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Beefy is a legend

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Posts posted by Beefy is a legend

  4. Posted

    Can I just say that I absolutely love the guy. What a legend, a goal and 2 assists today, he just thrives on getting stick from oppo fans. He hasn''t had a glamorous role in recent weeks but he puts in a magnificent shift for the team every week, he''s strong and clever and his contribution to the last 3 years has been immense.

    true NCFC legend.

    and that''s enough of my bromance...

  5. Posted

    We call you sheepsh&ggers, you call us carrot crunchers etc, it''s all just banter.

    What isn''t banter is what was done to Seb Bassong which is why an arrest has been made.

    You boys also need to understand one thing about Grant Holt - he loves being a wind-up merchant. You lot goading him just makes him try that much harder. By my count he scored one, assisted another and won the free-kick that Snodgrass scored from.

    Thanks for the 9 points over the last year and a bit. All those media pundits who love you boys must be so disappointed to see us give you another beating. Ho hum.

  6. Posted

    I''ve met Ewan Chester a few times and he always struck me as a thoroughly decent and knowledgable chap. Let me tell you his exit from the Club to go to Birmingham did not go down well and the Club was delighted when he rejoined with Hughton''s coaching staff. Ewan has not only himself but a network of european scouts who all do their bit in terms of suggesting names.

    As with most things, it''s not just a question of luck but with doing good quality research. That may explain why, having never seen him play before, Roeder was taken aback when Troy Archibald-Henville didn''t quite come up to spec...

     

     

  7. Posted

    I understand what you are saying LDC, however...

    It is too simplistic to divide up the team''s performances into ''attack'' and ''defence'' and then blame the forward players for not scoring. We attack and defend as a team and we have sacrificed some of our attacking potency in order to shore up the defence and IMHO that is why we don''t look quite as fluent - it''s easy to blame Wes and Holty but I think both of them have been playing really well during this run.

    To improve our attacking play we could play the diamond with two up front, we could bomb forward the full backs, we could drop bradley for fox or howson but why would we want to do that when we are getting brilliant results week in week out?

  8. Posted

    Another magnificent 3 points, to have 19 at this stage is an incredible achievement.

    I do think some of the rhetoric on here is quite incredible - the major thread titled ''Time for Morison'' just makes me laugh considering all the stick he''s got before. No doubt after 2 games of not scoring there will be a thread ''Time for Jackson''.

    I don''t know if people are aware that we defend as a team, and we attack as a team. Because we are much more defensive minded, the full backs don''t get forward as much, Holt is playing on his own, and that makes a big difference as to why we aren''t creating as much, and I''m not convinced a change in personnel is going to change that. Holt and Wes are our two best forward players so why change them?

    The system continues to work wonders for us in terms of results and defensive resolve, and that is all any of us really need to worry about. In Hooton I trust.

  10. Posted

    I have no problem with justified and constructive criticism. The problem I have with what is going on on this board lately is that IMHO the criticism is pretty much unjustified.

    I said on here recently that under Lambo we criticised the lack of clean sheets, now it''s the polar opposite so we criticise the lack of goals. We all want NCFC to win 5-0 every week but it ain''t realistically gonna happen!

    The problem I have is that unrealistic expectations are dangerous, and that is why managers often try to play down their expectations. I read on here things like ''go back to 4-4-2'' and ''bring Fox in for Bradley'' and I just look back to what the outcome was earlier this season when we used that system - no wins and leaking goals for fun. Hughton often uses the phrase ''we know what we are'', but sadly many fans on here don''t seem to know. We are a team that needs to get to 40 points in the most effective way possible, and the current method has proven very effective for about 2 months now yet still the calls for change come.

    I''m just thankful that the manager is going to do things his way, on his terms.

  13. Posted

    Just to illustrate that the start we have made has put us in a great position, to reach the golden 40 point mark we only need a record of 6 wins, 6 draws and 12 defeats for the rest of the season. Using our current system of grinding out results both home and away, I cannot see us failing to achieve that sort of record at the very least.

