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Dave

Disappointing pre season

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Obviously anything has got to be better than last years tour fiasco but this pre season isnt going to bring in the crowds.

Normally we have a couple of semi decent foreign opponents at home or a team in the division above (not possible i know)

I can sort of understand the west ham game but it seems 5 years too late or 20 too early!

Brentford at home is an odd choice normally the higher team is away.

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Not much point playing foreign opponents when the British game is played at a high tempo.  Our players need match sharpness for Premier League fixtures, not Serie A walkathons.
Brentford did pretty well against us last season, suspect they will give us a good test too.
Bringing in the crowds won''t be an issue, have you seen our season ticket sales?
Don''t see the problem here, sorry.

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West Ham will be right in the middle of a set of Europa league qualification games so the squad they send I imagine will be mostly fringe players and youngsters.

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[quote user="Dave"]Obviously anything has got to be better than last years tour fiasco but this pre season isnt going to bring in the crowds.

Normally we have a couple of semi decent foreign opponents at home or a team in the division above (not possible i know)

I can sort of understand the west ham game but it seems 5 years too late or 20 too early!

Brentford at home is an odd choice normally the higher team is away.[/quote]In footballing terms, which are the only ones that matter, I think this is wrong in pretty much every respect. The foreign teams we have played at home almost invariably are on tour and some weeks away from the start of their season, and tend to play a couple of games in two or three days, so split into two their not yet fully-fit squad. By contrast Brentford will be only a week away from the start of the season, like us, and should provide a real test.

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Spot on Purple!

 

But I think Dave was worrying about bringing in the crowds. They''re not announcing it yet but I understand for the Chelsea home game priority will be given to members who have a stub from the Brentford game. Another masterstroke from McNally......

 

 

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anyone that saw the Celta Vigo game last preseason couldnt question the quality or intensity of opposition, they gave us the run around in the second half.

the Brentford fixture is an odd one, and in a way an uncomfortable one to have as the last one before the big k.o, its almost a hiding to nothing, win it and people will question how big a test it was and the word "undercooked" will be murmered. Lose it , a week before the season starts, wouldnt exactly have us heading into a premier league season in the best of shape?

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To be honest though, pre-season is purely about getting fitness. I''ve watching a fair few of the foreign friendlies over that last ten years, Inter Milan and Ajax springing to mind. The bigger clubs barely get out of second gear, and rarely go for the kill.If anything, the players who play the best are invariably on their way out. I can remember storming performances from Adam Drury, Chris Martin and James Vaughan. Drury being second choice left back at the time and barely getting a sniff past Tierney the next season, and Martin and Vaughan swiftly being moved on.

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We''ll go on a training camp in July with a couple of foreign tests won''t we? (though I kinda want the Scotland preseason now as i''m up there for work!)

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Brentford will be pivotal.

Lose, it''s obvious we are doomed and will be a huge disappointment. Win, well, it''s only Brentford.

And then there''ll be the League Cup...

And I''ve got it on good authority that we''ll have to play Man U, Man C, Arsenal, Chelsea, Spurs and all the others home and away too.

Anything less than 4 or 5 nil against the Bees and we might as well hand out white flags to replace those yellow and green ones.

Of course, on the other hand, we could treat it as an exercise to ensure we''re at peak fitness against a side that will be looking to kick on from a decent season last time around.

And what constitutes a "disappointing" pre-season? We were unbeaten under Gunn going into THAT Col U game weren''t we? With the likes of Simon Whaley looking reasonably useful?

It''s a friendly, it''s for experimentation and fitness. The fact that they''ll be at an advanced stage of their preparation too should be seen as a positive as opposed to playing a half-arsed effort from a European "giant" with weeks in hand.

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I can''t understand for the life of me how people aren''t exited about the Gall-stone fixture - it''s a proper local derby, ffs.

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[quote user="GJL Mid-Norfolk Canary"]anyone that saw the Celta Vigo game last preseason couldnt question the quality or intensity of opposition, they gave us the run around in the second half.

the Brentford fixture is an odd one, and in a way an uncomfortable one to have as the last one before the big k.o, its almost a hiding to nothing, win it and people will question how big a test it was and the word "undercooked" will be murmered. Lose it , a week before the season starts, wouldnt exactly have us heading into a premier league season in the best of shape?[/quote]Possibly so in that case, but it is a general risk with that kind of fixture that the foreign team is some way off full fitness and is a long way from the likely starting 11. Celta Vigo played Wolves the next day so presumably split the squad up between the two games. And our previous foreign game - the 5-1 win against Nice - didn''t sound like much of a test.

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Chris Hughton killed my enthusiasm for pre-season games - what a dogs dinner he used to produce!

Suspect Alex Neil will be much more on the case, so whoever we play should be a decent test...

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It is a bit weird that we have Brentford at home- usually the higher level team plays away from home. Also a bit gutting as Griffin Park is a great day out and would have been all over that one away.

As others have said there should be some good tests in there but I won''t be forking out for West Ham or Brentford at Carrow Road.

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lol loved the overreaction to last years pre-season

"It''s a fiasco!!" "Disaster!"

Lol, we were too after a couple of weeks

It''s not as important as people make it out to be. Nothing magical happens in Pre-season

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