My take ...

[Tynemouth Blade]

Just a thought, but have all our players turned to shite because of how they're being told to play (tactics)?

 

[Bookers Mullet]

Just a quick mention for Amazon Prime also.

Browny - great lad. Get your fucking boots on son and get warmed up.

That presenter lady. Sweet as a fucking peanut. Dressed like she was off out on a date on a cold Sheffield night. Lovely.

pommpey

she was stunning, the only bright spot of an awful evening!

 

[Numpty's Dusty Ruts.]

I didn't watch it Pommpey, but from previous "form" this is probably accurate. Thought we might have been in with a (very small) shout with this one, but like I said earlier this season Dyche is an old hand now and knows what he's doing. Sounds like there might have been a bit more "pashun ", but with little else that's not a lot of good. Uncle Woy next, that'll be a hoot!

 

[PrestwichBlade]

Made me laugh because it's true. I bet he's great at British Bulldogs.

You're welcome. Just to add to the legend of Burke...not only is that kid shit at football, he's not really in to football, doesn't support a team as such, just likes to be involved. Ultimately though, he'd prefer to be out bouldering or something in the Peaks.

 

[The Vicar]

Pommpey

I enjoy your posts & generally agree with a lot you say, but cut the blaspheming, it is unnecessary & I find it offensive.

If someone posted racist homophobic posts there would be an outcry, & rightly so, so cut out the blaspheming.

Or you can take 'My Take' & shove it where the sun don't shine!

Have a lovely evening!

UTB

MTLBWY

 

[Numpty's Dusty Ruts.]

Mouse is a good name for him. Scurries a lot with little purpose or intent.

A mouse scurries with a lot of purpose and intent, like needing to stay alive, find food, eat, reproduce. Also, a mouse is really cute, with a neat line in twiching it's whiffly nose. It can also put up a fight against much bigger and stronger foes (having a cat gives you a lot of respect for a mouse). To compare Mousset to a mouse is an insult to the mouse!!

 

[pommpey]

Pommpey

I enjoy your posts & generally agree with a lot you say, but cut the blaspheming, it is unnecessary & I find it offensive.

If someone posted racist homophobic posts there would be an outcry, & rightly so, so cut out the blaspheming.

Or you can take 'My Take' & shove it where the sun don't shine!

Have a lovely evening!

UTB

MTLBWY

Fraid not.

My 'Takes' will be as they have always been, colourful and direct. This is a football forum and I won't apologise for what you deem as offensive 'blaspheming'. I am not calling your god nor anyone's god a cunt. That's blaspheming.

And please try not to conflate racism or homophobia with what I put up here in my descriptives. It's disingenuous, especially from someone who I assume follows the word of a book which the first volume describes issue after issue of ethnic cleansing and genocide, advocates human slavery as a social directive and instructs it's followers that any form of sexuality outside of hetero-normatives is punishable by death. You do understand how many people have been ostracised, imprisoned, tortured and murdered on those interpretations, don't you?

Our own history is bloodsoaked by it.

pommpey

 

[bladeinspaceandtime]

Pommpey

I enjoy your posts & generally agree with a lot you say, but cut the blaspheming, it is unnecessary & I find it offensive.

If someone posted racist homophobic posts there would be an outcry, & rightly so, so cut out the blaspheming.

Or you can take 'My Take' & shove it where the sun don't shine!

Have a lovely evening!

UTB

MTLBWY

If you don’t like swearing, t’internet is probably the wrong place for you. More tea?

 

[The Vicar]

Fraid not.

My 'Takes' will be as they have always been, colourful and direct. This is a football forum and I won't apologise for what you deem as offensive 'blaspheming'. I am not calling your god nor anyone's god a cunt. That's blaspheming.

And please try not to conflate racism or homophobia with what I put up here in my descriptives. It's disingenuous, especially from someone who I assume follows the word of a book which the first volume describes issue after issue of ethnic cleansing and genocide, advocates human slavery as a social directive and instructs it's followers that any form of sexuality outside of hetero-normatives is punishable by death. You do understand how many people have been ostracised, imprisoned, tortured and murdered on those interpretations, don't you?

pommpey

I appreciate your honesty, buts its always easy to deflect from the focus of someone's post! It is not at all disingenuous to link one form of abuse with another, actually I find your approach selective, abuse is abuse if the focus of it is offended or becomes the victim.

