The right to an opinion.

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You've said it all

IMO :)

I just don't like the personal insults players or posters attract on here from some - that isn't necessary . I , many times , have had my views changed / influenced by posters on here who present their views in a way that makes me question my own . I have also had some real belly laughs that still make me smile through their nuttiness.

As for knowing as much as the manager - if i went for an interview and was up against Hecky i know who will and should win.
Congratulations on being the next manager
 



20 goal a season Championship players are extremely rare

Think it'll probably be rarer given there's now 5 subs, so forwards will get less minutes than they used to, but I don't think it takes that much to get to that level given the right circumstances. Anyone in a good team who takes the penalties would on average score about 5/7 in a season. Only takes one goal in three from open play/other set pieces from there, which isn't a massive amount of goals/90 regardless of how often a player's subbed off these days.

Of course, McBurnie ever getting to that level is another question entirely
 
@Foxy s comments "some people would be more suited to a Blog" has tickled me. Shouting into the void...

Not me guv, your attention to detail has gone, need a good preseason - I agree some would be though - not yourself 🤣
 
Fair points, however is it not also possible that as an invested human being a manager can fall into a similar trap? Conte v Tuchal seconds out round 3?
I completely agree. It was something that I used to criticise Warnock for - he sometimes seemed to make decisions as a fan rather than as an objective manager.
 
Most of us on here would agree with pretty much everything you say. However there are a select few posters who seem to come out frothing from every orifice when we don't hammer teams 5-0 every week, but also seem to go a bit quiet, or lose their internet connection completely when we win.

Absolutely though, we all have a right to an opinion.

I think my main annoyance of what I like to consider 'simple' fans.

Seemed to begin when we got promoted.

If we win then no one is allowed to criticise anything. The manager is great. Players are great. If you say anything negative or that a player wasn't that good then you're a pig. Not even allowed to assess performances by some. We're going to get promoted.

Conversely, when we draw or lose then half the players need to be sold, the manager is clueless and we'll never go up.

No issue with criticism or praise of on and off the field performances but the response is so ott both ways it's untrue and instead of saying x was shit they are basically x isn't good enough. Take Clark's first game or playing a bodged back 5.

Like Boro, no consideration to the heat or the makeshift back 5. No nuance.

Everything is black and white. It's wearying.
 
There are those also that for every stale, predictable game we seemingly regularly put out, for every scrap of impetus lost and for every error made there is no wrong to be seen and blind loyalty trumps objective observation.

We are a team of serial disappointment smattered with rare triumph, rare indeed for a team from a big city in the north of England with a vast footballing legacy and pedigree, supported by a passionate half of that city blessed with a vicious rivalry of our neighbours. But you dare to criticise and your legs are swept from beneath you like you have blasphemed. I am almost in my seventh decade now, six of those watching and supporting United and over twenty five of those numerous years contributing to internet forums. Most, if not all of who I'd see will take a dirty, undeserved win over the silliness late on in the game Saturday, and know when we are well beaten.

Sure, calling for Heckingbottom's head this early in the season is a bit bleedin' previous, but a number of dismal pre-seasons and one inspiring 45 minutes in 270 this season so far tells us there is still work to do, and he needs to fix the defects first. That's not frothing from orifices, nor pissing my pit.

pommpey
This, largely.
I think a Freudian analyst would have a field day analysing you, Pommpey, not that you need it. 🤣The orifices and genitals, bodily functions, etc, that you mention, his theory was based around all that😉
 
People are entitled to their opinions and there seems to be a minority on here that think their opinions are the only valid ones. However I wouldn't say that attending our games for 20 years has given some of our fans any better insight into the intracacies of modern day football. That's fine of course, they pay their money and are entitled to moan or shout 'gerritfowad' for 90 minutes.

The thing I really don't like is the personal abuse directed at both forum members and players. My view is that we all want our team to win or play better, so how would anyone imagine that booing or targeting players for abuse (either at the game itself or on social media), is actually going to achieve that?

Supporters - the clue is in the name.
 
I've never been particularly concerned about being shouted at on here really.

I speak eternal truths, which naturally puts me at odds with the cognitively inferior and the morally bankrupt. Unpleasant as things may get at times, I take solace in the fact that it is they who have to walk in darkness, not I.

In many ways, I'm a modern-day Socrates.
 
Most of us on here would agree with pretty much everything you say. However there are a select few posters who seem to come out frothing from every orifice when we don't hammer teams 5-0 every week, but also seem to go a bit quiet, or lose their internet connection completely when we win.

Absolutely though, we all have a right to an opinion.
Opinions are like arseoles,everybody has one.(Lemmy Kilmister)
 



Opinion is one thing, abuse is another.