    Remember we have already played 8 of our 14 matches away from home. I''d put the following games into the ''winnable'' category:

    Sunderland h, Wigan h, Newcastle h, Fulham h, Southampton h, Swansea h, Reading h, Aston Villa h, West Brom h.

    That''s 9 home games from which you must think we have a good chance of winning a decent proportion.

    Away from home the more attractive fixtures are:

    West Ham a, QPR a, Sunderland a, Wigan a.

    So there are our 13 games from which to get the 6 wins we need. Because we are keeping games tight I see every chance of us continuing to nick draws and wins, it gives me a great deal of confidence that we will get to the magic 40.

    Let''s start off on the road to 6 more wins with Sunday v Sunderland!

  14. Posted

    It seems to me that our position will significantly improve next year. With the majority of the external debt paid off that will give us some £11m that had to used to pay the debt this year, and going forward we no longer have the drag factor of interest payments that have hindered the Club for so long.

    We also have the new TV deal kicking in, which looks to add around £25m to current income.

    That in itself gives us the ability to increase our wage structure at the Club, which is really the most important factor in being able to attract better quality players.We have started that process already. Of course all the other Prem sides will get the same benefit, but for those newly promoted sides it is all the more challenging to compete and gives us a better chance of establishing ourselves in this division in the mid-term.

    As for the ground capacity, I think at the moment from what McNally has said that the Club considers squad investment to establish ourselves as more important than a big investment in the ground which would take several years to pay for itself and start bearing fruit. We want to try to ensure we have a Premier League squad before we start undertaking large off the field investments.

    The biggest achievement in the last few years for the Club''s future, apart from Premier League status, is in my view the paying off of the debt. That 20-odd million figure had been with us as far back as I could remember and I really think it has been a noose around our neck and explains a great deal why even similar sized Club''s have had a far larger wage budget to us. It really does set us free and everything we earn can now be used purposefully instead of disappearing into a black hole.

    All in all, it''s looking pretty positive IMO.

  16. Posted

    I take your point. However, who is to say that we won''t change things slightly when playing the ''must-win'' home games? I suspect we will use more attacking substitutions as our method of going for the win. Don''t forget that the system worked perfectly well against the spoilers from Stoke so I don''t necessarily share your concern.

    There is of course more than one way to skin a cat. There always seems to be criticism of certain managers who are ''tinker-men'' where fans generally think consistency is better. Because we are not tinkering, there is always the opportunity to take the exact opposite view and say that we are ''predictable''.

    Likewise, under Lambert we took the approach of trying to outscore teams, attracting criticism for the lack of clean sheets. This year we are the polar opposite, attracting criticism for the lack of goals...

  17. Posted

    well said that (hog)man.

    yes there will always be room for improvement but we cannot expect to play like the top teams, keeping clean sheets and scoring loads of goals. The only way to achieve both those goals is to have better players than we currently have.

    We are doing extremely well with the resources we have, playing to our strengths and I feel very confident that we will win at least one of the next two home games, which will more than justify the draws that we keep picking up away.

  18. Posted

    AJ wrote the following post at 28/11/2012 10:08 PM:

    That''s literally it, Holt just isn''t getting the chances to score. But that said, we shouldn''t have to rely on one man to score our goals. Hoolahan often frustrates when he could just give it a whack!

    All our forward players can score goals, we just need a system that works, because the current one isn''t!

    haha ''the current one isn''t''. Apart from bringing us 13 points from 7 games.

  20. Posted

    There''s nothing wrong with wanting improvement, but the issue is how you achieve that. The OP advocated a return to 4-4-2 but that didn''t work for us in the first half a dozen games, so why when we are getting results every week do we want to go back to a system that was failing us?

