Lawrenson and Nicholas

[Icecream Snow 761]

The "expert" Mark Lawrenson

“We know how well Teemu Pukki did in the Championship, but will he score enough in the Premier League? I don’t think so – I don’t think he will get 10 league goals this season. "

Four down, he only needs another six 😛

[sonyc 5,488]

Always feel comforted when Lawro speaks. Mainly because he is so often wrong. He really is a master of mis-judgement.

[Bonzo 198]

I’m not convinced that many of the pundits are particularly knowledgable about the promoted sides. 

A lot of so called pundits seem to do nothing more than to say the first thing that comes into their heads more often than not based on very scant knowledge about our team. 

Ultimately this helps us. Despite depleted defensive resources today we played magnificent football.

The level of performance was superb across the entire team and at moments reached the sublime.

Newcastle were poor by comparison. I’m sure they will perform better in the future but ultimately today will be a difficult day for them.

Their £40m striker will take time to adjust to English football. Their morale will be on the floor. Their fans seemingly expect champions league football. Plus they hate their owners and they hate their manager. There is no doubt the Geordies love their football and their club.

The reality however is that they are a yo yo club just like us. The contrast in their approach and expectations could not be more different to our own. Furthermore “United” could not be more of a misnomer. Today was a victory for our philosophy as much as our football. 

 

 

 

 

[Since 1980 27]

Spoke to a couple of Newcastle fans while walking back to my car. They expected us to beat them. Apparently their £40million striker was a done deal before Steve Bruce arrived. They full of praise for us, especially Teemu.

[Canary Wundaboy 1,358]

Their striker certainly didn't look £40mill.

[Drazen Muzinic 1,444]

2 minutes ago, Canary Wundaboy said:

Their striker certainly didn't look £40mill.

He didn't look 40 pence!

 

And decided he wanted out as soon as he realised it wasn't his day.

 

 

[WD40 720]

Knew Almiron wasn’t going to be the star, Charlie Nicholas. Lightweight. 

[Peanuts 150]

I do feel a bit sorry for Joelinton. It's got to be tough to come to the Premier League on a big money move and then straight into a poor looking side with all the responsibility for goals on his shoulders. It's not like he was really prolific or established as a top level goalscorer before this move. They looked like a bunch of journeyman today. No bottle and no fight.

On topic, Lawrenson is an ignorant dinosaur whose punditry belongs in an age where tactics consisted of getting the lads to "push up a bit" or "hold back a bit" and coaching consisted of walking up and down the side of the training pitch shouting "hit the target".

[Crafty Canary 495]

To be fair Charlie Nicholas was very complimentary about us when calling our game on Sky Sports yesterday.

[splendidrush 699]

Steve Nicol on ESPN, when asked about the Pukki hat-trick said, yeah, but he doesn't score classy goals, like a Robbie Fowler. 

Talk about getting your excuses in early.

[It's Character Forming 1,160]

8 minutes ago, splendidrush said:

Steve Nicol on ESPN, when asked about the Pukki hat-trick said, yeah, but he doesn't score classy goals, like a Robbie Fowler. 

Talk about getting your excuses in early.

Wow maybe he should watch some replays from yesterday! Robbie Fowler is definitely a comparison that come to mind for me.

[Making Plans 936]

The simple fact is that most of these "old" pundits don't understand us.

For them football is a numbers game where +/- £ spent = +/- success.

It is beyond their comprehension that a Club, that has spent SFA in comparison to everyone else, can survive and therefore they made their assumptions about us before a ball was kicked.

 

 

 

[Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man 3,777]

Neither of them are terribly optimistic about our chances again this week. 

Lawrenson comments about our weak defence and says we'll struggle away, going for a 2-0 West Ham win.

Nicholas is generally complimentary about us, but also has concerns over our defence and goes for West Ham to win 3-2.

Lawrenson has now predicted us to lose every week, whereas Nicholas' predictions see us on one point from a home draw with Chelsea.

[It's Character Forming 1,160]

It’s painfully obvious from the past few times we’ve been promoted that Lawrenson does zero research, he just relies on watching games when he’s commentating and what he sees for  MOTD. Hence he knows almost nothing about promoted teams unless they have recent Prem players and his assumption is our players won’t be good enough for the Prem otherwise a Prem team would have signed them already.

