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barny bowl

Over hype about the wigan game

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Im sorry to dampen everyone''s spirits but i just feel like we have to take a step back into proportion about the result yesterday. I went to the game yesterday and i have to say i cant understand why everyone is so elated about the performance. Yes wigan are a premiership side but a) they still have 2 weeks left of pre-season whereas we have finished so there is a distinct difference in fitness to our advantage b) they completely changed their team at half time whereas we kept it exactly the same meaning we could carry momentum and c) they have a brand new manager arrived in the summer who is still trying to change the way wigan play to Martinez''s ''proper'' football. This may sound like me being grumpy and defending wigan a hell of a lot but on reading the other posts on this board i just wanted to really put things into perspective as i feel everyone is getting carried away.  Yes we played ok but ok being the word. We only had 3 shots the whole game i can remember, which we scored from, but still limited amount of opportunities. Also the system really did not work. It gave hoolahan the space required to work his trickery but it also totally failed with martin and cody, and before everyone slates me, it did fail with martin with the way the system worked. Martin was playing left mid and with this role comes responsibilities of staying wide, crossing and tracking back. However i never saw martin once do any of these, which made us as a team structurally very one sided. Martin although did support Holt well in the box, but still i would prefer to see an orthodox 4-4-2 system to provide balance. Hoolihan also looked just as effective in the last 20 minutes when he went to play on the left hand side when Adeyemi and Gill came on. Lastly, i cannot understand how everyone is saying drury was back to his reliable best, was i watching the same game? He isnt a very good footballer, and i feel sorry for him because he is a fans favourite but i feel he has lost it due to the prolonged rest he had because of injury. Every single one of Wigan''s attacks came down their right hand side attacking drury, and every single time they beat him and whipped a cross in. N''Zogbia looked like Wigan''s best player by a mile and he was attacking drury. The only time drury got the better of his man was in the last 10 minutes against de ridder, but this is still not good enough. Yes they are premiership opposition but the lad cant even pass a ball. I really dont understand why he has to play it long every single time, its like he has blinkered vision which stops him from doing a 5 yard pass. This resulted in us losing the ball numerous times yesterday much to my annoyance. Anyway sorry to dampen everyones spirits because all in all it was a solid pre-season performance with highlights and lowlights, but i just feel like everyone is getting carried away. I just cant wait for the new season to start so we can see the boys play in a competitive game, then will be the test. I just hope Wiggins is fit soon...

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[quote user="barny bowl"]Im sorry to dampen everyone''s spirits but i just feel like we have to take a step back into proportion about the result yesterday. I went to the game yesterday and i have to say i cant understand why everyone is so elated about the performance. Yes wigan are a premiership side but a) they still have 2 weeks left of pre-season whereas we have finished so there is a distinct difference in fitness to our advantage b) they completely changed their team at half time whereas we kept it exactly the same meaning we could carry momentum and c) they have a brand new manager arrived in the summer who is still trying to change the way wigan play to Martinez''s ''proper'' football. This may sound like me being grumpy and defending wigan a hell of a lot but on reading the other posts on this board i just wanted to really put things into perspective as i feel everyone is getting carried away.  Yes we played ok but ok being the word. We only had 3 shots the whole game i can remember, which we scored from, but still limited amount of opportunities. Also the system really did not work. It gave hoolahan the space required to work his trickery but it also totally failed with martin and cody, and before everyone slates me, it did fail with martin with the way the system worked. Martin was playing left mid and with this role comes responsibilities of staying wide, crossing and tracking back. However i never saw martin once do any of these, which made us as a team structurally very one sided. Martin although did support Holt well in the box, but still i would prefer to see an orthodox 4-4-2 system to provide balance. Hoolihan also looked just as effective in the last 20 minutes when he went to play on the left hand side when Adeyemi and Gill came on. Lastly, i cannot understand how everyone is saying drury was back to his reliable best, was i watching the same game? He isnt a very good footballer, and i feel sorry for him because he is a fans favourite but i feel he has lost it due to the prolonged rest he had because of injury. Every single one of Wigan''s attacks came down their right hand side attacking drury, and every single time they beat him and whipped a cross in. N''Zogbia looked like Wigan''s best player by a mile and he was attacking drury. The only time drury got the better of his man was in the last 10 minutes against de ridder, but this is still not good enough. Yes they are premiership opposition but the lad cant even pass a ball. I really dont understand why he has to play it long every single time, its like he has blinkered vision which stops him from doing a 5 yard pass. This resulted in us losing the ball numerous times yesterday much to my annoyance. Anyway sorry to dampen everyones spirits because all in all it was a solid pre-season performance with highlights and lowlights, but i just feel like everyone is getting carried away. I just cant wait for the new season to start so we can see the boys play in a competitive game, then will be the test. I just hope Wiggins is fit soon... [/quote]oh, shut the f**k up..we played brilliant, we won the game, yes there were mistakes but we learn from them - no match is perfect.

