some pundits on who could actually teach us something. They don''t even have to be ex-footballers, there are plenty of decent journalists who could offer more tactical analysis that the likes of Shearer, Redknapp and Townsend. I was pleasantly surprised to see Gabriele Marcotti on ITV''s Champions League highlights on Wednesday night. I''m not a huge fan of his but at least you get the impression that he''s thought about the game a bit. When I''m watching football I want the experts to give me information that I don''t know and help me understand the game better. I''m sick of watching MOTD/ITV/Sky and hearing some tosser drone over the replay of a goal that "he''s shown great pace there, beaten his man and that''s a great finish". I KNOW THAT, I JUST F*CKING WATCHED IT!!!! Tell me something diferent FFS. If you''re an ex-striker with hundreds of top flight goals to your name then why not let us know why it''s a great finish, how difficult that skill is, how it feels to bear down on goal and how you decide where you''re going to place the ball. Share your experiences, that''s why you''re an expert being paid great chunks of licence fee payers cash and I''m sitting at home half-cut, in my pyjamas, swearing at the TV. Soccer AM, and all of the slack jawed simpletons who tune in every week, has provided the fertile breeding ground for the dumbing down of football in this country. Don''t come complaining to me when the punditry at the next World Cup is done by Lady GaGa, Noel Gallagher and Katie Price. [/quote]That''s quite the vitriolic polemic, Shack, and I broadly agree with your comments on the poor general standard of sport coverage and punditry.However, if you treat Soccer AM as nothing more than a light entertainment ''youth'' programme you''ll be alot more comfortable with it. To me, it''s merely a less cerebral, Saturday morning version of TFI Friday (or, even, The Word before it) based upon a tenuous assocation with football as opposed to music.From that perspective I enjoy it, and I would like to think that doesn''t render me a ''slack-jawed simpleton''.

[quote user="Shack Attack"]I hold Soccer AM, and everybody who has ever watched it or been involved in making it, wholly* responsible for the bloated, dumbed down, fucktarded coverage of football we have to put up with in this country. Can we not tell them and their gurning, landfill indie loving, celebrity obsessed presenters to bugger off? [/quote]Jesus Christ.Its not a post-modernist Dostoyevsky adaptation. Its a bunch of mates having a laugh in a studio, probably still slightly half-cut from the night before.You know, like most normal young people on a Saturday morning.

Oh, and ''The Judge'', of course.

Matty Patty didn''t shy from a confrontation.

Hilarious as ever Mello, but just to save you further embarassment should this arise again: QPR is the same distance from ''Cockney'' London as Norwich is from Wymondham.

[quote user="hucks"]Nana it''s my opinion that''s why it''s on my website, didn''t say Wes wasn''t very good, but Crofts was consistently good even when we weren''t on top![/quote]One of City''s all-time footballing greats explaining himself to a kid calling himself ''banana'' on an anonymous message board.Too bizarre.

[quote user="Mello Yello"]QPR upper tier.....Early train..... Looking forward to the game.....and another good day out in Laaaaanndaaaaaaan.                    "Oi! Oi! Oi!"   [/quote] You do know Queens Park is in West London, right? Approximately 7 miles away from, and nothing to do with, the ''Cockney'' East End either historically, geographically or culturally?