As to your Biblical quotes, yes I am most certainly a follower of the good book, although I cannot say that I have an answer for everything in it, but as ever 'a text taken out of context becomes a pretext'!

Colourful & directive with whatever swearing you want [with the crap this season its a wonder that every post does not contain more swearing], I can take, but there is a line for us all which is red, & blaspheming, because that is what it is, is beyond that red line for me.

Beyond that post to your hearts content using whatever words you want, but for me and others, because there are others, your words will be like 'pissing in the wind!

The Vicar

 

[Bladeulike]

I appreciate your honesty, buts its always easy to deflect from the focus of someone's post! It is not at all disingenuous to link one form of abuse with another, actually I find your approach selective, abuse is abuse if the focus of it is offended or becomes the victim.

As to your Biblical quotes, yes I am most certainly a follower of the good book, although I cannot say that I have an answer for everything in it, but as ever 'a text taken out of context becomes a pretext'!

Colourful & directive with whatever swearing you want [with the crap this season its a wonder that every post does not contain more swearing], I can take, but there is a line for us all which is red, & blaspheming, because that is what it is, is beyond that red line for me.

Beyond that post to your hearts content using whatever words you want, but for me and others, because there are others, your words will be like 'pissing in the wind!

The Vicar

I doubt that Pommpey needs anyone to defend him but this is a bit bizarre. Offense in this case is taken rather than given. The fact that you choose to take offense about blasphemy is a matter for you not the person who posts it. Blasphemy is an entirely different matter from homophobia or racism. Those two vile sentiments are morally reprehensible and directly attack people because of their sexual orientation or their ethnicity. Neither of those two states are a choice, they are a given (and I am sure you are equally appalled by people who choose to use them as insults) Blasphemy is an attack on a religious belief system, not on a given state of physical being and, for me, is therefore in a completely different ball park. What if I took offence at whatever religion you happen to believe in? What if I am offended by the nomenclature of the term 'The Vicar'? Would you change it? Would it be fair that i asked you to? Let's kick racism out of football. Let's not let religious belief systems (dare I introduce the word 'superstitions'?) be introduced into genuine footballing debate.

Spare us the moral diatribe - your 'red lines' are not universal, they are personal and should remain so. The only red lines I am concerned about are the vertical ones on the Blades' shirts and current performances are enough to even make a vicar swear. Having said all that, if you could have a word with they guy/gal upstairs I would be eternally grateful

 

[pommpey]

I appreciate your honesty, buts its always easy to deflect from the focus of someone's post!

Truly, it's not. Firstly, whilst not apologising for my vernacular, I will add that my intent is not to take the name of your god in a manner that I consider derogatory. I am an atheist, however never foolish or blind enough to acknowledge people's faiths of the existence of earthbound entities in historical context. I'll add however that if the person you call Jesus Christ existed today, he'd be fucking horrified as to what is being done, and has been done in his name. And he'd possibly read my match write ups with the humour they are intended.

It is not at all disingenuous to link one form of abuse with another, actually I find your approach selective, abuse is abuse if the focus of it is offended or becomes the victim.

Yes, it is. Offence at someone's biological, physical, gender, race-based existence is on another planet compared with the regressing moral standpoint of Judaeo-Christian beliefs trying to face down the awakening of human understanding due to science. And, as I have illustrated ...

As to your Biblical quotes, yes I am most certainly a follower of the good book, although I cannot say that I have an answer for everything in it, but as ever 'a text taken out of context becomes a pretext'!

Pretext or not, I have no connectivity to a creed which advocates and excuses (and in many cases such as church-led child rape forgives) some pretty inhumane acts and barbarism and then compounds it by claiming an omnipotent, onmiscient entity has zero involvement in either its doing or its prevention. That isn't a pretext. It's a fact.

Colourful & directive with whatever swearing you want [with the crap this season its a wonder that every post does not contain more swearing], I can take, but there is a line for us all which is red, & blaspheming, because that is what it is, is beyond that red line for me.

And again, if you have a red line at me utilising a biblical name yet chose to overlook it with one would think some divine involvement in a global human pandemic which is causing untold suffering and misery then maybe you also need to overlook my postings entirely. I question anyone who owns a supernatural faith to account for such disasters (and boy, COVID is peanuts compared with cancer, famine, poverty, global pollution and war in terms of human cost) and give a reason why either it exists, or why it isn't fixed ... 'now'. And if things do move in such mysterious ways, then why in such a way that the norm is suffering and hate, and not peace and love and lack of faith has you damned more than those culpable within the church?

