Scratchmonkey wrote:


Oh shit, say it aint so. My old man's pal was heavily involved with all the "back to the Valley" stuff 20 odd years ago, what a shame it would be if they had to leave SE7 again. I really like the Addicks, great ground & fanbase.

Wheres this thread been hiding? I posted in t'other one, meh.

Anyhow, I'm mildly confident about our chances. We've got a good manager in place, and his recruitment looks to have addressed our shortcomings of last season. We've spent a little bit of cash, the signing of Proschwitz, a German 2nd division striker, for £2m is seen as a bit of a gamble, but if anything it's a sign that, after the ridiculous largesse of the previous owners, the club is on a relatively even financial keel.

As others have alluded to, it's a tough one to call this year.

swafuk wrote:


It's that suspension of disbelief for me...I mean I want my club to do well, to win their matches etc etc, but then inevitably that does mean that we'll end up in, what we've twice found out, is a very uncompetitive division for clubs of medium-level means. Certainly given the 99/2000 and 2006/7 seasons I'm much more disposed to the Championship, it regularly seems to defy expectations so is more interesting, and it's more competitive for us. The ideal is obviously the world that only ever inhabited my more lurid fantasies, where Watford suddenly produced a string of world-class Academy products and went up to the Premier League the 'right'(?) way, and went and won the bloody FA Cup (although ridiculously that's not far off the plot for When Saturday Comes), but yeah, we do need to deal in certain realities.

Anyway, onto the reality of things, Reading have secured a good player in Mariappa, though how he performs at the top level will be interesting. I hope he does well though. Loach has gone to Ipswich, and hopefully again, things will turn out right for him, he's had a hard year or two, but still has the potential to be a great keeper. We've not really signed anyone (on the pitch, anyway; the backroom staff are growing in number rapidly). Pre-season is indifferent with a win against Cork and a draw with Wealdstone.

What's all this about Charlton leaving The Valley anyway? That seems pretty drastic and unnecessary I would have thought?

If any tweaks to the new site are still being made, it would be really, really nice to have the Team(s): icon back, particularly for us n00bs.

Right, as I'm part of tomorrow's travelling army of c.4000 Boro down to Barnsley, here's a quick wave to Billy Casper.

Fifth.

And it's finished Cardiff 1-0 Huddersfield.

I'd appreciate it if you not use the term "Cardiff" to refer to The Team Formerly Known as The Bluebirds and instead use their correct title of Vincent Tan's Plastic Red Dragons of Malaysia Scab Franchise XI.

I hope selling the club's history, identity, pride, credibility and (by all accounts) match atmosphere was worth it for a scraped win against a newly promoted side who apparently matched them while missing their best player

You shouldn't come on this thread Harry, it's only going to upset you.

And yeah, going by the bits of radio I heard, it was a struggle.

RE: Charlton leaving The Valley, there was a lot of talk over the summer that finances were looking grim and that there was the possibility of ground-sharing. So far it all just seems to be message-board talk and seeing as there are still signings being made, this year seems pretty safe.

My feeling about the upcoming season is about the same, I'd be delighted with mid-table and for Powell to continue to build a coherent side, especially if it means bringing on more of the youth players. I'm afraid that it'll turn into a scrap at the bottom of the table; my wubbie in this case is Powell, who seems to be the real deal and I have to believe that having an at-least competent manager is good enough for survival even without much bringing in of "Championship talent".

Excited about today; I'm still at that optimistic stage of the season until all my dreams are shattered at tea time. Some of the signings seem to have potential and we've signed a Slovenian and another Portuguese player too. They may well turn out to be a bit shit, but at the moment it doesn't matter - they sound exotic and, well, different.

Well judging by today's result Wolves still have a long way to go

Barnsley 1-0 Middlesbrough

No I didn't see it coming either! Our goal just before half time was probably a fair reflection of the first half, but Boro had us under virtual constant pressure in the second half, although when we managed to get breaks we created the better chances. Our defence played better than I expected (remember the name John Stones, he'll be joining a decent team next summer), and we scored a good goal to win it.

Very unsettling.

Bolton were awful today. Simply awful. Can't work under the slightest of pressure, didn't test the Burnley keeper once, and it seems like the same mistakes from last season were being made - too many gaps in midfield, not winning anywhere near enough second balls, not pressing the ball enough in wider areas.

Paul Robinson has left the club. But in Keith Andrews, we seem to have a ready made replacement for the position of "walking disciplinary timebomb".

Leicester were pretty good today. We allowed Peterborough a bit too much possession in the first half but they never troubled us with it. We scored early on in the first half and then, much to my surprise, we kept trying to score more goals. We have a young side, full of pace and, apparently, not a little ability. I think we might do quite well and that it might just be fun along the way.

This line of thought will persist until about 21.45 on Tuesday evening, when I learn we've whimpered to defeat at Charlton and the realisation that I've just spunked a load of cash on a season ticket for midtable mediocrity again sets in.

Well, we left it a bit late, but there was enough on display to retain the cautious optimism I have for us this season. Brighton seemed to enjoy employing the dark arts, and the referee was woefully inconsistent.

Someone mentioned disciplinary timebombs? Yep, that's Abdoulaye Faye, right there.

I'm absolutely delighted with Forest today. Watching today under O'Driscoll compared to Cotterball 4 months ago, is like watching Spain instead of England.

We kept the ball on the floor, had most of the possession, looked threatening for the whole game, and actually scored a goal. All my Christmasses have come at once. Keep it up Shaun! Top drawer stuff, admittedly against a team who will probably be relegated this season.

It's bee years since I read it but I believe in Fever Pitch, Nick Hornby describes the perfect match as one in which your team comes from 2-0 down to win. I suspect this is true if it's a rarity. Already two games into the season, I'm a bit tired of Wednesday going 2-0 down early on. Happy that we have fought back to win one and draw the other, but I think a little more attention to detail early on would be better all round.

Hamish! Dougal! wrote:


A nice day spoiled by the football, as usual.

Thought we played well, thought Hull were alright too, but really thought we were going to get a positive 0-0 until, what, 84 minutes?

I might be wrong, but I don't think there was one offside in the whole game. How about that!

Nice ground. Liked it. The acoustics were good which meant that when there was no noise from Hull the place was filled with a sort of chatty, low-level polite rumble ... like the interval at the theatre or something.

I was hoping I'd get a chance to tell the Hull fans that they sounded like the interval at a play, but thought it an inappropriate riposte to 'Town full of Aids' ...

Anyway, good luck Tahgers this season, I had a good time.

Billy, you were too kind to us.

Dunno his name, but the very blond lad (some may describe him as a "spunkhead")that played for you seemed to have a good game.

As did your goalie. We like to quietly think that Luke Steele (of made his debut at Anfield during THE Cup run fame) is the best goalkeeper in the Division. It turns out he's not even the best with the surname 'Steele'.

The blond player is David Perkins. We got him from Colchester when his contract ran out last summer (a story repeated throughout the squad). He is always a seven out of ten performer, but yesterday's game played particularly to his strengths.

ad hoc wrote:


Historically Wednesday have never been able to recover from 2 goal deficits and can never hold onto 2 goal leads so I'm enjoying the novelty.

I'm not sure about Gardner and there were a couple of below par performances, but the second half display deserved a draw. Well done to Chris O'Grady who wasn't expected to make much impact at a higher level.