Ray

The pen wasn''t the only error today, although he did look confident on the ball, but then you would expect that from a player who has plenty of 1st team experience. I urge any of you who can make it, to spend a couple of hours on a Monday afternoon watching the U21''s. The next home game is Leicester KO 23rd Sept, KO 2.00pm at Colney.  There are two away games before then, Spurs on the 2nd Sept and Chelsea on Friday 13th Sept, both KO at 7.0pm. .  . 

Fox played OK today but certainly didn''t boss, Cam McGeehan looked just as useful and he is only 18.  We have some very useful young players in the U21''s.  They wont all make it at Prem level but imo there are a few who will.

Watched the game today, he gave away the pen when should have stayed on his feet.  In my opinion Gafaiti looks the better defender and he has just turned 19.  I doubt if he (Ayala) will get many games this season, so probably best to let him go on loan and bring on Gafaiti.  The gaffer obviously rates him, as he took him on the pre-season tour to the states and started him twice (at RB).  I know the lad and he is a quick learner and very dedicated/focused, in my opinion he is one who will make it at Prem level. 

Just back from the U21 game, lost 1 - 0 deserved more. Fulham pen conceded by Ayala.   Gafaiti, McNeil, Morris also played 90 today, so looks like none of the youngsters will feature.   So can we assume a reasonably strong side tomorrow??

I agree it may be a opportunity to play some of the youngsters, on the bench at least, however why do posters always talk about the Murphys, Morris, etc.  These are the lads who played in the U18''s last year and therefore were televised, what many people seem to forget is that we have other youngsters who were a year too old for the U18''s last year but who already have first team experience in the pre-season, such as Adel Gafaiti, who went to the states and started two games, Ewan McNeil who got a few minutes at Brighton and, Jamar Loza, surely these are the lads who could/should be given a run out, that''s not to say the other lads shouldn''t but many of us seem to forget those who weren''t in the U18''s last year because they didn''t get the TV exposure.   In Gafaiti and McNeil we have a CB and a RB, which if they can prove their worth could solve our ''have we got enough defenders to cover injury, etc.'' dilemma.   If I was the Manager, which of course I''m not, I would select a team to ensure a win, this may or may not be the same as last Saturday or that which may be selected this Saturday, but I would feel a satisfactory win is needed for the fans sake, and mine.  Having secured a 3 goal advantage then I would perhaps field some youngsters. 

Hi ABC,   Thank you.  Peals of laughter, not so much, given the original topic, a young man who started the season so well and having it ended so abruptly, but satisfaction in knowing, or hoping, perhaps forlornly, that some lessons have been learned!! One can but hope!

Some posters seem to have gone very quiet, no surprise there then I guess Teapot!!   Appear not to have a sufficient enough self image to accept they were wrong, congratulate you and learn from the experience!!

Well done Teapot, apart from the seriousness of Elliott''s injury, I guess this feels good.   Glad it has been made official, at last I was almost at bursting point!!   To the victor the spoils!

And there it is and my fun begins;     Now the club have confirmed what some of us knew and others mocked relentlessly, I would like to take Donald Rumsfeld’s words and apply my own slant on them;   1)      There are people who know knowns.   2)      There are people who think they know that they know.   3)      There are people who know there are known unknowns; that is to say, there are things that they know they don''t know.   4)      But there are also people who don’t know there are unknown unknowns – and that is to say, there are things they do not know they don''t know   When it comes to Teapot’s original post, he/she and one or two others, including myself, fall into Category 1), others fall into Category 3), sadly however, some, including Scooby, Let’s be ‘aving you! and their mates, surely fall into Category 4) at best and probably Category 2) as well.   You know who you are, or perhaps, having just given that more thought, you don’t and in my opinion, that is the saddest part, fully understanding of course that my opinion counts for not a lot, except to me!   When they discover the centre of the Universe, a lot of people will be disappointed to learn they are not it!!  Bernard Bailey

Today they only did an hour; 10-11. Tough at the top, eh Teapot and let''s hope that''s where we finish, at the top, or damn close anyway!

It''s a pleasure Teapot and becoming more pleasurable as this thread continues.   No doubt you are ready for them when the time is right, I'' am and I''m really looking forward to it.   I wonder if they will write as ''eloquently'' when they fall flat on their faces??

"the only place Benno is injured is in your head..."   Be careful Jas, be careful! 

Splutcho,   Or he is covering fro another defender who missed their tackle, which is far more likely imo.  

Muddy & all others who mock Teapot and me,   You may come to regret your comments and I promise I''ll be the first to mock your ignorance as you have our insight!   Have a great day all. 

