The win at Sunderland was frustrating and ultimately unsatisfying fare. God knows why anyone pays to go and watch them up there. Niall Quinn wants to devote his energies to thanking those that do show up opposed to berating those who don’t.
There’s a serious issue here though. Those fiendish pubs broadcasting ‘bent’ satellite schedules are actually a part of the community in my book. One that’s poorly looking and might not last. I hope that the challenge mounted by that landlady in Portsmouth comes off. Am I alone in questioning that paying one company through the eyeballs for the privilege is actually progress?
I like buying meat from a butcher and finding one these days is as easy as finding someone who doesn’t know who Simon Cowell is. The nearest butchers to me displays joints and sausages in it’s window like pieces in a museum. Their trade obliterated by an Asda that fell out the sky not a six minute walk away.
The financial reality is that these back street and not so back street boozers beaming in images of the sacred stars will simply not survive without football and they cannot afford to be held hostage by those who currently own the rights. All that’ll be left are Neverspoons and the wanna-be gastro pubs.
Neverspoons administer their last rights daily via a drip feed of bulk bought booze to the long term unemployed, unhappy, unwashed, unloved. No football to disturb the peace. No conversation to disturb the mind. ‘Y’alright Tom?’ ‘Yeah, you Sean?’ If you stay long enough you can’t separate the scent of stale urine from the fresh.
The other survivor will be the Gastro Pub 4.0. These joints make my skin crawl as much as the chain pubs, but at least I feel less in need of delousing on the way out. These aren’t pubs they’re are a sham. They aren’t pubs as I understand the definition. No one’s even trying to get drunk. The only recorded vomiting is an incident involving a woman who bundled a pot of Cow & Gate down her child too quickly.
Let’s dispel a few myths while we’re here. Ron & Carol who welcome you to the The Albion aren’t some charming couple who intertwine their own lives (his functional alcoholism and both of her affairs) with keeping you topped up…
They’re faceless micro-managers from the planet Vatincluded who don’t just know their mass produced, part deep-fryed menu off by heart, but they know their customers on sight.
Walk in on your own to one of these places and order a pint and and you may as well have sauntered into your local library and confidently asked to be directed to the Child Porn section. ‘Will you be eating?’ Actually translates to ‘Are you a potential nuisance?’
So Niall Quinn masks the threat of boot-boys clutching Court Orders with a friendly anecdote about Sir Alex looking at his watch wanting to get the heck out of Dodge because a full house at the Stadium Of Light was deadlier than Delia when it came to the 12th man. His vision is of good clean family safe fun is @£22 per person but the cost will be considerably greater.
His vision will leave us in this post apocalyptic wasted-land of boarded up juicers passed by a disparate, broken tribe of emotionally disfigured survivors foraging on a diet of patronising highlights and meals which all include a side salad or 135gm sized portion of chips.
What did have we actually learned here? We need a striker who can score.
Maybe we don’t need strikers, 4.5.1 against Milan please I’d have the krank starting every game atm his like a new signing for us and a ready made back up for modders or the boyo. Id like to see more of pav he reminds me of berbatov in that he has good technique but is too lazy and lacks the class of berba.. well ok he slightly reminds me of the one whose mum washes windscreens on the north circular.. shit
I think we are papering over cracks currently – our goals scored column tells the real story.
However, the best teams are those that get through these sort of periods….if we get Defoe scoring again (4-4-2 against the weaker teams Arry, for gods sake!), then we could even finish 3rd, let alone 4th!
Draw will do on Tuesday….
COYS!
I think a draw is optimistic :blush: watching our lot yesterday was a grim reminder that minus our ‘Champions League’ players, we don’t look the part.
That and I have a seriously illogical thing on with that sky blue kit. It resembles our performances in it. Thin and cheap looking.
We ache for the return of Modders, VdV and the Boy Bale. Pointing out the bleedin’ obvious but there you go..
It’s like that Cleese line in Clockwise, “It’s not the despair, Laura. I can take the despair. It’s the hope I can’t stand.”
