Budgie

>Watching our power house Chris Martin holding his own with the best and toughest Ha ha. The day QPR and Joey Barton are considered the best and toughest is the day I give up watching football. Enjoy your Championship Gold OP!

The defense is working well from what I can see. Clean sheets and attacking full backs who are prepared to cross high into the box (which is more than our wingers do. The problem for me lies in the midfield and not the strikers. Our wingers do not look to cross early nor high. We have strikers who can jump and head the ball (RVW v Evertone?) yet we never cross high except at set pieces when our CBs are in the box. The service from the wings this season has been, frankly, appalling and the players at fault are sad to say Snodgrass and Redmond. These player can dribble and get in good positions but the decision making and delivery is abysmal, the constant checking back and crossing in swingers is working against our strikers. Inswinging crosses are easy to defend as are low slung balls, I''m not saying we cut them out entirely but we need more variety of balls from our wingers. Snodgrass should know better and someone needs a word with Redmond. Redmond may excite the crowd with his dazzling runs and skills but the final ball (or in most cases poor shot) are lacking and costing our strikers valuable chances to score. Redmond could potentially be the key to our survival if he can start to solve this problem. I''m going to leave Johnson out as I believe he does his job well (although he needs to cut out the long range shots). In the middle with Fer and Tettey (Howson or whoever) there is a completely stunted attack. Our central midfield almost stops running when they get past the centre circle. They have clearly been instructed (both home and away) not to press high into the box. The attack/counter attack is then left to the wingers and strikers to execute. As previously discussed our wingers are pretty much ineffective and we are not using other means of chance creation. The only time the CMs push high is when the opposition is pinned inside the area and we are passing around the outside looking for a way in, mostly fruitlessly. This ultimately leads to either a long shot or the ball going out again to the wingers who we are clearly relying on too much. The CMs should be driving forward and looking to play into Hopper to hold up,/flick on to the 2nd striker. We are seeing a clear lack of creativity from our midfield which has at time this season looked completely static and scarily void of ideas.

Put the blame where you want from this but who takes our free kicks and corners, and who has persisted with playing the weakest link in the side all season despite him being horrendously out of form? It is no surprise that the team look so much more potent in attack with Snodgrass out the team. Yet as soon as he is back from injury I expect Hughton to put him straight back in the starting 11. This season he has so far 2 goals and 1 assist. Last season he had 6 of each.

We have gone from last season being the second best team in the league at set pieces to the second worst team Last season we scored 22 from open play (15th), none from counter attack (20th) and 17 from set pieces (2nd). This season we scored 14 from open play (14th), 1 from counter attack (14th) and 3 from set pieces (19th). http://www.whoscored.com/Regions/252/Tournaments/2/Seasons/3389/Stages/6531/TeamStatistics/England-Premier-League-2012-2013

We all know our players lack that cutting edge in front of goal and this stat probably means nothing much when most of the players that start can neither score nor assist either. However it does show Hughton and his staff and players have been totally ineffective this season at attempting to change games by bringing players off the bench. http://au.eurosport.com/football/premier-league/2012-2013/matchpack-west-ham-united-v-norwich-city_sto4130917/story.shtml

It depends on the games you want to go to, the popularity of the fixture and who you want to attend/sit with. My brother and I are both Super Members, we failed to buy 2 tickets together for a single game for the last 2 seasons, Admittedly we don''t keep our ears pinned to the ground so are not always on the phone/web the minute they go on sale to super members but with some vigilance we could probably be more successful. We had much more success with away tickets this season which suited us much better anyway. If you are just buy one ticket for each game you want to attend and you are happy to sit wherever then you will probably be able to pick up tickets to most, if not all fixtures. Be prepared to sit in places like the wensun corner, upper river corners and the corner infill.

I wonder how many people would not like him to score? Jesus - No wonder this forum has gone so far down hill if people are posting such mundane topics. While we''re at it, how many people would like Bunn to keep a clean sheet.......anyone?

No no no. This is rubbish. Reading is not a must win game. A must win game is a game that, should we not win, seals our fate. This game is not that game. Aston Villa will probably be the game we ''must win''. This game, for me, falls under the title..... ''Probably can''t afford to lose.'' As does the Stoke away game.