Beyond that post to your hearts content using whatever words you want, but for me and others, because there are others, your words will be like 'pissing in the wind!

I can live with that, and by the way, (genuinely) thanks for your temperament

pommpey

 

[Isaw Joeshaw]

I wasn't as unimpressed as I expected to be tonight, to be honest. The lineup seemed to reflect a need to get at Burnley and in some ways we did that, but what the fucking, jazz-dancing, somersaulting, fireworks-shooting-out-of-Jesus's-arse fuck was Wilder doing later on trying to make effective changes in Fleck and Norwood? First ten we again seemed to be all over the shop and then Didsy trumped near a Burnley defender and he pulled his hamstring. Strange how sports sciences work, isn't it? But from that moment we seemed to want it and our 3-4-3 with it's augmented midfield matched theirs for once but let's not get straight-the-way-out-horizontal with the old cock department about that statement. This is Burnley ... industrial, no-frills, and pretty direct. It isn't Liverpool or Man City. But at least the four Baldock - Ampadu - Osborn - Stevens looked productive and ready to press and challenge, rather than watch the ball being passed in front of them. We had a few chances and such was our intensity (christ, I haven't used that term describing us for ages) Burnley looked like they were having fun containing us. Couple of chances and shots on goal but as the commentator reminded us on the half hour, Lys Mousset had touched the ball three times. I waited for his next touch - six minutes later - and it was shit. Brewster mixed it up as much as he could for an Under-12, and Didsy gave us that assured control and some threat. But as people have said, we huffed, and we puffed and the fucking straw house might as well have been brick. Then Ramsdale pulls of a pretty fucking fantastic save (because threepio failed to get underneath Chris Wood enough to put him off having a straight-on, powerful header on goal) and from the resulting cross ... like Southampton ... like Brighton ... our bulwark of a central three are all over the shop and Ben Mee nods it past Ramsdale who is now doing his diveathon spectacular to try to get at it.

And, d'you know. Sean Dyche then just does what Sean Dyche dos when he's one up and quietly closes the door. With teams like ours as we are playing at the moment, it works.

Second half even with Burke on and his cylinders firing we seem to own three strikers who are playing three separate games. When Wilder hooked the Protocol Droid and put R2D2 on (Fleck) and then IG88 on (you have to watch Star Wars a lot to know what the fuck I am on about, but even Norwood plays like a fucking robot) and stuck Enda back in his favourite, bestest position that he really loves (LCB) then you knew Wilder was possibly taking the piss. At that moment, I suspect Dyche knew the game was his because suddenly we stopped attacking effectively, Burnley shifted our predictable moves into the box on the wings and we failed to penetrate. When your two cracks on goal (not on target either) come from a CB and a RWB and every bit of triangles ends up in us either losing the ball or going backwards, then backwards, then Ramsdale then you know Wilder has basically reset the formation to 'Southampton'.

Tonight we started poorly, picked it up and looked like we had belief, conceded a stupidly predictable goal and then slowly sagged like a sad cake in the rain.

