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The Importance of Sport (NEW CONCEPTS)
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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It feels like it signifies tranquility, calm, serenity. This is just the type of kit you need when you are two goals up and just need to play out time. Guarantees that your defenders won't make rash challenges.

Good choice.
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Mick Harper
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AIAaargh!

As the Italian motormouth said after the game and amplified with further remarks, we were told, in the press conference afterwards. 'Is Conte challenging Levi?' as one of the hacks wrote afterwards in banner headlines. Not even a rhetorical question, Daniel mused, putting the finishing touches to the Constructive Dismissal severance package. "He'll end up paying us."

PS They can't appoint Viera, him being ex-one of us. Though we might, if he's good with cones.
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Mick Harper
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I am in love with Jude Bellingham. Is the disparity in our ages too great? Only time will tell.
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Mick Harper
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I was struck, watching Italy vs England, how terrible both sides were compared to any top half Premiership side. How can this be? All the players play for, in effect, top half Premiership sides and it is not enough to say, "Oh well, they've only had a coupla days to practise together" because the fault lay in a seeming inability to pass to one another in a rapid and progressive way, and they do this week in, week out. How is this routine skill lost when on international duty?

Since this skill is also routinely lost when it's Tranmere Rovers vs Spurs in the second round of the Conoco Cup, one must conclude that the players think Italy vs England in the early rounds of the Uefa Cup is all a bit of pfaff. And who can blame them? Me.
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Mick Harper
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Match Report

A historic night. Not Kane breaking the goals record (as a midfielder!) but England dominating Italy at their place. Or, actually, any place. Never been done before, as it was here. In the first half anyway, before England decided hoof'n'hope was a better way of defending two goal leads than dominating opponents.

I was just about to pen a Cocklecarrot on the pen when the halftime panel persuaded me otherwise. Grealish, after all my efforts to get him in the team, will have to leave the team. Saka, after all my efforts to give him a rest, should be given a rest. The full back position is very weird. We've got a ton of good young 'uns but we pick Walker and Shaw. Why Foden isn't automatic remains a mystery even though he's off the boil. Parboiled Foden is better than no-Foden. The midfield looks both sound and interchangeable (apart from Rice and Bellingham).

Well done, Gareth. Don't listen to Palace. But you will be hearing from the other Palace.
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Grant



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Still don’t understand why Kane, England’s greatest goalscorer, is so keen on helping out the defence. I know everyone is committed to total football but when Italy were pushing for the equaliser why didn’t Kane stand in the middle to act as a focal point and relieve the pressure. We all know he holds up the ball really well because the commentators tell us this every game.

As for Grealish, he’s surely the next incarnation of Sterling: a twinkle-toed showman who doesn’t actually improve the team. Southgate will realise this in 2025
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Mick Harper
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The elementary failure to use Kane as the get-out man in the last ten minutes meant not only did Italy attack with wave after non-stop wave but they could do it with all ten outfielders since nobody had to stay back just in case. We were lucky not to lose 3-2. As I have pointed out before it is very bad practice to make your striker captain because he never has to judge the big picture.

Now, as you say, we will also have to guard against "band of brothers" syndrome. You shouldn't all be in the last ditch together, one of you should be up the road ready to shoot the bastards in the back.
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Mick Harper
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Volta a Catalunya

This was billed as a head-to-head between the reigning champ, Primoz Roglic, and the young pretender, Remco Evenepoel. The boy surged into the lead on a mountain top stage and celebrated by raising his arms ten yards from the finish to bask in the adoration of his fans.

Result: Roglic kept the overall lead by a fraction of a second. Head-to-head between an old head and a young head.
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Mick Harper
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Clarke v Dinu Sky Sports, Manchester

I'd like to tell you about our latest heavyweight prospect, Frazer Clarke, hailing from Burton-on Trent, the beer capital of England and where I was hanging out only last year, but since both boxers (the other one was Bogdan Dinu, decent record, from Bucharest which I have not had the pleasure of visiting) were of the same height and build, sporting identical shaved heads and half beards, black gloves, black and silver trunks and black boots, I can't.

Suffice it to say one of them stopped the other in the second round. Let us hope it was our man. Unless you're Romanian.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Mick Harper wrote:
As I have pointed out before it is very bad practice to make your striker captain because he never has to judge the big picture.


I am at a loss, about this, as the only thing that skippers do is.