    I just don''t understand the negativity. We look solid, if admittedly uninspiring away from home, but look organised and dangerous at FCR. We are doing really well, I''m loving it and I don''t see any reason for Hughton to tinker with the system when we are picking up so many results. We''ve only lost 4 league games out of 14 and, guess what, we''ve lost none when playing the current system.I rest my case m''lud

  21. Posted

    IMHO the OP is out of his mind. Tonight''s result was worth more than a mere point - it also denied a rival two points and that is very important - we''ve already done that to Reading and Villa aswell. We''ve got all of those sides to play at home where we are undoubtedly going to pick up most of our points playing the way that we are. With the next two home games to come v Sunderland and Wigan I''ll be surprised if we don''t pick up at least 4 points and that will keep us ticking over. To have 16 points already is a great effort.

    Don''t forget that whilst Southampton are ''only'' 4 points behind us, in this division when you have a tough run of games it can take a month to get those 4 points, and in the meantime we might pick up a few more points ourselves. We are also 11 ahead of QPR and 7 ahead of Reading and that represents a chasm. Also, not only do Southampton have to pick up those points to overhaul us, but so do Sunderland, Villa and Wigan.

    We are in a very healthy position and 7 games unbeaten - don''t underestimate how determined the players will be to maintain that run. A shame that Swansea away is coming soon, that looks a serious test of our unbeaten run...

  22. Posted

    I though Bassong and, in particular, Tettey, were absolutely outstanding again tonight. Tettey bossed the midfield, he can tackle and pass, by far the most complete midfielder at the Club.

    Another good point tonight though I must say it made for frustrating viewing at times - Johnson gave the ball away so often and likewise Whittaker''s distribution was generally poor. Having said that I don''t want to be too critical because off the ball those lads did their jobs well but it is frustrating.

    OT I know but I heard Holt got some stick on Canary Call for walking down the tunnel. I think he was frustrated more than anything - his bessie mate Lambert got a goal and the So''ton were baiting him with ''you''re just a **** Rickie Lambert'' most of the game. I think it''s a good thing and shows he cares - he was desperate to score and shut up those fans just like he did at Swansea last year.

  23. Posted

    I agree with both of you. Holt, in my view, has been doing a fine job ever since the first few weeks when he did his usual trick of being a little ring rusty. I suppose strikers typically have a lower pass completion rate simply because they have to try to play more penetrative passes and they often find themselves outnumbered. There may be exceptions but that''s my general view.

    I''d love to see us move for a quality midfield player and a striker in January to improve the overall quality of the squad. As we go through further transfer windows then I feel it likely that the likes of most of our current players out on loan, plus Surman, Morison, Jackson, Fox, Barnett and Tierney will leave and with the debt repaid and the new TV deal I think we could see a dramatic improvement to the squad if we can stay in the league this year. This unbeaten run has been monumental to taking us toward that goal.

  24. Posted

    Fair points from Zipper and Rudolph. I guess the question is, how do we achieve better passing?

    If you''re just saying ''Tell Bradley to play better'', I''m not sure that contributes much to the debate. Likewise, you seem to be stopping short of saying, drop Bradley for Fox/Howson, because we know that could lead to compromising our defensive assuredness of late.

    We can''t have our cake and eat it yet, we have good players but not the complete article - Tettey is the closest we have to a quality all-rounder but we don''t have another like him at the moment so we have to make a choice, and I think the choice of selecting Tettey with Bradley, contributing to us admittedly having less possession but undoubtedly conceding less, is the right one based on the results we''ve achieved and the general quality of performances.

  25. Posted

    I suppose it depends on how you define ''half-hearted''. My definition would be something along the lines of not giving 100% commitment (50% would be more reasonable if you take the phrase literally!) and all I''m saying Zipper is that it is easy, when things aren''t going your way, to simply blame the players for not giving it their all - it''s certainly much easier than going through the entire 90 minutes play by play, which I know is what Gary Karsa used to do and which no doubt the current coaching staff do, to determine where your tactical and individual shortcomings might have been.

    We played much better second half and I agree with you on that, I''m just saying that, in my view, the reason for the improvement wasn''t simply that the players decided to play ''wholeheartedly'' when they weren''t doing that in the first half - that is too simplistic a view.
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