It's Character Forming

Is Rowe an academy player ?

He's played either as a starter or a sub for pretty much every game recently, so it would be bonkers to let him go in this window unless we have someone coming in.

Accidentally came across highlights of them beating Man U 7-0 which puts an interesting slant on it today.

lol 😂 yes it was. Possibly not in the way you expected though, haha.

"it wasn't always pretty" ???? - did you ever see a game when Hughton was manager ? The only time it was "pretty" I can remember was when the players decided to ignore him.

I remember when they beat us 5-0 and Suarez scored a wonder goal, we kept on singing that night including a "let's pretend we scored a goal" celebration. When Emi scored against them we went bananas.

One thing that struck home was the mention of US owners being forced to step down for misconduct / irregularities. Wouldn't that be nice to see here !!

I remember when Charlton had a model based on a totally pragmatic approach under Curbishley that was all about clocking up the 40 points for survival in the Prem each season and forget everything else. They'd reach safety every year and ease off, and that was all there was to it . Of course after a few years the fans grew dissatisfied with the "lack of ambition" (to be fair, it probably got boring pretty soon) and the manager was sacked as part of a plan to "aim higher" and we all know how that ended. At least, that's how I remember it !

When you get one of the Prem top clubs playing a lower division side there's always a massive bias towards them in the commentary, but actually it's great viewing if there's an upset so let's hope we can deliver one.

There are exceptions (most obviously the first promotion season under Farke when our defence was notoriously poor) but most of the time to win stuff it's a massive help to have a solid defence i.e. not gift the opposition goals. We were poor on this last season and for most of this season. If we can continue to tighten up, we've a decent chance of top 6. The next game will be a good measure of where we're up to ! Also, if we can be better in this area for the 2nd half of the season, stats based on the whole season to date will become pretty irrelevant.... which won't stop people quoting them, obv.

So with endless comments that WBA left their shooting boots at home and just needed to be a bit clinical to get something out of the game etc etc, yesterday is crying out for an xG analysis, come on down you stats gurus (please) !

Thanks, good to have your report back !

Good win, be interesting to see how we get on at Leeds and Liverpool now 🙄😊

What I've read is that his family didn't settle, even though they were actually living across the border in Bahrain. I know quite a few people who've worked in the area, and there are definitely minuses but also pluses. I guess the difference is that he could afford to walk away unlike many people on more ordinary jobs. Tax-wise the suggestion I've seen is that because he's returning to the UK within the same tax year, he'll have a top up tax bill so he'll pay the full amount of tax on his earnings as if he'd been based in the UK the whole time. I think i could live with that personally.... my sympathy is limited. Overall I'm glad as this shows you can't just throw around infinite amounts of cash and get anyone you want to come..

Personally I hate this approach (which Sky use and it really bugs me) of talking about a run of Premier League games which had an entire season gap in the middle as if it was a continuous run of games and the lower league season is airbrushed out of history. It was a bad end to a season when we were relegated, followed by a spectacularly successful title-winning season, then he had a poor run at the start of the Prem season when we were promoted and sold out best player. To say it was a 21 game winless run is nonsense really.

Binner

Lots of comments on this thread are very weird to me. if two players are racing to get to a ball on the ground, one gets there first and clears it and then the other collides with him, it’s a clear foul by the player who’s late (even if he comes off worse). I don’t understand why it’s any different because the ball was in the air? This is why I think the ref’s reaction of giving a free kick for us was corrrect. if there is a difference so that jumping for the ball is not a foul, that would be equally true for them both - the only difference was that Connolly was late and didn’t get the ball, they were both going for the ball. So I can see it being ruled as no foul by either player, which some refs would have given I think. But to say it’s a foul committed by Gunn because he’s much bigger than the Hull player is just bonkers.

All too easily it could have ended up similar to Cantwell, with Emi going off the boil, we have a poor season anyway, we end up selling him for a fiver and get relegated in deep ****. And the fans would be slating Webber for not cashing in on him when we had the chance.

LOL it is funny, and I liked the honest but tactful comments from their player at the end.

It says it’s at the home team’s discretion so Millwall decision then.

Haha

PS interesting that you can say pissing but not ip**** - fair enough I suppose.

I can't remember a similar type of player to Rowe, but his raw natural talent reminds me of Craig Bellamy when he broke into the first team, he was just able to do stuff that no one else on the pitch would even try. If he stays fit and learns to be more consistent in his application and deal with the teams that are going to try to stop him by foul means and foul, he could be a really top player - definitely enjoy him while he's here !!

There was me expecting to read something about Wagner....

Where you lose possession is important, but so is how often you lose possession. If you're hoofing it forward repeatedly with no chance of retaining possession, you're just inviting non-stop pressure because it'll be coming straight back. I think our approach to playing it out from the back at the moment is generally pretty sensible - it's clearly our preferred approach but the players will go long if they need to. But we need to be more joined up so we're making sure that when we go long, we have someone to aim for (e.g. Barnes) and other players looking for the knock down or flick on, or we're playing it into space for a pacey player (e.g. not Barnes) to run onto. It's when we're just giving it away that I find it frustrating.