Ramsdale 6.5/10: A good improvement on previous games. His stop from Wood's header had me out of my seat and clapping and thinking, 'that will do his confidence loads of good'. Then the ball sails across, Mee gets his nut to it and he's flying across the goal like a fucking cat that's been hit by a truck on the Stocksbridge bypass*. Straight into the hedge.
Basham 7.5/10: Thought he had as good a game as he could. Some mercurial skills with the ball at his feet, surging runs, goes past players and good in defence. But he can't do it all.
Egan 6.5/10: Another pretty decent showing from JE, even if I think he should have had Mee for the corner and not Ampadu. Lovely ping to Baldock in the first half and some decent penetrating runs forward, although I though his brief was the 'stay at home' CB?
Robinson 3/10: Actually deserved his 3/10 tonight, rather than it be part of a weak joke about him playing like a fucking droid. Which he still does.
Baldock 7/10: You can only give Furious this mark because he does exactly the same stuff, every match. He's consistent and worthy.
Ampadu 4/10: A better showing in CM tonight but really, he's still got that look on his face which reads, 'why am I playing with these hopeless cunts? Why have Chelsea done this to me? I'm Ethan Ampadu - GET ME OUT OF HERE!' The trouble with that sentiment is that he's not really that good, even in a team full of shitboxers like we have now.
Osborn 5/10: Battled and tried but you can see his pace, positioning and ability - three things essential for success in the EPL - is way below standard. He was too many times one of those easily boxed in tonight with no options or clue of how to get out of it.
Stevens 3/10: Pretty consistent performance in LW then LCM which showed us his depressive levels of confidence and his ability to give the ball easily to the opposition with some fucking frankly shit passing, either from out wide, or from the back. And when he has the ball and he is pressed into facing our goal moving backwards, I am literally shitting mesen. What has happened to Enda Stevens?
McGoldrick 6.5/10: Some lovely control, foot-in to deflect and intercept and deftness of touch. But elsewhere, pretty ineffective
Mousset 3/10: Crap. All of you lot 'well, then we'll have Mousse back and it will be ace' idiots just look at tonight. He was everywhere and nowhere. And even when he wasn't there, he never finished ninety minutes for us. Once again. That's a lot of games for eleven million pounds, and six goals (last season)
Brewster 4/10: Poor kid.

Burke 5/10: Went at it like the crazed killer he is and ... um ... died once Wilder had cut off the attacking routes. Far better than Mousset and a few MPH quicker
Fleck 4/10: Another consistent underperformance to be honest. He got a lot of ball-time, but did fucking nothing worthy with it. A bit better than he has been but in the words of the 1988 Robbie Nevill classic MOR wankerfest classic 'C'est La Vie', "when you're down, there just one way to go". He's now as effective as a mid-term Bobby Ford now instead of a late term Michael Brown.
Norwood 2/10: So, Mr Wilder. This was your option to up the ante and get back at Burnley? Every time Norwood touched the ball it went backwards and when it didn't, he was looking at the far touchline to find Osborn. So all Lowton did was drop 2m. It's not rocket science and neither are Norwood's 'pings' any more. As soon as the joining of the nexus of mediocrity in midfield was made with Fleck and Norwood, we were complete and back to our predictable, easy-tto-deal-with selves and Burnley just eked out the rest of the game. At the end I was on my feet with my right forearm outstretched as though I was stood on the touchline screaming 'GET THE FUCKER FORWARD!' at the telly as my missus tutted from the sofa.

It's a hackneyed format now, and as boring as Pop Idol or X Factor. We turn up, and lose, usually by a single goal, and our points tally remains dismally low. Next week, rinse and repeat. Same tactics, same counter tactics and same outcome. Lot of people paraphrasing Einstein and insanity expecting difference if you do things the same and yeah, it resonates. It aint changing unless he stops the habits he has now which involves killing our midfield and any capability to be creative, control the game and fucking win, for once.

I expect Saha and Benteke to destroy us next game.

pommpey

I have a major problem with your otherwise insightful and entertaining summary , which is that it was only at the end that you were off the sofa screaming ‘ GET THE FUCKER FORWARD ‘. I was doing that inside 10 minutes .

By then , there had been several occasions where a player had the ball in an advanced position , was under no particular pressure and yet chose to pass the ball 20 yards backwards to a defender and 3 sideways or back passes later it would end up with the goalkeeper , whose only option was to lump it back upfield .

At least two of these led to dangerous attacks arising out of situations where we were effectively in control. This is a scenario which has been repeated week after week all season and I don’t understand why it is being allowed to happen .

There are many things which can’t be rectified on the training ground such as turning the Mouse into the reincarnation of Thierry Henry as some predicted he would be , but this is not one of them and it is clearly the fault of the manager and his coaching staff that players are allowed to get away with it , or even by the look of it encouraged to do so .

In all my years watching us , I can’t recall a single one where the ball has finished up back with the goalkeeper so many times from being in possession so far up the pitch and it’s doing my fucking head in .

 

[CornwallBlade]

*I actually saw a cat hit by a truck on the Stocksbridge bypass. It took off sideways, all for paws cartwheeling this way and that.

Like Ramsdale

pommpey

It’s interesting isn’t it. I’ve never seen a professional goalkeeper apparently so unsure of where his posts are - either that or he’s never lost the characteristics of the new kid in the team who wants to look keen - genuinely baffling. When he threw himself at a deflected shot, that was missing by a yard, and pushed out for a corner I thought we were nailed on to concede another. That said, his best game for us so far.
PS thanks for another entertaining and accurate summary Pomps.