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[quote user="barny bowl"]Im sorry to dampen everyone''s spirits but i just feel like we have to take a step back into proportion about the result yesterday. I went to the game yesterday and i have to say i cant understand why everyone is so elated about the performance. Yes wigan are a premiership side but a) they still have 2 weeks left of pre-season whereas we have finished so there is a distinct difference in fitness to our advantage b) they completely changed their team at half time whereas we kept it exactly the same meaning we could carry momentum and c) they have a brand new manager arrived in the summer who is still trying to change the way wigan play to Martinez''s ''proper'' football. This may sound like me being grumpy and defending wigan a hell of a lot but on reading the other posts on this board i just wanted to really put things into perspective as i feel everyone is getting carried away.  Yes we played ok but ok being the word. We only had 3 shots the whole game i can remember, which we scored from, but still limited amount of opportunities. Also the system really did not work. It gave hoolahan the space required to work his trickery but it also totally failed with martin and cody, and before everyone slates me, it did fail with martin with the way the system worked. Martin was playing left mid and with this role comes responsibilities of staying wide, crossing and tracking back. However i never saw martin once do any of these, which made us as a team structurally very one sided. Martin although did support Holt well in the box, but still i would prefer to see an orthodox 4-4-2 system to provide balance. Hoolihan also looked just as effective in the last 20 minutes when he went to play on the left hand side when Adeyemi and Gill came on. Lastly, i cannot understand how everyone is saying drury was back to his reliable best, was i watching the same game? He isnt a very good footballer, and i feel sorry for him because he is a fans favourite but i feel he has lost it due to the prolonged rest he had because of injury. Every single one of Wigan''s attacks came down their right hand side attacking drury, and every single time they beat him and whipped a cross in. N''Zogbia looked like Wigan''s best player by a mile and he was attacking drury. The only time drury got the better of his man was in the last 10 minutes against de ridder, but this is still not good enough. Yes they are premiership opposition but the lad cant even pass a ball. I really dont understand why he has to play it long every single time, its like he has blinkered vision which stops him from doing a 5 yard pass. This resulted in us losing the ball numerous times yesterday much to my annoyance. Anyway sorry to dampen everyones spirits because all in all it was a solid pre-season performance with highlights and lowlights, but i just feel like everyone is getting carried away. I just cant wait for the new season to start so we can see the boys play in a competitive game, then will be the test. I just hope Wiggins is fit soon...
[/quote]

Idiot, you mention fitness wasn''t it wigan that smashed preston 4-1? And prestons pre-season is also ended.... We played well and thats that.