1: Exchange Pennants

2: Shout heads or tails.

3: Wear an arm band, until substituted, when you have to remember who the hell the vice captain is, as the only person who thinks this is significant is the comentator, but only as he is time filling, whilst you wander round with the armband in your hands.

4: Give the occasional fist pump, or clapping of hands.

5: Pull away your new Argentinian defensive midfielder, before he nuts the ref.
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Mick Harper
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Okolie v Light

Top of the Manchester bill was a genuine world title fight (by modern standards) between two boxers with perfect records. "The O," as they say, "had to go." A bit of a throwback for me, brought up on British horizontal fighters who would be up against (but not for long) some sleek and flashy black American while they were alarmingly pale, had a suggestion of a paunch and wore ill-fitting baggy shorts that weren't very. Only this time our boy was the sleek black flashy one (from London where I was hanging out only today). The wan, shabbily turned out, slightly paunchy bloke was from New Zealand (which I hope never to visit).

It was a dull points win for London Lawrence, so why am I telling you about it? Well, I couldn't help atavistically identifying a little bit with David Light which got me to wondering what it must be like to be a New Zealander. Not in general -- we know that counting sheep is a good way of falling asleep -- but as a boxing fan. This fight must be the acme of excitement for them since the days of Joseph Parker before our heavies got to him. And that goes for every country in the world bar us, the USA, parts of Latin America, the Philippines and Russia (and ex-Russia). Count your blessings, modern Brits.
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Mick Harper
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I am at a loss, about this, as the only thing that skippers do is...

I know what you mean, it's not like captaincy in cricket, but I think you underestimate its significance, at least in international matches where every side is a scratch side. What England were doing wrong towards the end of the Italy game was standing too deep and hoofing it up the park. The centre forward can't do anything about this -- though Kane shouldn't have been doing them himself. When your captain is Bobby Moore you can move the back line up, which forces the midfield up. You can tell the goalie not to hoof it, you can decline to hoof it yourself, you can glare balefully at people who do. Centre forwards can't do any of this, apart from quite liking it being hoofed.

"On yer 'ead, Kano... bollocks, he wasn't there."
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Mick Harper
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Cain v Baluta

We move over to BT Sport and Telford (Telford?). The Brit is the champ, he's 10 and 0 with 9 KO's, he's a slugger sans pareil. The other bloke is some foreigner with four losses on his card. And it goes exactly as everyone predicted. Baluta is down twice in the first round, it should have been three but the ref took pity on him and ruled it a slip. He didn't take pity on him by stopping the fight which he had every right to. I stopped watching after a bit, it was too painful. People never believe it but I don't like grown men hitting one another. I fast-forwarded to the end.

Baluta's been given a split decision! How you get to that after a 10-7 first round (should have been 10-6)? By allowing foreign judges, that's how. Of course a foreigner's going to vote for a foreigner. Stands to reason. The British judge and Barry McGuigan gave it 95-91 to Cain. It's a scandal, everyone agrees. Still, a lucrative rematch is heading our way. Let's make Barry one of the neutral judges, he's Irish.
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Mick Harper
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Volta a Catalunya

Road cycling is such a weird sport that Evenepoel's error dogged him right to the end. With Rogliz holding the yellow jersey, he could spend the rest of the race, uphill and down dale, riding in Evenepoels's slipstream -- a thirty per cent saving in energy -- while Remco had to ride like the clappers on every stage to try to get away and claw back that split second The result, on every stage, was that Primoz could pop out at the end and skip round the exhausted Evenepoel. With all the time bonuses, the Slovenian wolf could 'sportingly' let his Belgian bun win the last stage into Barcelona and still win the race comfortably.
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Mick Harper
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England 2 Ukraine 0

This confirmed that post-World Cup England are the new Arsenal. Flying around when the opposition has the ball, pinging it around when they've got it. There's not much finesse but there doesn't have to be since this recipe ensures a lot of possession and masks any weaknesses in front of their goal and guarding our own. Whether it will work at the very top -- or when it's very hot -- remains to be seen but meanwhile we can all go to our beds happy.

PS Saka confirmed my suggestion that it would be better playing him in the middle and/or be given a rest. He still couldn't beat his man out wide for toffee but he did score a peach. On the other hand his work rate and his crosses despite not beating his man suggests I'm quite wrong. I can't both be right.
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