Ooops,   Thanks Citizen for pointing out my error, it is appreciated.   I had forgotten Bassong didn''t play and Russ went to CB, which perhaps adds to his claim as a permanent CB??

Pyro Pete,   I refer you to my post on another thread, see below;   I really don''t get all these ''run of form when Whits was in the team'' stats.  So where 10 others plus subs.  perhaps they were (un)lucky enough to stay fit and therefore were in the team when we hit our bad patch.  Neither was he in the team when we won 3 of our last 5 matches.  Yes he had a good game on Saturday, scored a good goal but only as a result of a miss hit pass to Elliott Bennett, although he finished it well, and then he skewed a shot which ended up as a cross for RVW to head home.   Possibly he is a ''lucky'' player and I know you make your own luck, but this winning streak stat imo is somewhat meaningless and yes it is great to have our defenders score goals but their primary job is to defend and it could be argued it was our attacking play which let us down during our losing streak.   Bottom line is there was a whole team of 11 out there when we had our winning streak and a whole team of 11 when we didn''t, are we really saying our whole team revolves around Whitts, good player as he is, he may not even be in our top four best defenders, as a defender??   All that said, he would still be in my first eleven, at right back if Russ Martin was playing CB, a position I believe he is starting to excel in, I would pick him and Bassong as our CB pairing, but I''m not the manager, so my opinion counts for not a lot, except to me!

Very good question Aggy, but then surely Russ would be made Vice Captain.  I guess there is only one man who knows the answer and as yet I haven''t seen him on here!!   And to make one point clear, CH was quoted as saying, and I paraphrase, they would effectively rotate the Captaincy when they are both playing, indicating to me he expects them both to be playing!!

Teapot,   How quickly others ridicule, when they know nothing, for what it is worth, I believe you have hit the nail on the head on all three pieces on info!   Those that mock will look foolish, unfortunately they probably won''t feel foolish, c''est la vie!

Unique, you have made one enormous assumption, and that is that when Seb is fit he will replace Russ.  As others have indicated I think our best CB pairing is Seb and Russ.   Russ has/is maturing into a very good CB and reads the game well, hence his ability to be in the right place at the right time when it comes to blocking, etc.  On top of that his captaining skills are exemplary, if you watched him last week against Everton he shone as Captain, and remember CH has said that even when they are both on the field together, Russ and Seb will effectively take it in turns with the armband.   At six foot tall it could be argued that Russ is not tall enough but I doubt Bobby Moore would agree, he too was six foot and he did alright!!   I''m not suggesting Russ is as good a player as Bobby Moore was but I do believe he has very similar attributes.          

I really don''t get all these ''run of form when Whits was in the team'' stats.  So where 10 others plus subs.  perhaps they were (un)lucky enough to stay fit and therefore were in the team when we hit our bad patch.  Neither was he in the team when we won 3 of our last 5 matches.  Yes he had a good game on Saturday, scored a good goal but only as a result of a miss hit pass to Elliott Bennett, although he finished it well, and then he skewed a shot which ended up as a cross for RVW to head home.   Possibly he is a ''lucky'' player and I know you make your own luck, but this winning streak stat imo is somewhat meaningless and yes it is great to have our defenders score goals but their primary job is to defend and it could be argued it was our attacking play which let us down during our losing streak.   Bottom line is there was a whole team of 11 out there when we had our winning streak and a whole team of 11 when we didn''t, are we really saying our whole team revolves around Whitts, good player as he is, he may not even be in our top four best defenders, as a defender??   All that said, he would still be in my first eleven, at right back if Russ Martin was playing CB, a position I believe he is starting to excel in, I would pick him and Bassong as our CB pairing, but I''m not the manager, so my opinion counts for not a lot, except to me!

