I’ve mentioned my local newsagents and the football-based banter therein on these pages before, but please forgive me for doing so again.
On entering said premises to buy my usual Sunday red-top, I was greeted by Lowey the proprietor, resplendent in It Ain’t Half Hot Mum shorts and a pair of Bethlehem Bouncers. A chiropodist could have focused on the corns and bunions for hours. ‘It’s the hottest day of the year’ he said, as if that was a justifiable excuse for looking like a reject from the Chas and Dave battalion of the Desert Rats.
His wife shrugged her shoulders. ‘He always looks like that when he thinks it’s summer’ she said, with no hint of an indulgent smile.
There followed the recollection of the comments of a regular customer called Mike, who had left the shop a little while before my arrival.
‘I was up the shed with my new radio listening to the game. I kept tapping it and moving the aerial about every couple of minutes’, he had said. ‘I’m taking the bloody thing back to Argos because it doesn’t work. And it tells lies’.
I wasn’t up the shed, I was in the Barclay. And I struggled to believe it also.
Maybe Reading – and it looked like it – knew they were secure in the play-offs and didn’t want to risk anybody or anything.
But, even if that’s taken as a given, we had eleven players out there who cut them to ribbons. Alex Pritchard’s first strike was as sublime as Wes scoring while squirming around on his butt was ridiculous.
I’ve heard the “they’re playing for their jobs” line. I’m not sure. I’d like to think they just thoroughly enjoyed themselves now they know the season is over. Who exactly was on the beach: us or Reading?
The latter will have to return home via Sleazyjet or whoever for a play-off semi against (possibly) Leeds. Jaap Stam wrote the match off afterwards, but he’s got work to do for sure.
As to what Stuart Webber might make of it, hopefully he’ll treat it as the one-off it was but also realise what talent we have when the players can be bothered and the coach (in this case Alan Irvine) gives them free rein – as he obviously did.
Pritchard was magnificent and, at times, Wes took the proverbial juice.
If we fend off the rumoured approach from Brighton, we could – and probably should – build next season around him. Webber will have his own views on that but I hope he agrees with me.
Of course, we could have had double figures. Quite literally as El-Habsi made a couple of cracking saves in the second half.
So, what does this actually mean for the future?
Well, it shows that the starting eleven are interested. To a man.
Russell Martin has had so much stick – some warranted, some not – this season, but all of us in the Barclay could see how much his goal meant to him. I really feel we should retain him in some capacity; maybe as Press Officer if nothing else. Actually that is almost a serious comment – a Press Officer/trainee coach. Now that would be a first for football!
Of course, all the cynics were saying “too little, too late”. But I disagree.
Couple that performance yesterday with the Steve Stone-Stuart Webber axis and the new Head Coach to come in – increasingly likely to be Uwe Rosler, I’ve laid my neck on the block – plus the young talent that’s floating around at the club just slightly under the radar and I can see more than a bit of light at the end of the NCFC tunnel.
Of course, I’d love to end with a special mention of Lewis Grabban, but I think the Lower Barclay and the Snakepit did it for me.
And as for Mike’s radio: well, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
That was more than needed for everyone. These players can only be bothered as a cohesive unit when their future is uncertain, instead of the cosy little money earning sofa Delia likes to plump the cushions of twice daily. Therein lies the answer for our model going forward. Certainty to everyone and no one, depending on your attitude and application. Standard stuff for a club.
#1 Jeff: Good to see you’re looking to the future as well. We all collectively have to.
As one of my favourite bands, Manic Street Preachers, said: “What’s the point in looking back, when all you see is more and more junk”.
That’s why we have to try and erase this p. poor season from our memories.
I truly believe the new green shoots are going to come through this time around. 2017-18 will be a vital and I hope successful season.
I agree Martin, if it is only one game, the real test will be the next away game. I on’t expect us to hammer Leeds or Preston away, but to put up anything close to the Cardiff grind will satisfy me. People keep talking about a massive cull, I do not see that being case. Yes some will be moved on, those who should have gone at the beginning of the season at least.
Hold on to Pritchard at all costs, but the lights of the Premiership may be a tad to strong, after all that is why he turned his car round in the first place, to come here.
But getting this Head Coach in who will get the best out of these players plus add a few in strategic positions and I believe we will be good to go. I do wonder if there is some other coach out there, I am unsure of Rosler, he maybe use to that set up of being a head coach, I just have this big question mark, what happened at Brentford, Wigan forget Leeds takes a special sort to manage there. nobody else came in for him so now working in L2 something doesn’t sit right.
The first signs of a spindly new shoot are there if you want to see them
Of course it´s too little too late, and anyone who can´t see that, just hasn´t been following. We could (and would have to) win our last 5 games, all by 5-0,(which I dare say, even the most ardent City fan would have trouble envisaging) and we still wouldn´t end in the play-offs, or are you suggesting that Huddersfield won´t pick up 2 more pts, Reading, 3 more, Leeds, 4 more, and Sheff W, 7 more pts from their remaining games, and that´s without considering what Preston, Fulham or Derby might get up to, who´re all still in the mix.