 

[GEARYstolemyBEER]

To me it feels like when a loved family member is on their last legs.

So many wonderful memories, you love them to death ( just Like the United teams of the last few years ) but you know it’s coming to an end and pretty soon all you will have left is good memories and stories to tell about their life.

I’ve had some great days with wilder and the squads he’s had...port vale away, Coventry away the famous sisu out night, Chesterfield, Northampton, Sunderland away first champ season, Wednesday away, Preston away second champ season, Ipswich home, then many in the prem (57k season points. Not that will matter next season)

I just think it might unfortunately be time for something fresh, although going back to your original post and ratings, I agreed with the majority of you ratings !

 

[MalvernBlade]

I’m starting to think Bogle was a hologram.

And he's only 20, not sure yet why that matters but the Leicester fan thinks it does. So maybe see him again around the end of the season??

 

[dc_blade]

5. In an arm wrestle, Burnley had bigger biceps. Bit erotic but ok - yep.

Yeah, love a bit of arm-wrestling porn.

 

[MalvernBlade]

Truly, it's not. Firstly, whilst not apologising for my vernacular, I will add that my intent is not to take the name of your god in a manner that I consider derogatory. I am an atheist, however never foolish or blind enough to acknowledge people's faiths of the existence of earthbound entities in historical context. I'll add however that if the person you call Jesus Christ existed today, he'd be fucking horrified as to what is being done, and has been done in his name. And he'd possibly read my match write ups with the humour they are intended.



Yes, it is. Offence at someone's biological, physical, gender, race-based existence is on another planet compared with the regressing moral standpoint of Judaeo-Christian beliefs trying to face down the awakening of human understanding due to science. And, as I have illustrated ...



Pretext or not, I have no connectivity to a creed which advocates and excuses (and in many cases such as church-led child rape forgives) some pretty inhumane acts and barbarism and then compounds it by claiming an omnipotent, onmiscient entity has zero involvement in either its doing or its prevention. That isn't a pretext. It's a fact.



And again, if you have a red line at me utilising a biblical name yet chose to overlook it with one would think some divine involvement in a global human pandemic which is causing untold suffering and misery then maybe you also need to overlook my postings entirely. I question anyone who owns a supernatural faith to account for such disasters (and boy, COVID is peanuts compared with cancer, famine, poverty, global pollution and war in terms of human cost) and give a reason why either it exists, or why it isn't fixed ... 'now'. And if things do move in such mysterious ways, then why in such a way that the norm is suffering and hate, and not peace and love and lack of faith has you damned more than those culpable within the church?



I can live with that, and by the way, (genuinely) thanks for your temperament

pommpey

I don't think I speak for the vicar or anyone else, we can all do that ourselves but I do find it surprising how an individual who advocated peace and forgiveness, pray for enemies & turn the other cheek is ok to use as a swear but a bloke who went around chopping off heads, his followers still at it, marrying 9 year olds and advocating the drinking of animal urine to cure disease and don't offend them.

Anyway, carry on as his name is Yashua ha'meshiac and his birthday was in September so I don't know who you are blaspheming. Just try and be more equal in your blasphemy it's the 21st century

Love the reviews btw and no I'm not brown nosing

 

[Blade82]

Good. It's waaaay past your bedtime, sugarlumps.

Off you go then hun. Dummy is there and your rusk in the cupboard

pommpey

Apologies far too much alcohol consumed, stick to rusks and dummy from now on
UTB

 

[hidesbehindapseudonym]

I enjoy these more than the football.

What frigging football?

 

[The Vicar]

And again, if you have a red line at me utilising a biblical name yet chose to overlook it with one would think some divine involvement in a global human pandemic which is causing untold suffering and misery then maybe you also need to overlook my postings entirely. I question anyone who owns a supernatural faith to account for such disasters (and boy, COVID is peanuts compared with cancer, famine, poverty, global pollution and war in terms of human cost) and give a reason why either it exists, or why it isn't fixed ... 'now'. And if things do move in such mysterious ways, then why in such a way that the norm is suffering and hate, and not peace and love and lack of faith has you damned more than those culpable within the church?