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[quote user="barny bowl"]Im sorry to dampen everyone''s spirits but i just feel like we have to take a step back into proportion about the result yesterday. I went to the game yesterday and i have to say i cant understand why everyone is so elated about the performance. Yes wigan are a premiership side but a) they still have 2 weeks left of pre-season whereas we have finished so there is a distinct difference in fitness to our advantage b) they completely changed their team at half time whereas we kept it exactly the same meaning we could carry momentum and c) they have a brand new manager arrived in the summer who is still trying to change the way wigan play to Martinez''s ''proper'' football. This may sound like me being grumpy and defending wigan a hell of a lot but on reading the other posts on this board i just wanted to really put things into perspective as i feel everyone is getting carried away.  Yes we played ok but ok being the word. We only had 3 shots the whole game i can remember, which we scored from, but still limited amount of opportunities. Also the system really did not work. It gave hoolahan the space required to work his trickery but it also totally failed with martin and cody, and before everyone slates me, it did fail with martin with the way the system worked. Martin was playing left mid and with this role comes responsibilities of staying wide, crossing and tracking back. However i never saw martin once do any of these, which made us as a team structurally very one sided. Martin although did support Holt well in the box, but still i would prefer to see an orthodox 4-4-2 system to provide balance. Hoolihan also looked just as effective in the last 20 minutes when he went to play on the left hand side when Adeyemi and Gill came on. Lastly, i cannot understand how everyone is saying drury was back to his reliable best, was i watching the same game? He isnt a very good footballer, and i feel sorry for him because he is a fans favourite but i feel he has lost it due to the prolonged rest he had because of injury. Every single one of Wigan''s attacks came down their right hand side attacking drury, and every single time they beat him and whipped a cross in. N''Zogbia looked like Wigan''s best player by a mile and he was attacking drury. The only time drury got the better of his man was in the last 10 minutes against de ridder, but this is still not good enough. Yes they are premiership opposition but the lad cant even pass a ball. I really dont understand why he has to play it long every single time, its like he has blinkered vision which stops him from doing a 5 yard pass. This resulted in us losing the ball numerous times yesterday much to my annoyance. Anyway sorry to dampen everyones spirits because all in all it was a solid pre-season performance with highlights and lowlights, but i just feel like everyone is getting carried away. I just cant wait for the new season to start so we can see the boys play in a competitive game, then will be the test. I just hope Wiggins is fit soon... [/quote]They have been in pre season training for a month now, their fitness levels would be near peak. Their side has had a season to gel with only a few signings to mix in, our team was almost completely new so them changing it at half time, would still mean their players know how they play with each other better than us.These players have only been playing for Gunn (mostly) for a few weeks so we are really in the same pot as Wigan.You don''t seem to know much about the game, all you seem to want to do is bash the players, learn about the game, then come back and post.  Drury was one of the best players on the pitch, defensibly solid, can remember only one time he was caught out of position and pushed up well with some nice link up play.

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Some interesting points there barny, although can''tagree with many of them.

Wigan are a only week behind us in preparation so you would expect thier fitness levels to be the equal of ours,after all it didn''t stop them crushing a decent PNE side last week.  Out of interest which of their two teams did you think were the better side? Personally I thought they stepped up a gear after the break and looked as if they had a few players playing for a starting place once the season starts.

The biggest plus for me yesterday was we looked to have a team who were prepard to pass the ball and in most cases looked comfortable in possesion.

Also Otsemobor  attacking their full back in a way I havn''t seen for a while. The biggest negatives for me were the way our two full backs gave their wide men far too much space (Same as last season) and the inbalance in attack having to accomodate Hoolahan in the free role. I believe we will have to either go with a 4 3 3 with Hoolahan the wide left sided attacking player or 4 4 1 1 with a lone sriker and Hooly just behind. If we take this option we need genuine midfileders and not one of your strkers in midfield.

Have to say though after yesterdays peformance on the back of Palace I''m a hell of a lot more optomistic than you sound

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Despite the fact they changed their team in the 2nd half, there were alot of good players in there - including 2 from Swansea that helped whoop our ass''es last season (Gomez & Scotland). Personally i thought it was one of the best Norwich performances i''ve seen for a while, the team knew what their positions were and worked well together - and as Gunny said, had character to come back twice from being a goal down. Those facts alone are positives for the forthcoming season