Depression, what is it.   It is generally accepted it is an imbalance of chemicals in the brain.  Now what is an imbalance, well it is actually just a balance, but is one which triggers depressive/negative thoughts.   Some people may be born with a physical reason why more of the depressive/negative chemicals are produced or why the happy/positive are not.  However we also have control over what we produce by the nature of our thinking.  So, are all depressed people ''clinically'' depressed, no and from now I am going to address those who are not clinically depressed.   Is it more likely a footballer will suffer from depression than a factory worker for example, I am going to argue yes and here''s why.   The brain (sub-conscious) is hard wired to achieve and much like a heat seeking missile will relentlessly go after the goals it is set, and only you have responsibility for that.  What happens to a heat seeking missile if has no target, it goes wherever it likes until it crashes and burns, it is at dis-ease!   Now footballers throughout their playing careers have a daily goal, training, match day, etc, however when they finish playing they don''t, unless of course they take personal responsibility and do something about it.  This is akin to people packing up work at ''normal'' retirement age and losing their way.  A footballer''s career ending is in effect a retirement but at a much younger age, an age when their brain is still incredibly active and seeking new challenges, so if it isn''t set any.... crash and burn.  Also, it is interesting to read how many players enter depression when their career ends abruptly and earlier than normally expected through injury, they are just not mentally prepared for it.   Does this mean we should have any more sympathy for them than the factory worker, well possibly yes, as they enter a state most of us won''t, but they can do something about it and most do, there are of course those that don''t, so their brains run them rather than them running their brains and as the sub-conscious is hard wired to achieve, is lazy and does not judge (these last two are the functions of the conscious) it will run off at a million miles an hour doing whatever it likes, it doesn''t care about the outcome!! So setting your self goals, consciously, and living and breathing them until they become habits and drop into the sub-conscious, is perhaps the best, if not the only, way to remain happy and fulfilled.   I leave you with two last thoughts;   How many people have a written and notarised will, a plan for their death, but no plan for their life, and if they do have a written plan I doubt it has been given sufficient importance to be notarised?   What I think about is nowhere near as important as the way I think about what I think about!           

Hi Flecky''s Flip Flop & Jimmy Smith,   Flecky, you are right, it is only your opinion, but I thank you for it and appreciate it.   Jimmy, your opinion about Russ being primarily a RB is not shared by the man himself, now that I know is a fact, but of course it is still only his opinion, doesn''t mean we will all agree, as obviously you don''t.   Bring on 3.00pm Saturday, because in our opinion it''s a beautiful game, but does everyone agree - no, doesn''t make either of us right or wrong, factually!!   Don''t you just love this stuff??

Nicko,   So Ryan Bennett is better at CB than Russ Martin - fact.   Can you let me know where you get your facts from to prove this statement, or as I suspect, is this simply your opinion.  Of course you have every right to have an opinion, as do I, and every other poster on this site.   As I have said many times before, your opinion proves you right, well it does to you, just as mine does to me.  As human beings our brains are hard wired to prove us right, so if we believe something then we will see things to justify our beliefs.  To prove the point, how often have you been in a situation where you can''t find something and then someone else comes along and says look there it is, and when you take a second look you see whatever it was you were looking for hiding on top of everything else!!  It''s your brain proving you right, you believed it wouldn''t be there, so your brain dismisses what it sees to prove you right.   How many people do you know who have said something like, "I''m crap at remembering names", well guess what, their brains prove them right and they are crap at remembering names.  Their brain essentially says, heh, I''ll have to dump this new information or I will remember this person''s name and that goes against my beliefs   So if you believe one player is better than another then you will see all the good things he does and all the ''bad'' things the other one does, thus justifying your belief.   Now, in my opinion Russ Martin is a very good player, so I will see the things to prove me right but this doesn''t make it fact, it simply makes it fact to me, or in other words my opinion proving me right, to me, (yet again!!)   I suspect Russ Martin will start at CB on Saturday, alongside Michael Turner, however as I don''t control the world only the way I think about it, I may be wrong, but this is unlikely to alter my opinion that he and Seb Bassong are the best CB pairing we have.  I''ll probably justify it by saying something along the lines, well he''s too important at RB, or the gaffer has missed a trick there.   The human brain, sometimes you can''t live with it, but you certainly can''t live without it!!      

City 1st, prepare to be educated:   1.fess up - admit or acknowledge a wrongdoing or error; (From the free dictionary) to admit that you have done something that someone else will not like: (From the Cambridge dictionary)   And ''dressing'' up is Saturday nights only and even then depends on the result!!!!

Hi Reading Canary,   Wholeheartedly agree with you re definition of favourite, which is why I said "in my universe" fully accepting and understanding we all live in our own universes, of course mine is a huge universe and of course I am the centre of it, other people''s universes are of course much smaller and nowhere near as important as mine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  That''s my opinion anyway and my opinion blatantly proves me right, well it does to me anyhow.  Laugh, I nearly bought a round!!!   Glad you like Torres, because I fess up to being a Chelsea man born and bred but very rarely get to see them now I''m up in beautiful Norfolk and Carrow Rd is my football stadium of choice, only problem I have is when we (Norwich) play the boys in blue.  It''s a difficult day for me a roller coaster of emotions however I do find a pint or two eases the turmoil.