The simple reply, to a not very simple issue, is that humanity has been instrumental in bringing the above on itself. Hitler, Stalin & Pol Pot were responsible for the deaths of 10's of millions, yet not in the name of any faith, in fact the opposite. Global pollution, poverty, famine are all the result of human greed & abuse of the earths resources. As for CV19 the path seems to lead back to China, & some unusual dietary habits, or even some germ that has escaped from a lab, there again not an 'act of God'.

As to how it gets fixed, well the simple answer is that is why some of us have faith. We realise that those who have been instrumental in getting us to where we are cannot rectify the situation, everyone must realise this. At 59 I cannot see that things are getting better, quite the contrary in many areas. So that faith in God & ultimately life beyond death's door are the only fix for us. If I can do my bit now then that is what I will do, but ultimately humanity is broken, we don't have to look very far to see this.

I have not always been a believer, in the late 70's I was on the fringes of football hooliganism before I had an 'overnight conversion'. It might not sound like it but I do live in the real world, & my head is not up my arse! Or anybody else's for that matter!

Your generous response might mean that I continue to include you on my 'worth reading' list on this forum! Some people are distinctly not worth reading!

Happy New Year

 

[pommpey]

The simple reply, to a not very simple issue, is that humanity has been instrumental in bringing the above on itself. Hitler, Stalin & Pol Pot were responsible for the deaths of 10's of millions, yet not in the name of any faith, in fact the opposite. Global pollution, poverty, famine are all the result of human greed & abuse of the earths resources. As for CV19 the path seems to lead back to China, & some unusual dietary habits, or even some germ that has escaped from a lab, there again not an 'act of God'.

There's no way you can sell that mindset to people like me when preachings from the pulpit instruct all who care to listen the 'God' is omnipotent and omniscient. If he isn't then he's infallible and if he's infallible, then he isn't 'God' and has faults and flaws. Any alignment with all the bad shit on the planet being the work of 'Satan' also suggests God hasn't the capability to cover all bases, and shoots vast holes in any invincibility, capability and culpability he has. In short, pull the other one telling me that all the nice stuff is good and is God's and all the shit stuff belongs to Satan. If all the power and glory is invested in this centuries-old deity, whose own story is humanly divisive and even causes suffering amongst his own followers, then surely a wave of the hand gets rid of cancer, famine and other such earthbound foibles even his own most devout followers are struck down with. Seems to me he - your God - is indiscriminate and pretty untouched by who fails as a human, whilst amongst us sometimes even the truly evil live to ripe old ages. The spectre of CV19 further proves science is beyond faith, even down to human beings being sufficiently ahead of the genome curve to sequence the correct solution for vaccinations without divine intervention and in a pretty laudable timescale. If you wish to claim God was responsible for this please do, but I'll fire that ball straight across the net with topspin and accuracy and say 'why let this happen anyway? Two million deaths? Several hundreds of millions infected or affected? What kind of an all caring God who loves us all are you?'

As to how it gets fixed, well the simple answer is that is why some of us have faith. We realise that those who have been instrumental in getting us to where we are cannot rectify the situation, everyone must realise this. At 59 I cannot see that things are getting better, quite the contrary in many areas. So that faith in God & ultimately life beyond death's door are the only fix for us. If I can do my bit now then that is what I will do, but ultimately humanity is broken, we don't have to look very far to see this.

Humanity may be broken, but it's not something that the rapidly depleting congregations will fix. Humans are animals, and animals are designed by progressive evolution to covet, increase their material status, reproduce and defend their own. The ones that don't end up extinct. The only thing that differs us from more basic forms is DNA and physical construct, and that is something biblical teachings will and have never addressed, the diversity of species and the survival of the fittest. Whilst 'the bible' (I use that in inverted commas, because again were Christ to read it in any of his manifestations, I fear he would be thoroughly appalled at it's content) mentions the creation of life, science has painted it into an ever decreasing corner - year on year, in fact. The only fix we have to hand is 'collective suffering' and how easily that can be deployed by our stupidity (in electing cunts like Donald Trump, for example) It really is down to us, enlightenment and education in equal parts. And, regression away from corrosive, antediluvian faiths and belief systems,most of which divide us more than unify us.

I have not always been a believer, in the late 70's I was on the fringes of football hooliganism before I had an 'overnight conversion'. It might not sound like it but I do live in the real world, & my head is not up my arse! Or anybody else's for that matter!