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I thought i would get this reaction lol. I just read back my post and i have to admit i must have had a bit of red mist because i sound incredibly displeased when in fact im extremely happy with our pre-season. The point i was trying to make was that some posts i find are very unrealistic. I understand every fan has their own opinions and i respect this, just i felt that some parts of our game yesterday were still not right considering that was our last pre-season game. To highlight the biggest point i wanted to comment on was the formation. I have to believe that due to us playing this formation in our last warm up game that gunny must have serious plans to actually use this against colchester. If he did i would still encourage the team and not slate gunny until this failed, but im sure it would be the wrong decision. Hoolihan can still have space on the left side whilst also getting enough ball to see him show some of his magic. I never mean to sound so negative, i love football and i want to see us do well, just i still see flaws in a lot of our game. And to comment on the question you asked, i believe wigan were by far the best in the first half yesterday, completely controlling the tempo and keeping the ball nicely, although not always dangerous. However the response to wigan''s second goal by us was truly amazing. Cant fault the boys effort in the second half, and a special mention has to go to otsemobor who played unbelievably well considering the terrible season he just had. I dont rate him but if he keeps this up he could be the suprise package of the season!

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[quote user="jbghost"]

Some interesting points there barny, although can''tagree with many of them.

Wigan are a only week behind us in preparation so you would expect thier fitness levels to be the equal of ours,after all it didn''t stop them crushing a decent PNE side last week.  Out of interest which of their two teams did you think were the better side? Personally I thought they stepped up a gear after the break and looked as if they had a few players playing for a starting place once the season starts.

The biggest plus for me yesterday was we looked to have a team who were prepard to pass the ball and in most cases looked comfortable in possesion.

Also Otsemobor  attacking their full back in a way I havn''t seen for a while. The biggest negatives for me were the way our two full backs gave their wide men far too much space (Same as last season) and the inbalance in attack having to accomodate Hoolahan in the free role. I believe we will have to either go with a 4 3 3 with Hoolahan the wide left sided attacking player or 4 4 1 1 with a lone sriker and Hooly just behind. If we take this option we need genuine midfileders and not one of your strkers in midfield.

Have to say though after yesterdays peformance on the back of Palace I''m a hell of a lot more optomistic than you sound

[/quote]

For me too. I know on occasion it''ll be our undoing, but our looking to pass out from the back yesterday (at times under pressure, keeping possession-& not relinquishing it cheaply) was a joy to behold after some of the stuff we''ve had to watch the past few seasons. I know it''s too soon to judge, but the early signs are very encouraging. They do seem to be playing more as a team. Really like OTJ & Whaley, and Holt''s dogged persistence.

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[quote user="barny bowl"]I thought i would get this reaction lol. I just read back my post and i have to admit i must have had a bit of red mist because i sound incredibly displeased when in fact im extremely happy with our pre-season. The point i was trying to make was that some posts i find are very unrealistic. I understand every fan has their own opinions and i respect this, just i felt that some parts of our game yesterday were still not right considering that was our last pre-season game. To highlight the biggest point i wanted to comment on was the formation. I have to believe that due to us playing this formation in our last warm up game that gunny must have serious plans to actually use this against colchester. If he did i would still encourage the team and not slate gunny until this failed, but im sure it would be the wrong decision. Hoolihan can still have space on the left side whilst also getting enough ball to see him show some of his magic. I never mean to sound so negative, i love football and i want to see us do well, just i still see flaws in a lot of our game. And to comment on the question you asked, i believe wigan were by far the best in the first half yesterday, completely controlling the tempo and keeping the ball nicely, although not always dangerous. However the response to wigan''s second goal by us was truly amazing. Cant fault the boys effort in the second half, and a special mention has to go to otsemobor who played unbelievably well considering the terrible season he just had. I dont rate him but if he keeps this up he could be the suprise package of the season![/quote]I don''t think we will use that system against Colchester too, whilst it worked well yesterday, that was a friendly and whilst it was a good result, that system would be phased out in a more competitive match, so I agree with your second post a lot more that your first.I think Hoolahan needs to push up more, he was too often dropping back into the middle and drifting across which pulled Martin back to left midfield, which is not his best position by far, he needs to be running into the back late onto balls to be effective.  Also Spillane will not (probably) be at CB and will be replaced by Askou I would have thought. 