 

watching Pukki last season it was pretty clear he’s the sort of player who’ll give any defence problems - a clinical finisher , quick to to ball, loves to wonder around the pitch making it difficult to pick him up. If you play the sort of through balls he wants - which we emphatically do - he’ll thrive. But of course Lawro didn’t know that at the start of the season.

[Indy 3,283]

Lawro isright in his score line just wrong way round! 2-0 Norwich.

[Fiery Zac 1,066]

Odd prediction that a team that’s conceded 7 in 3 games, playing a team that’s scored 6 in 3 will suddenly keep a clean sheet. It’s almost as though he doesn’t know what he’s talking about and just randomly guessing

[Alex Moss 2,165]

I was thinking about this earlier, and really, is our defence ‘that’ leaky? Let’s judge it after a few more games, eh?

We’ve played 3 games, and 2 of those games have been against the Champions League winners and the Europa League winners. The other Premier League team, whom beat Spurs away, we battered, and the game was done long before they got their late injury time consolation.

The teams that scored 4 and 3 against us respectively - no one bats an eyelid when they score this amount of goals against other Premier League opposition, infact its a pretty common occurrence, even against other teams around the top 6 - are they leaky too? What makes US so ‘leaky’?

West Ham on the other hand, have played the Champions of England plus 2 lower teams and have only conceded 1 less at full defensive strength. Yet the pundits don’t ever mention this, you would think West Ham have got Baresi, Costacurta, Maldini et al at the back!

Given our respective opponents thus far, and that arguably we’ve not been at full strength defensively, I think it’s utterly ridiculous - I would argue that in the scheme of things we’re certainly no worse than West Ham defensively, and I hope we prove this tomorrow 🥊 

[Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man 3,777]

This week, Lawrenson comments on how good Pukki us but is worried about our defence. Predictable stuff, and a 2-0 win for Man City.

Nicholas goes into more detail but talks a lot of nonsense. Compliments Pukki and Farke's unwaivering commitment to his style of play, but then says Hanley couldn't even make the Scotland squad (he was injured you numpty and still is) and then has the nerve to sympathise with Man City because they have Laporte injured whilst not mentioning the fact that the injuries in our defence despite the fact they're a lot worse. He predicts Man City to win 6-2.

Edited September 14, 2019 by Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man

[Capt. Pants 4,195]

Not sure Lawrenson has really done his homework, as usual.

[Aggy 750]

 

1 hour ago, Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man said:

This week, Lawrenson comments on how good Pukki us but is worried about our defence. Predictable stuff, and a 2-0 win for Man City.

Nicholas goes into more detail but talks a lot of nonsense. Compliments Pukki and Farke's unwaivering commitment to his style of play, but then says Hanley couldn't even make the Scotland squad (he was injured you numpty and still is) and then has the nerve to sympathise with Man City because they have Laporte injured whilst not mentioning the fact that the injuries in our defence despite the fact they're a lot worse. He predicts Man City to win 6-2.

 

1 hour ago, Capt. Pants said:

Not sure Lawrenson has really done his homework, as usual.

Because it’ll be more than 2-0?

[Carra Rud 17]

Thought it was common knowledge that Mark Lawrenson is a total c*nt and anything hes mutters is thus irrelevant?

[Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man 3,777]

I see Lawrenson has been given his own thread this week as a result of his consistent predictions (six defeats out of six for us so far) so I'll just post Nicholas' prediction in here this week.

"Norwich are a good watch - they like to attack. Daniel Farke does not believe that injuries will change his philosophy. Teemu Pukki and Todd Cantwell are not a pair but they link up so well. It suits them both and gives a nice edge to Norwich on the counter-attack. Even with fit players, you do not know who they will play. Away from home is where the problems lie for me. They want to play on the front foot but cannot quite change it.

Ashley Barnes is delivering for Burnley and Chris Wood needs to start doing the same. Burnley have got their honesty back. They will be saying, 'This is how we set up and how we play, and this is why we are a Premier League team'. It will be a pretty comfortable afternoon for Burnley."

He, like Lawrenson, goes for 2-0 Burnley. At least Charlie has given has a point from our six matches.