And your path is your path. I will defend your right to follow that path to my own death if need be because I don't see what you see, or hear what you hear, but believe in your right to have that faith unmolested. Can't say the same exists for Abrahamic faiths with regard other beliefs, in fact in God's name, there's been some pretty horrific shit meted out to non-believers in the past, hasn't there? Can't honestly believe that during the many purges and crusades that have swept through the various continents in the past 2000 years there's been much magnanimity shown when encountering anything but true Christianity, yet all churches are strangely silent on this, even today. However, for today, as long as you are not donning a suicide vest and shouting 'God is Great!' and murdering people, I have no truck with you. I will also take no issue with you regarding atheists like me as unworthy and a point of ridicule. You can even say 'Fuck this! For Atheists sake!' and I'll not flinch. Because I have no god to be offended on behalf of, I am free.

And please, whatever you decide to do regarding your judgement on my worth of reading (which I find a bit disturbing - what outcome do you expect on your judgement?) have a Happy New Year yourself.

pommpey

 

[Lane Ender]

Spot on. My only contention would be Fleck getting as high as 4/10.

If he’s R2D2, I feel a mark of 2 would be fair.

And I used to love Fleck, was my favourite player for a long time, but this season he jacked it in, and it’s fucked me off how shit he looks now.

What a time for Fleck to throw the towel in and he fucking has

 

[Lane Ender]

I wasn't as unimpressed as I expected to be tonight, to be honest. The lineup seemed to reflect a need to get at Burnley and in some ways we did that, but what the fucking, jazz-dancing, somersaulting, fireworks-shooting-out-of-Jesus's-arse fuck was Wilder doing later on trying to make effective changes in Fleck and Norwood? First ten we again seemed to be all over the shop and then Didsy trumped near a Burnley defender and he pulled his hamstring. Strange how sports sciences work, isn't it? But from that moment we seemed to want it and our 3-4-3 with it's augmented midfield matched theirs for once but let's not get straight-the-way-out-horizontal with the old cock department about that statement. This is Burnley ... industrial, no-frills, and pretty direct. It isn't Liverpool or Man City. But at least the four Baldock - Ampadu - Osborn - Stevens looked productive and ready to press and challenge, rather than watch the ball being passed in front of them. We had a few chances and such was our intensity (christ, I haven't used that term describing us for ages) Burnley looked like they were having fun containing us. Couple of chances and shots on goal but as the commentator reminded us on the half hour, Lys Mousset had touched the ball three times. I waited for his next touch - six minutes later - and it was shit. Brewster mixed it up as much as he could for an Under-12, and Didsy gave us that assured control and some threat. But as people have said, we huffed, and we puffed and the fucking straw house might as well have been brick. Then Ramsdale pulls of a pretty fucking fantastic save (because threepio failed to get underneath Chris Wood enough to put him off having a straight-on, powerful header on goal) and from the resulting cross ... like Southampton ... like Brighton ... our bulwark of a central three are all over the shop and Ben Mee nods it past Ramsdale who is now doing his diveathon spectacular to try to get at it.

And, d'you know. Sean Dyche then just does what Sean Dyche dos when he's one up and quietly closes the door. With teams like ours as we are playing at the moment, it works.

Second half even with Burke on and his cylinders firing we seem to own three strikers who are playing three separate games. When Wilder hooked the Protocol Droid and put R2D2 on (Fleck) and then IG88 on (you have to watch Star Wars a lot to know what the fuck I am on about, but even Norwood plays like a fucking robot) and stuck Enda back in his favourite, bestest position that he really loves (LCB) then you knew Wilder was possibly taking the piss. At that moment, I suspect Dyche knew the game was his because suddenly we stopped attacking effectively, Burnley shifted our predictable moves into the box on the wings and we failed to penetrate. When your two cracks on goal (not on target either) come from a CB and a RWB and every bit of triangles ends up in us either losing the ball or going backwards, then backwards, then Ramsdale then you know Wilder has basically reset the formation to 'Southampton'.

Tonight we started poorly, picked it up and looked like we had belief, conceded a stupidly predictable goal and then slowly sagged like a sad cake in the rain.