The hope that Defoe or Pav will leave a stadium without fear of trading standards nicking them for passing themselves off as strikers.
Go with me on this…
Bale = Messi
Modric = Xavi
VdV = Iniesta
If Barca were missing that trio on a cold night in Sunderland, I bet they’d play a bit shit too :)
I’m so glad of the three points I could cry
and Thudd….sorely miss his ‘time on the ball’. I just hope his manboobs are under control
Depending on what you read, seems there is a chance of Bale, VDV and Modders all playing on Tuesday.
Getting nervous already, which Spurs will turn up ? Hopefully not the one that featured in the first 30 minutes of the game at Inter or Young Boys.
Got to get them back to the Lane with the tie still in the balance.
We should be a lot stronger for the second leg and it seems they also have a lot of injuries.
Loved the article H.
We used to do a weekly shop down a stretch of shops, with two bakers, two greengrocers, two butchers, a fishmongers as well as a Co-op.
Now there’s just a Co-op, and a bakers. Morrisons down the road, see (ex-Safeway) but when that was built the rest gradually disappeared along with the golf club that had previously resided on the plot before said big Supermarket arrived.
And they can’t board up local pubs fast enough. No-one goes there anymore. The smoking ban in do doubt has proven to be another contributory factor.
Around my mate’s locality there are two pubs. One, of the gastro type. Experienced the “Will you be eating?” question myself. Went there for a drink with him and another once. Whilst there three stuffy types protested my language as they overheard me describing someone as ahem, a “f*cking c^nt” as they shared their bottle of Merlot at a nearby table. This “pub” was playing James Brown at Vol. 0.0005. About the most inappropriate level for this music, in the dullest imaginable place, where conversation has to take place at a whisper for fear of spoiling this “ambiance”.
Granted, my language was slightly colourful but I made a point of approaching the men to sarcastically “apologise” for “clearly spoiling their pleasant evening”.
The other pub, a proper pub, has both Sky and a foreign box. And you don’t have to speak in muted tones, no-one overhears what you are saying in your party, the place all round is buzzing. Come closing time, the curtains are drawn, the ashtrays come out, no-one objects and the lock-in lasts a good few hours after.
I also now make a point of refusing to go to the gastro pub when suggested, to pay over the odds to drink in nigh on funereal circumstances whenever we go out there.
I know where I’d rather see my money spent. I know I’d rather see playing upfront. Or at least, who is not. :freu
I think my problem is that I don’t class myself as a social drinker.
Quickly let me add I don’t believe I’m an anti social drinker – my days of being woken by the guard at half past nine am and asked, ‘Where do you think we are, sir?’ Me saying, ‘Er… Liverpool St?’ and him smiling as he said, ‘And some of us for the second time today’ as I had been to Norwich and back in a coma – are somewhat behind me.
I don’t ‘enjoy a glass or two of the grape’ with an old friend. I like to drink to a level of being intoxicated.
As a younger boozer I recall an attempt at humiliation by a ex school friend, ‘I saw you in so-and-so last night. How drunk were you?’ Hang on. I was in a pub buying booze. What outcome was expected?
I don’t rush up to someone I happened to clock in a Waterstones and start yelping, ‘Ha! I saw you yesterday, Talk about books! How many did you browse? You must have ‘ad three on the go at one point. You menace!’
How is you and your mate having a few drinks and a few profanities is suddenly unacceptable? I don’t expect you behave like this in the workplace. I expect you didn’t spray can assorted genitalia on the walls or leave the place with a new carpet of broken glass either.
My take is that things go in cycles and this politically correct airbrushing of people’s social release will soon die an ‘orrible death.
‘Are you eating?’
‘Throw yourself on the BBQ and after 8 pints I’ll give you my decision.’
I hope you’re right about political correctness Mr H. But I fear, I won’t live long enough to see the death knell, of this madness.
I tend to stick with nice quite pubs such as this fine establishment http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7ryTUc3nCY
On a side viewing issue, I found it funny that Atdhe (Hooky suppliers of streams of all varieties) were closed down temporarily the other week… Not by and licensing or copyright body, but by US Homeland Security.