If I'm being completely honest, I think we'll do well to get anything out of the game tomorrow, but I certainly don't think it will be comfortable for Burnley.

[Yellow Fever 3,736]

32 minutes ago, Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man said:

I see Lawrenson has been given his own thread this week as a result of his consistent predictions (six defeats out of six for us so far) so I'll just post Nicholas' prediction in here this week.

"Norwich are a good watch - they like to attack. Daniel Farke does not believe that injuries will change his philosophy. Teemu Pukki and Todd Cantwell are not a pair but they link up so well. It suits them both and gives a nice edge to Norwich on the counter-attack. Even with fit players, you do not know who they will play. Away from home is where the problems lie for me. They want to play on the front foot but cannot quite change it.

Ashley Barnes is delivering for Burnley and Chris Wood needs to start doing the same. Burnley have got their honesty back. They will be saying, 'This is how we set up and how we play, and this is why we are a Premier League team'. It will be a pretty comfortable afternoon for Burnley."

He, like Lawrenson, goes for 2-0 Burnley. At least Charlie has given has a point from our six matches.

If I'm being completely honest, I think we'll do well to get anything out of the game tomorrow, but I certainly don't think it will be comfortable for Burnley.

Actually I  think it just might be like last year - where we did even better away than at home for periods. We are very good on the counter hence home teams (or the top few) feel they have to come at us and get caught out ! Tough game whatever.

Edited September 20, 2019 by Yellow Fever

[splendidrush 699]

6 hours ago, Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man said:

 

"Norwich are a good watch - they like to attack. Daniel Farke does not believe that injuries will change his philosophy. 

All Teams 'like to attack '

How does he know what Farke believes?

Just a load of shpeel that makes him sound knowledgeable, that means nothing. 

[unique 434]

Unfortunately today’s result was called correctly by all the pundits, which sadly means we were all too predictable.

[splendidrush 699]

2 hours ago, unique said:

Unfortunately today’s result was called correctly by all the pundits, which sadly means we were all too predictable.

....... and last week they all got it wrong, massively wrong. 

[Aggy 750]

To be fair to the pundits, we are likely to be the underdogs in most games this season, still even now - yes we've beaten Man City but otherwise haven’t really had a great result yet. We’re a side without much premier league experience, with a lot of youngsters who haven’t got much experience in any division, and our wage bill/squad cost is tiny compared to pretty much every opponent. 

We’ve now also gone 13 games in all competitions without a clean sheet - so all it takes is for Pukki/us to have a slightly off day going forward and a win for the opposition is a fairly safe bet. 

Put all of that together and most weeks a loss for us is probably the “safe” prediction.

[Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man 3,777]

Lawro:

"Crystal Palace had been in total control last weekend but were left to rue a massive mistake by Joel Ward that handed Wolves a last-gasp equaliser.

Norwich, meanwhile, were out-played by Burnley and I see this as being a very similar test for the Canaries because Palace boss Roy Hodgson has a similar, forensic, approach to Clarets manager Sean Dyche.

Goals are the big problem for Palace - they are the joint-lowest scorers in the top-flight with four from six matches.

But apart from Watford, who conceded eight at Manchester City last week, Norwich have conceded more than every other team - so I think Hodgson's side will get some chances this time."

He goes for 2-1 Palace.

Charlie Nick:

"I have talked for a while about Norwich. They are a good watch, with goals in them, but are a mismatch at the back. There is an aura of unpredictability about them. Crystal Palace do not score a lot of goals, but then again they should have nicked it last week against Wolves. It is time for Wilfried Zaha to get going and get his finger out. Gary Cahill has improved them but they do not have the runners or bodies through midfield. Roy Hodgson's side should still have enough to come away from this one with three points, though."

He's plumped for 1-0 Palace.

 

Still no points from Lawrenson this season and just the one from Nicholas.

[CDMullins 436]

"Norwich, meanwhile, were out-played by Burnley"

FFS

[Aggy 750]

23 hours ago, CDMullins said:

"Norwich, meanwhile, were out-played by Burnley"

FFS

It’s not a million miles off is it? They could have scored a few, we had one or two half decent chances but I think it’s fair to say Burnley were well and truly in control for the large majority of the game.