Ramsdale 6.5/10: A good improvement on previous games. His stop from Wood's header had me out of my seat and clapping and thinking, 'that will do his confidence loads of good'. Then the ball sails across, Mee gets his nut to it and he's flying across the goal like a fucking cat that's been hit by a truck on the Stocksbridge bypass*. Straight into the hedge.
Basham 7.5/10: Thought he had as good a game as he could. Some mercurial skills with the ball at his feet, surging runs, goes past players and good in defence. But he can't do it all.
Egan 6.5/10: Another pretty decent showing from JE, even if I think he should have had Mee for the corner and not Ampadu. Lovely ping to Baldock in the first half and some decent penetrating runs forward, although I though his brief was the 'stay at home' CB?
Robinson 3/10: Actually deserved his 3/10 tonight, rather than it be part of a weak joke about him playing like a fucking droid. Which he still does.
Baldock 7/10: You can only give Furious this mark because he does exactly the same stuff, every match. He's consistent and worthy.
Ampadu 4/10: A better showing in CM tonight but really, he's still got that look on his face which reads, 'why am I playing with these hopeless cunts? Why have Chelsea done this to me? I'm Ethan Ampadu - GET ME OUT OF HERE!' The trouble with that sentiment is that he's not really that good, even in a team full of shitboxers like we have now.
Osborn 5/10: Battled and tried but you can see his pace, positioning and ability - three things essential for success in the EPL - is way below standard. He was too many times one of those easily boxed in tonight with no options or clue of how to get out of it.
Stevens 3/10: Pretty consistent performance in LW then LCM which showed us his depressive levels of confidence and his ability to give the ball easily to the opposition with some fucking frankly shit passing, either from out wide, or from the back. And when he has the ball and he is pressed into facing our goal moving backwards, I am literally shitting mesen. What has happened to Enda Stevens?
McGoldrick 6.5/10: Some lovely control, foot-in to deflect and intercept and deftness of touch. But elsewhere, pretty ineffective
Mousset 3/10: Crap. All of you lot 'well, then we'll have Mousse back and it will be ace' idiots just look at tonight. He was everywhere and nowhere. And even when he wasn't there, he never finished ninety minutes for us. Once again. That's a lot of games for eleven million pounds, and six goals (last season)
Brewster 4/10: Poor kid.

Burke 5/10: Went at it like the crazed killer he is and ... um ... died once Wilder had cut off the attacking routes. Far better than Mousset and a few MPH quicker
Fleck 4/10: Another consistent underperformance to be honest. He got a lot of ball-time, but did fucking nothing worthy with it. A bit better than he has been but in the words of the 1988 Robbie Nevill classic MOR wankerfest classic 'C'est La Vie', "when you're down, there just one way to go". He's now as effective as a mid-term Bobby Ford now instead of a late term Michael Brown.
Norwood 2/10: So, Mr Wilder. This was your option to up the ante and get back at Burnley? Every time Norwood touched the ball it went backwards and when it didn't, he was looking at the far touchline to find Osborn. So all Lowton did was drop 2m. It's not rocket science and neither are Norwood's 'pings' any more. As soon as the joining of the nexus of mediocrity in midfield was made with Fleck and Norwood, we were complete and back to our predictable, easy-tto-deal-with selves and Burnley just eked out the rest of the game. At the end I was on my feet with my right forearm outstretched as though I was stood on the touchline screaming 'GET THE FUCKER FORWARD!' at the telly as my missus tutted from the sofa.

It's a hackneyed format now, and as boring as Pop Idol or X Factor. We turn up, and lose, usually by a single goal, and our points tally remains dismally low. Next week, rinse and repeat. Same tactics, same counter tactics and same outcome. Lot of people paraphrasing Einstein and insanity expecting difference if you do things the same and yeah, it resonates. It aint changing unless he stops the habits he has now which involves killing our midfield and any capability to be creative, control the game and fucking win, for once.

I expect Saha and Benteke to destroy us next game.

pommpey

Again good summary but be more brutal on Fleck and that heap of shit Mussett

 

[VictoryBlade]

FFS guys let people follow the religion they want without giving them shit! If Vicar was offended just apologise and move on. I seem to have to apologise for everything these days with the 'woke' society, so let me just say this...………...fuck everyone! There I've said it now! UTB

 

[VictoryBlade]

I was football hooligan and it gave me much more satisfaction that being a Unit Lead in an AML job...lol

 

[Lane Ender]

Mouse is a good name for him. Scurries a lot with little purpose or intent.

He’s a fraud