All Saturday did, was show exactly what we´ve been missing all season, and if they´d pulled their fingers out, and played like that for 30-odd games out of the 40, instead of 3, we might really have had something worth talking about, instead of having to get excíted about one freak performance. As it is, all that game proved, is that we still need to clear out about half to three-quarters of the current squad, start to rebuild and take it from there. You can hire and fire as many managers/coaches as you like, but the ultimate responsibility for success, lies with those who pull on the yellow shirt, and this lot have shown themselves to be sadly inadequate, and one freak performance doesn´t change that.
Saturday was indeed a delight, but got me thinking. Penalty aside, only one of our goals was scored by a striker. Exactly the same as when we demolished Forest and Brentford. Our best performances of the season relied upon the midfield attacking in heavy support of our lone (often forlorn striker). Nothing wrong with that – especially when the fear of losing has been removed.
We have very good players. Against Villa and Huddersfield, although we missed Pinto and Dijks, it was looking like our play-off hopes were being re-ignited – right up until we concede. The fear of losing again seemed to rob the team of it’s will to live.
Back to Costa Colney. I have been saying for 2 years now that our players are not fit. Come the 80th minute of every match, our players look exhausted. AN always said it was because they had given their all. Yet the stats indicate that our lads cover just the same grass as our opponents. The season end stats throw more light: 70% of our goals scored this season have come in the first 60 minutes; and 60% of our goals conceded have come in the last 30 minutes. Tired legs? And who can forget the famous capitulations in the closing minutes against Newcastle and Liverpool?
So, have we been playing an inflexible system that fails unless we score early goals? A system that exhausts the players or are the players simply not fit? Either way, it’s cost us dearly when the talent at our disposal should have seen us stay in the Prem last season, or at least make an instant return this season.
I suspect our problem is not entirely with the board, it’s at Colney. Webber knows football. Things should change noticeably, especially if we can poach Rosler, albeit a little too late for this term.
OTBC
Costa Colney (??) Azores Canary #5…..it’s something I’ve suspected for months. So many of our guys have seemed so unfit for so long – as cruelly exposed by Huddersfield twice. I don’t think we’ll have to wait too long to find who our head coach is to be. Reading between the lines from quotes on Friday and Saturday gave me the impression that the powers that be know who it is, but have to wait for the season to finish as he is currently in employment….
O T B C
As I was driving in Paralimni last week I stopped at the traffic lights next to a large gym and Mrs Cyprus said look there is a slogan that could be just right for our team. “Hard work will beat talent if talent doesn’t work hard!”
#3 Sixties BB: Yes I agree Rosler might not be the perfect fit, but the planets and stars seem to be in alignment on this one.
I could well be wrong – and I often am – but it’s the logical thing to happen from my perspective just now.
I am definitely confident that Webber’s objective is currently in employment and will not be here until the season’s dust has settled.
#4 George: I have made no secret of the fact that I believed our season was over in February. Of course we can’t scrape into the play-offs now, but as for too little too late?
Probably clumsily worded on my part, but Saturday’s performance does serve to show we can do a phoenix job next season.
At least – and at last – they are addressing some fundamental issues and that gives me hope.
It was my daughter’s third birthday this weekend. She was born the day Chris Hughton was sacked. I can now barely imagine life before her. These three years have been a very tangible period in my life. It seems like an age.
For that period we have been largely rubbish. Yes Alex Neil gave us an exhilarating half season. But, mostly it’s been rubbish. Then I remember that Hughton’s two years were largely rubbish too (except for that brief ‘run’).
So for five long years we’ve rubbish. One game, albeit a remarkable one, doesn’t change the fact all these “great” players we have, have given us half a decade of dross. That even includes many players considered our brightest and best. They’ve been present through it all.
We’re 9 points off of the absolute bare minimum most people would have accepted at the start of the season. If Webber is fooled by that result, and let’s hope he’s not, we’re in real trouble.
#5 Azores: Yes, fitness does seem to be an issue. I don’t believe it will be next season – the early morning bugle call (revaille?) has already been sounded with the appointment of Stuart Webber.
#6 John: I feel you are correct, as I’ve alluded to. I don’t KNOW it will be Rosler, but I do know the appointee is currently in work – just like you do:-)
#7 Cyprus: I couldn’t possibly argue with that!
#8 Mr. Penney – well as next year will certainly be the first with our new structure,and the first with a new Head Coach, and in all probability a rebuilding of the squad, I can easily envisage a flap of the chicken, but whether we´ll also see a flight of the phoenix remains to be seen. And as for some of you already appointing Rosler, that seems rather premature, and a bit like putting two and two together with a lot of wishful thinking, and making ten!
Irvine has repeatedly said he didn’t come to city to take AN’s position as manager well that post nolonger exsist in the new system.
It could be double talk hoping that the next few games goes well and he gets asked to carry on next season, or he could just be hoping that AN calls him ans says not a problem if you are offered said position take it.
Irvine would be a better option than Rosler, but my preferred choice would be Phelan who isn’t mentioned anywhere else.