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I really think there are Norwich fans out there who want nothing more than to see us in the Blue Square so they can dance round thier little pagan fire in thier soiled Y-Fronts singing "We told you so , We told you so , We told you so "

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[quote user="lucythomas"]can we not enjoy the wins when they come otbc[/quote]That really is asking a lot. Nowadays so much focuses on the next match, "we''ll see what happens next week" or if we win then the team we played are either not fit or they had an off day.

We played well and beat a team that play in Prem League and both teams were trying. Enjoy the win?. As I say you are asking a lot of some.

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It would be fractionally less tedious if you had spent a much time on punctuation as you had pi55ing on the bonfire of a very good performance yesterday.

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This has been an interesting thread. Some good points made whatever the stand point.

I''m sure that Gunn , the management team and players will be well aware that the serious stuff begins on Saturday.

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[quote user="barny bowl"]Im sorry to dampen everyone''s spirits but i just feel like we have to take a step back into proportion about the result yesterday. I went to the game yesterday and i have to say i cant understand why everyone is so elated about the performance. Yes wigan are a premiership side but a) they still have 2 weeks left of pre-season whereas we have finished so there is a distinct difference in fitness to our advantage b) they completely changed their team at half time whereas we kept it exactly the same meaning we could carry momentum and c) they have a brand new manager arrived in the summer who is still trying to change the way wigan play to Martinez''s ''proper'' football. This may sound like me being grumpy and defending wigan a hell of a lot but on reading the other posts on this board i just wanted to really put things into perspective as i feel everyone is getting carried away.  Yes we played ok but ok being the word. We only had 3 shots the whole game i can remember, which we scored from, but still limited amount of opportunities. Also the system really did not work. It gave hoolahan the space required to work his trickery but it also totally failed with martin and cody, and before everyone slates me, it did fail with martin with the way the system worked. Martin was playing left mid and with this role comes responsibilities of staying wide, crossing and tracking back. However i never saw martin once do any of these, which made us as a team structurally very one sided. Martin although did support Holt well in the box, but still i would prefer to see an orthodox 4-4-2 system to provide balance. Hoolihan also looked just as effective in the last 20 minutes when he went to play on the left hand side when Adeyemi and Gill came on. Lastly, i cannot understand how everyone is saying drury was back to his reliable best, was i watching the same game? He isnt a very good footballer, and i feel sorry for him because he is a fans favourite but i feel he has lost it due to the prolonged rest he had because of injury. Every single one of Wigan''s attacks came down their right hand side attacking drury, and every single time they beat him and whipped a cross in. N''Zogbia looked like Wigan''s best player by a mile and he was attacking drury. The only time drury got the better of his man was in the last 10 minutes against de ridder, but this is still not good enough. Yes they are premiership opposition but the lad cant even pass a ball. I really dont understand why he has to play it long every single time, its like he has blinkered vision which stops him from doing a 5 yard pass. This resulted in us losing the ball numerous times yesterday much to my annoyance. Anyway sorry to dampen everyones spirits because all in all it was a solid pre-season performance with highlights and lowlights, but i just feel like everyone is getting carried away. I just cant wait for the new season to start so we can see the boys play in a competitive game, then will be the test. I just hope Wiggins is fit soon... [/quote]

premiership.......league 1!! enough said!

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regarding the system, Gunn said on SSN that he employed a different approach to the game..........similar to the one we used versus Swansea last season. Martinez likes to pass the ball and I think we played the formation pretty well, if you look at Wigans goals, it wasn''t the system so much as BAD defending.

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Yep he used a formation to deal with the opposition-and we won. Which is what the aim of every game of football is be it a friendly or league/cup. Take one game at at time, celebrate this victory against premiership opposition and then move on to saturdays game.