Agreed. And abuse gets responded in kind unfortunately. It's good to see that the 'you don't go to any games' brigade are elsewhere these days, but the propensity for some, when challenged on some of their more strident opinions and quickly cornered or found without rational thinking, reach for the ad hominem to turn the discussion on argument on 'topic' to an argument about 'person'. It's destructive and it stops the less confident of posters - many of whom have valid points to add - from contributing.

I realise I am wholly guilty of sustaining some fires on here at times, but sometimes some posters see this place as their own personal fiefdom and maraud around unchallenged.

pommpey
 
I can’t really agree with the idea that a supporter will ever have the level of knowledge of someone who’s making a living coaching or managing high level professional football, or that the modern game is particularly simple. If I was having surgery, I’d want it done by a surgeon, not a nurse, even if they’ve watched loads of surgery.

Nor do I believe managers are infallible and exempt from criticism. And that’s the dichotomy. Sometimes the supporters are absolutely right to question things. However, we always have to bear in mind we’re amateurs and could be looking at something from the wrong perspective. If a manager makes a decision, surely the best way to start analysing it is to try to work out why he’s made the decision? And to realise that doing the opposite doesn’t guarantee the opposite outcome. So, using the Boro game, we may have won if he’d made the changes many supporters wanted to see. We could also have lost, one of the kids could have made an horrendous mistake that ruins his confidence. Or he could have scored a worldy and won the game. We just don’t know and, at times we can become so entrenched in our view we can’t accept that there are other possible outcomes.

Things that can annoy me are people who won’t debate in good faith, they seem desperate to score points and win an internet battle no one gives a shit about rather than address the points with an honest counter view.
People who won’t back down and think that saying the same thing in five different ways strengthens their view. It doesn’t, it’s tedious, just accept someone has a different view and leave it at that. If you worked with someone who said the same things every day you’d try like fuck to avoid conversation with them and consider them tedious.

People who deliberately post inflammatory comments and then cry when people respond negatively. If you’re going to post something and say “putting my tin hat on here” put your fucking tin hat on then. Don’t get upset when someone points out you’re talking bollocks, you knew you were saying something controversial.

Excessive abuse of players, as others have said, it’s fine to criticise players but is it necessary to constantly say things about them most posters wouldn’t dare say to their faces (and I appreciate that in the heat of the moment, we can all lose it a bit and have a dig, again, it’s just those who do it all the time).

Posters should also bear in mind that there are a couple of pigs on here pretending to be Blades and posters who only post to get responses. They’re better left ignored rather than trying to get into a debate about it.
 
There's being unreasonably negative, being objective and honest and living in La-La Land wearing rose tinted glasses.
The middle position of those 3 is the domain of the ballanced and rational. The other two should be ignored.
You seem to contradict yourself here. One minute you say everyone is entitled to an opinion but unless it falls on the middle ground it should be ignored.

I have no problem with positive or negative opinions as long as they are fair and reasonably presented. If all opinion was based on the middle ground it would be boring, unbalanced and probably not entirely real.

What I do have a problem with is the unbalanced negative opinions some so called fans have of players, often slagging them off before a ball has been kicked. Then those same folk are cheering to the rafters when the players prove them completely wrong. What follows are the ridiculous humble pie threads.
 
I've never been particularly concerned about being shouted at on here really.

I speak eternal truths, which naturally puts me at odds with the cognitively inferior and the morally bankrupt. Unpleasant as things may get at times, I take solace in the fact that it is they who have to walk in darkness, not I.

In many ways, I'm a modern-day Socrates.
You play for Brazil.
Work as a hospital doctor too.
Smoke sixty per day. 😷🤣
 
Think it'll probably be rarer given there's now 5 subs, so forwards will get less minutes than they used to, but I don't think it takes that much to get to that level given the right circumstances. Anyone in a good team who takes the penalties would on average score about 5/7 in a season. Only takes one goal in three from open play/other set pieces from there, which isn't a massive amount of goals/90 regardless of how often a player's subbed off these days.

Of course, McBurnie ever getting to that level is another question entirely
Small sample size but looking at the last 5 seasons there have been 23 occasions players reached 20 goals in the Championship. Pukki has 2, Mitrovic has 2, Grabban has 2 so that's 20 players in 5 seasons, or 4 a season. If you say each team plays with some version of 2 forwards/strikers that works out at less than 10% of forwards per season getting 20. It's much, much harder than people give it credit for.

Slight sidebar - 18/19, the year we went up 9 players did it. Of those 9 Bowen, Adams, Maupay and Abraham are now top division players. Sharp, Gayle, Rodriguez and Pukki are still Championship players but I'd say only Pukki is still at the very top of the list of those likely to score 20.

The outlier? Oli McBurnie, with 22 in 42. For the rest of his senior league career he's scored 19 in 134 Football League appearances
 
There are those also that for every stale, predictable game we seemingly regularly put out, for every scrap of impetus lost and for every error made there is no wrong to be seen and blind loyalty trumps objective observation.