Glad to know that the war on terror has subsided to the point where those boys can busy themselves stopping free streams of Malmo Vs Gothenburg!
Loved the meat museum line… Poetry.
They’re all about stopping ‘organized crime’ and racketeering nowadays. Terrorism has been renamed ‘man caused disaster’. Atdhe came back with a new country domain to skirt the feds.
Man caused disaster, love it. I’d love to know what they’d call a new world war… ‘Amplified multinational inter-relation issues’ I guess.
I would think that after all the tactical and lineup changes the last two months, that somebody, anybody, that understands the league and our club would finally come to the correct conclusion about our striker woes.
We have three strikers who have scored 20 plus goals in seasons before. None of them are old enough to be on the downhill side of their careers. They aren’t playing through nagging injuries that are affecting their pace. We haven’t stopped trying to play wide open, attacking football.
Further evidence is witnessed in watching JJ play for nearly two months now without delivering a single pass to a striker. Even though Modders prefers to make forward passes, he isn’t far behind JJ in that respect either.
The answer becomes perfectly clear when you see how we have gone from averaging nearly three goals a game in the CL to instantly struggling to score more than one against the league’s doormats.
Our best, most underrated player is Tom Huddlestone.
His absence and the effect on our scoring, defending and all around play is clear as day now. Upon his injury, we instantly went from a fast flowing, quick passing, possession and shot dominating club to one with no option but to hoof balls and hope.
I am aching to see that gentle giant drop a 70 yard pass perfectly into the path of our strikers or wingers. Or his instant one touch passes that 99% of the time are perfectly laid in the path of a teammate. Or a thunderbolt strike that even the toughest of defenders won’t dare to stand in front of.
My thoughts and prayers are with Tom as he continues to recover from this ankle injury. The last totally dominating two-way holding midfielder like him that I have watched in the EPL, Hamann, was done in by a serious leg injury far too early in his career. Because of their similarities in height, stature and mobility, I am really nervous about the same fate playing out here with Tom and this injury.
Tom’s been called upon before now and sadly failed. Daytripper, I am not a TH hater, I just want the expectation to be delivered.
He ought to be ‘RoboHod.’ :unsure: :-| :blink: :daumen:
What ARE you talking about ?
Thuddlestone has been one of our best players and boy do we miss him.
Stick to pontificating about boozers. It’s something you know about.
Huddlestone has half a good season after 37 years of trying and you run out and get his name tattooed across his chest.
Surprised they fitted it all on. You must have got one of those Chinese blokes who write your name on a grain of rice do it.
I don’t understand how anybody can say he isn’t living up to expectations. Switch JJ and Tom last season and VDV is playing elsewhere and we are mired in seventh place in the league and at best playing an away match next week against the likes of Debrecen or Getafe instead of Milan.
To me, the greatest players are most often not the flashy players that light up the scoreboard. They are the critical role players, like Huddlestone, that make everybody else around them better and are the engines that make their club’s run.
I have had many disagreements with you in the last four seasons over this in regards to many players, primarily Defoe before he left to Pompey. You have a love for the flair and the dramatic. I’ll trade a few moments of brilliance for seasons of very consistent and high level football.
This injury is so devastating because his greatness was starting to be promoted increasingly by his manager, coaches and teammates. Now everybody seems to have completely forgotten his significance, despite the fact that nobody can explain any other reason why all of a sudden we are struggling to score goals (even Bale’s output dropped tremendously after Tom went down), why all our opponents are controlling possession and why we are playing pretty dismal attacking football.
I really don’t think any of the players or the coaches have forgotten about Thudd or what he does for the team. He’s injured at the moment, and there’s nothing to be gained from walking around lamenting it, so you haven’t heard them talking about him lately.
I think Hudd – if he is going to come good it’ll be under Arry. Mu issue is it’s been such a bloody long time coming and his shot to goal ratio remains… shocking.
yes. this. but then again, not as much as you say. he’s missed, and sorely even, but he’s still as much keystone cops as keystone.