Found this on another forum: I fucking hate Stoke. Usually I just hate them in the build-up and aftermath to us playing them, but take great pleasure in other teams struggling against them. No more. Maybe it''s some newly found solidarity from other teams, or maybe it''s just after however many years, I resent having to watch Tony Pulis'' black arts. Like Sam Allardyce on Red Bull, trying to push the envelope and tour the ugliest back alleys for any way to get through a football match. Maybe each human being has a finite amount of space in their lives they can accept Stoke being part of, and I''ve exceeded mine. Whatever it is, I fucking hate Stoke. I fucking hate their alehouse tactics. I fucking hate that a Stoke shirt seems to grant players a certain immunity. I hate that because referees expect Stoke to be overly physical, that seems to allow them - in their own tiny little minds - the excuse for Stoke to be overly physical. I''m sick of their fucking back four, all of whom look like proper Rugby League Town twats, smacking their way around the league. Wilkinson''s elbows, Huth''s stamp, Ryan Shawcross and his peculiar brand of footballing Jiu-Jitsu. In midfield you''ve got cynical shites fucking Whitehead, who takes great pleasure in mastering the poorly timed trip, or Charlie Adam who is just tugboat slow and reckless. Top it off with that twat Waters upfront. God I hate him. He''s got the face of a badger baiter. Just a horrible, horrible collection of players. It''s not a surprise though is it? In Tony Pulis you''ve got a really vile manager. Him and his stupid fucking baseball cap. All his pundit mates laugh off his teams; "well if you knew Tony as a player you''d know what his teams are like" - there''s a fucking reason no one knows what sort of player he was. They simply don''t care to remember some lower league yard dog, and cringe that they have to watch a team in his image. I''ll give Pulis something though, never has a manager captured the essence of a town and it''s people so well in how their team plays football than Stoke. He''s such a horrible, overly macho twat. The poster boy for British footballing culture, where a dive is sneaky and insidious and thus far worse than breaking a players leg with a horror tackle, elbowing someone in the face or stamping on their chest. The man has managed to usurp Mark Hughes and Sam Allardyce as the Wannabe Alpha of the league. The fans, in amongst it all, I have some twisted sense of sympathy for. Tony Pulis'' own personal Volkssturm of outcasts, trudging along every (other) week out of some misplaced sense of duty. Duty to protect their birth place. All off on a march to their death. A football death. A football death that couldn''t be further removed from the one Rodgers speaks of. Off to the windy vortex of misery, void of hope. the great architecture of schadenfreude. "If we can''t enjoy football then neither can you". The essence of Stoke. Stoke. That horrible fucking verb. 1) Stoke. To remove joy and purpose from the occasion Tony Pulis was delighted to stoke Liverpool at the football match Just fuck off, Stoke. Not even down the lower leagues, because if that happens some poor twat will be stuck paying to watch his team run the Stoke gauntlet, being told to ''embrace'' the challenge. Nah. Fuck that. Fuck this idea that defeating Dr Pulis'' Monster is some kind of footballing achievement. They''re removed almost entirely from the sport. Stoke a horrid mix of shotput, 11 players cynically fouling on rotation, and set pieces. That''s the fucking Stoke credo right there. If it''s not a set play you can''t control what''s happening, so you foul, and get another set play. I''m not against physicality in football. I''m not against the odd bit of cynicism. But I''m not having the defence of Stoke. It''s pure anti-football. They routintely turn up to games against any team to make sure the ball is out of play as much as possible. That is not a worthwhile tactic. Wouldn''t wish it on anyone. Fuck off you oatcake munching twats.

Why do people want a sodding pat on the back from the club all the time? It''s this bloody culture of entitlement we live in. The extra money goes into the playing budget which will help get in better players and extend contracts of players we need to keep. If we want to become more established in this league it will cost us more. Its a system of continuous improvement. If you can;t afford it fine. Move over and let someone more willing to pay and less likely to moan take your place. You are in a minority.

Hopefully my graphic will sort the arguments between some people saying he went in 2 feet with one tackle but not the other and can''t agree which one. Clearly both tackles were pretty much identical so the debate should be whether it is a red card tackle or not. We should not be debating that one was and the other wasn''t.

Both tackles in sync http://i.imgur.com/0UsWA.gif

Surman can play LW, a little deeper the Pilks granted but its not worth buying an extra player over.

>>Not at all. During Smith''s reign we have been relegated twice. Ipswich Town have not been relegated once while Evans has been the owner. Those hard facts speak for themselves. Yeah, we have been promoted 3 times under Delia. How many they had under Evans? Not that I''m using promotion/relegation as a bench mark.... but you did bring it up of course.

The mature answer would be don''t do anything that causes friction between their parents. Especially if you''ve been specifically asked not to do something by a family member.

The man is a professional troll, the way he talks about his own club makes me think we got of lightly.

I appreciate the effort in trying to get an atmosphere going by being creative with new chant ideas but really??? >Its going to be caught >By Big John Ruddy in his hands Did you read it back before posting? Because it sounds retarded. No self respecting fan is going to sing that.

Actually you are there to watch both. A one sided match would be a bit dull wouldn''t it? Maybe when you''re older and grown up you will learn not to expect everyone to have the same standards as you and not to judge them because they are different. Who are you to tell people how they should spend there money and what there motivations for attending a football match are?

[quote user="Unhinged Canary"]I''d ''tap'' that.......[/quote] Totally rational response, why the over reaction from everyone?

So Chase was buying the players was he? Silly me. There was me thinking the likes of Stringer and Walker were the brains behind our giant killing squad of the 90s. How silly of me. Of course you are right about Chase dismantling that squad by selling off our best players for a tasty profit only to never be reinvested back into the team.

I personally found his 606 very miss-able but thats another point. Loved his ''Own Goals and Gaffs'' videos as a kid. Hope he gets well soon!

That is one of the most ridicual things I have read on here recently. You can''t applaud a major shareholder for success on a shoe string budget. You can only applaud the managers under him. It is like applauding banks for not lending to small businesses for the success of those small businesses. Your logic is very scewed.

"backed up by statistics which cannot be questioned." Wow - I have to hand it to you. That is brilliant. Not just for saying it, but for genuinely believing it with a passion. I applaud you sir

Bob the builder - Is it actually legal to impersonate (or pass your self off as someone) without their permission?