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[quote user="barny bowl"]Im sorry to dampen everyone''s spirits but i just feel like we have to take a step back into proportion about the result yesterday. I went to the game yesterday and i have to say i cant understand why everyone is so elated about the performance. Yes wigan are a premiership side but a) they still have 2 weeks left of pre-season whereas we have finished so there is a distinct difference in fitness to our advantage b) they completely changed their team at half time whereas we kept it exactly the same meaning we could carry momentum and c) they have a brand new manager arrived in the summer who is still trying to change the way wigan play to Martinez''s ''proper'' football. This may sound like me being grumpy and defending wigan a hell of a lot but on reading the other posts on this board i just wanted to really put things into perspective as i feel everyone is getting carried away.  Yes we played ok but ok being the word. We only had 3 shots the whole game i can remember, which we scored from, but still limited amount of opportunities. Also the system really did not work. It gave hoolahan the space required to work his trickery but it also totally failed with martin and cody, and before everyone slates me, it did fail with martin with the way the system worked. Martin was playing left mid and with this role comes responsibilities of staying wide, crossing and tracking back. However i never saw martin once do any of these, which made us as a team structurally very one sided. Martin although did support Holt well in the box, but still i would prefer to see an orthodox 4-4-2 system to provide balance. Hoolihan also looked just as effective in the last 20 minutes when he went to play on the left hand side when Adeyemi and Gill came on. Lastly, i cannot understand how everyone is saying drury was back to his reliable best, was i watching the same game? He isnt a very good footballer, and i feel sorry for him because he is a fans favourite but i feel he has lost it due to the prolonged rest he had because of injury. Every single one of Wigan''s attacks came down their right hand side attacking drury, and every single time they beat him and whipped a cross in. N''Zogbia looked like Wigan''s best player by a mile and he was attacking drury. The only time drury got the better of his man was in the last 10 minutes against de ridder, but this is still not good enough. Yes they are premiership opposition but the lad cant even pass a ball. I really dont understand why he has to play it long every single time, its like he has blinkered vision which stops him from doing a 5 yard pass. This resulted in us losing the ball numerous times yesterday much to my annoyance. Anyway sorry to dampen everyones spirits because all in all it was a solid pre-season performance with highlights and lowlights, but i just feel like everyone is getting carried away. I just cant wait for the new season to start so we can see the boys play in a competitive game, then will be the test. I just hope Wiggins is fit soon... [/quote]Absolute bollocks.I remember clapping an awful lot every time Drury blocked a cross or snuffed out the danger. They did get a few in but i do remember thinking during the game that Drury looked back to his best and that provided he stays fit Wiggins will be on the bench.Do you know anything about football at all?

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Any attack that beat him was becuase he had to do Martins work as well, who kept getting done on the inside in the first half by Melchiot

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Some nice points but were you really watching the game, 3 shots and 3 goals -what about Martins shot, Holts header and Whaleys great effort

I really liked the formation that Gunn employed which was really avery flexible 4-5-1 with no hint of being negative

The hard work and defending back of the excellent Martin and Whaley turned it into what some people might think was 4-3-3. You certainly need some fit players to play well in this formation

Whaley was the for me the man of the match , best performance for a newcomer over many seasons - please don''t get injured

Afer a slow start Hoolahan played well, but occassionally hangs on to the ball for too long - gave away the first goal

The defence played really well and criticism of the full backs is , to me unjustified

Holt seemed to lack mobility and looked to be puffing after 5 minutes - don''t think you''ll get to many runs down channels from him but his strength and heading ability will give him plenty of goals.

The overall midfield gave me problems, need to see more of Hughes, TJ, Gill and Adeyemi -TJ in the holding roll but not sure of the creative skills of the others, apart from Hoolahan - great big hole if Gunn lets Hoolahan go - money talks (bullshit) he is vital to the shape of the team

(hope this does not mean they are thinking of keeping Russell and letting Hoolahan go)

It was great to see City passing it from the back and keeping possession - I remember too many games with long balls from the Back ( and goalkeeper) which gave away possessioni

Am I adding to any hype . The answer is no - there is a lot of ability in the current side. The fitness levels are in need of some work and there is plenty of room for the side to fully gel

I would like Gunn to tell me that they are on full days training for the next month with free kick routines being improved rather than golf handicaps

Look forward to seeing the Exeter and Brentford games and I hope thay don''t tinker with formations

Play one style and make it work!!

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