[quote user="nutty nigel"] Sorry but this is the Champiuonship and the month is September. A win is a win and worth three points. Come then end of the season you can argue whether we scraped this win against the bottom club or wether it was a good 3 points against a decent side. Meanwhile say what you see, were Leicester the worst side you''ve seen this season? Certainly they weren''t the worst I''ve seen. Were they better than Hull? I thought so. Consider the following :-   Portsmouth 6 Leicester 1, Leicester 2 Cardiff 1, Cardiff 4 Doncaster 0, Preston 0 Doncaster 2, Leeds 4 Preston 6, Leeds 3 Millwall 1, Millwall 1 Watford 6, Watford 2 Swansea 3, Hull 2 Swansea 0, Burnley 4 Hull 0 Middlesboro 2 Burnley 1, Derby 3 Middlesboro 1, Coventry 2 Derby 1, and so on...     This isn''t League One with a huge difference between the top and bottom. As we have seen in previous years the Championship has fine margins between the top and the bottom. Win more than we lose and we''ll be fine. Win a few more and we''ll be in the play offs. Win a few more and we''ll go up automatically. But in this league a win is huge whatever the circumstances, and Lambert''s philosophy of never settling for a point could be the difference.  [/quote]All valid points backed up by some very strange results so far this season, and as you say, this league is definitely more mixed quality-wise and very unpredictable.Leicester were, indeed, far from the worst side I''ve seen this year but still got tonked by Pompey and Burnley, beaten soundly by QPR and hadn''t scored more than 2 so far this year in the league. We simply shouldn''t really be conceding 3 at home to them. No evidence you can offer will change that fact.A combination of a goalkeeping howler, goalkeeping indecison with aerial balls towards the edge of the 6 yard box and resultant indecision in central defense made them look better than they are.

[quote user="Robert N. LiM"]Am I the only person who thought we were shocking last night? The first half was a shambles and only Crofts'' fantastic commitment and desire kept us in it. He was absolutely colossal. We were fortunate to get back into it through a penalty, then played our best football of the match, culminating in Drury''s brilliant goal. But to concede so soon after going two goals up - twice - was unforgivable. Essentially we were got out of jail by Crofts'' resilience in the first half and two moments of genius from Wes. How great to hear the crowd chanting his name at last. Other than that, it was a very poor performance - we were far better against Hull on Saturday. [/quote]Coming from one of our most moderate and thoughtful posters I hope others take note of what you say. I agree fully.It seems, as with most football fans, a win overrides and obscures any criticisms that would otherwise have been forthcoming and, in this case, been totally justified.Shipping 3 goals at home to the bottom of the table side doesn''t inspire any confidence in me, personally. Ruddy''s howler set the tone, of course, making him tentative from there onwards which in turn unsettled Barnett, and Ward in particular.Going with that, our personal MOM Crofts was all over the pitch: yes, he does put in some crunching tackles but is more of a genuine box to box CM than Russell, which IMO from a purely positional (and hence tactical) perspective comes at a price. He simply doesn''t protect the back four quite to the standard of Russell last season, and up against some of the quicker counter-attacking units found within the division this could clearly cost us.

Great site, great report, great to have you contributing Hucks. A real pleasure mate, cheers.

Daniel Huckerby

[quote user="Nexus_Canary"]Wiz aint so bad and Morty is cool so zippit [/quote]Yeah he''s well good m8! Did you hear he slept with Emily at Seb''s party?Totally wicked!

Nail firmly on head Mr.Carrow.

[quote user="Mister Chops"]I''m travelling back on the train from London after some business meetings and have just heard an announcement that we''re fast approaching administration.Bye bye Lambert, thanks Delia [:''(][8o|][/quote] Your posts have become just as predictable as the likes of Wiz. Actually, at least Wiz''s posts aren''t permeated by an all-consuming air of smug superiority.WE GET IT. YOU ARE CAPABLE OF SATIRE. YOU ARE A VERY CLEVER PERSON.

[quote user="Mahogany"] you''d probably do best to start watching American Football.[/quote]I thought we were discussing sport, not WWF wrestling for people with even shorter attention spans.

Perfectly put, PurpleCanary.Test cricket is still the most comprehensive and demanding format in all sporting competition, psychologically and physically, simultaneously examing a diverse range of individual skills as well as fitness, teamwork, team spirit and tactical control.

[IMG]http://i462.photobucket.com/albums/qq345/Dusk1983/blybly-1.jpg[/IMG]

[quote user="BlyBlyBabes"]Charming. Always happens. It''s a good job The World and his Wife are always watching. [/quote] [IMG]http://i462.photobucket.com/albums/qq345/Dusk1983/blybly-1.jpg[/IMG]

Ditto. Good player.