We are a team of serial disappointment smattered with rare triumph, rare indeed for a team from a big city in the north of England with a vast footballing legacy and pedigree, supported by a passionate half of that city blessed with a vicious rivalry of our neighbours. But you dare to criticise and your legs are swept from beneath you like you have blasphemed. I am almost in my seventh decade now, six of those watching and supporting United and over twenty five of those numerous years contributing to internet forums. Most, if not all of who I'd see will take a dirty, undeserved win over the silliness late on in the game Saturday, and know when we are well beaten.

Sure, calling for Heckingbottom's head this early in the season is a bit bleedin' previous, but a number of dismal pre-seasons and one inspiring 45 minutes in 270 this season so far tells us there is still work to do, and he needs to fix the defects first. That's not frothing from orifices, nor pissing my pit.

pommpey
You're just a nightsweater ;)
 
What I do have a problem with is the unbalanced negative opinions some so called fans have of players, often slagging them off before a ball has been kicked. Then those same folk are cheering to the rafters when the players prove them completely wrong. What follows are the ridiculous humble pie threads.
That ^. Pisses me right off. Some player plays a couple of games, doesn’t do great and he’s a twat, useless fucker, why did we sign him etc and then, ten games in, when he’s settled and playing well, they come back with “I hold my hands up, I got that wrong”. How about having a bit of patience and tempering your criticism instead of laying into someone at the first chance you get? How long do you have to watch football and get things wrong before you learn that you can’t judge players on a couple of appearances? It’s perfectly fair to say a player had a bad game, to write his career off because of it is just foolishness and to start calling them wankers etc is just twattery. Don’t “hold your hands up” stick them up your arse.
 
You seem to contradict yourself here. One minute you say everyone is entitled to an opinion but unless it falls on the middle ground it should be ignored.

I have no problem with positive or negative opinions as long as they are fair and reasonably presented. If all opinion was based on the middle ground it would be boring, unbalanced and probably not entirely real.

What I do have a problem with is the unbalanced negative opinions some so called fans have of players, often slagging them off before a ball has been kicked. Then those same folk are cheering to the rafters when the players prove them completely wrong. What follows are the ridiculous humble pie threads.

Re-reading my paragraph I get your point. What I meant to say was simply that positive or negative opinion expressed without vitriol and with reasoned arguement should be the default. Pure ranting in either camp should be ignored. I suppose there are exceptions to that,eg Simmos penalty at Wembley.
 
My opinion is that any football supporter who has a) been into football for years and B) followed "their" club has absolutely every bit as much knowledge about their teams strengths and weaknesses, tactical,selection ,substitute and game management failings or successes as anyone else.

I'd agree that anyone who goes to football full stop has the right to an opinion and should be free (within certain bounds) to post them on a forum such as this.

I don't agree that watching football necasarily provides you with "knowledge or understanding". Whilst I don't claim to be an expert, I am often stunned by the total lack of understanding I hear at games about what is happening in front of me/us.
 
Interesting debate. In a sense, I disagree with Nightsweats in the Original Post.

"has absolutely every bit as much knowledge about their teams strengths and weaknesses, tactical,selection ,substitute and game management failings or successes as anyone else."

I go to quite a few games. But, that bit leaves me cold. (FFS, recent heated debates about zone men notwithstanding). I rarely think in those terms. As if I were a "surrogate manager" or a pundit. I don't have that knowledge as described & I'm not interested in acquiring it. Sure, I have my more favourite players, sure I can tell if someone is having a 'mare. But, I don't think about the game in the "knowledge" way described. Look, I know others do, and I'm not criticising those who do. But, I don't.

For me, I can sort of encapsulate everything by what I felt in the stand as Berge's goal went in & he ran over and did that soppy salute celebration. I don't sit in the stands thinking why doesn't he put so and so on, the flat three isn't working put someone in the hole, he needs to rest thingyamebob he's better suited to the game on Tuesday. No joy at all for me in that.

Basically, I spend the whole match thinking - score a goal - and not much else.

Foxy s comments "some people would be more suited to a Blog" has tickled me. Shouting into the void...

Subscribe here...

Absolutely spot on. That’s me all over. 47 years watching them and I still can’t spot a formation switch straightaway.

It’s why when someone like Bergen Blade comes on with his assessments from Norway that I find myself going ‘oh, yeah, now I see.’ I’ve just never found the time to really, really study it. I really enjoy it when Bergen points out what I can’t or haven‘t seen.

Now, pro-cycling I do understand and can see the mobile chess match from many kilometres out, but football, much as I love the Blades, has passed me by on the deep tactical level.

Glad you said this.
 

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