The undroppables.

Posted on October 19th, 2010 | 185 Comments |

Undroppable?
Undroppable?
A day in the life of a Newcastle fan is seldom dull. I for one have supported them ever since they began telecasting EPL games in Goa, which would have been way back in 1996.

In that length of time, I can quite honestly say that I must have witnessed a record number of highs and lows as compared to any other aspect of my rather eventful life. I can therefore only imagine what some of you other fans out there must have experienced in a much longer length of time of following The Toon.

This very season, for instance, I have seen our team perform in the most erratic fashion possible. We have beaten Everton, Aston Villa, and Chelsea only to face defeat at the hands of Blackpool and Stoke. At times, at the expense of better and more talented players, we have to endure seeing their seemingly lacklustre counterparts played week in and week out.

This brings me and my poison pen to analyse one point alone. Why do managers pick teams that, even to us humble fans, look suspect from a mile away? What makes the players that represent these line-ups so special that they make us want to tear our hair out? Why do managers unleash ‘The Undroppables’?

I understand a player in a rich vein of form being given a continuous run out (for instance Alan Shearer), but not one who doesn’t really contribute to the team effort. This season, a couple of names come straight to the fore when we’ve thought that certain players could have and should have done better.

Kevin Nolan is one player who put in fantastic effort last season, but just doesn’t seem to have brought that kind of form with him into the Premier League. We all know he’s capable of reproducing that form given his time at Bolton as well as his performance against Aston Villa this very season.

James Perch is another who has his on and off days. Maybe he’s still finding his feet having made the step up to the Premier League, but one can only hope that the foot in question quickly gets a grip.

In any case, I really am not writing an article to single out players who are currently under-performing. Chris Hughton himself has clearly arrived at the same conclusions as us and shown that he is not afraid to make changes. Maybe he’ll even rest Perch this weekend and bring on Ryan Taylor or Danny Simpson if he’s fit? My point in putting these few lines out there is to reminisce about all those players that left us writhing in agony after some performances that were an absolute horror to behold.

As I’ve mentioned earlier, I’ve been a Toon fan for fourteen years now, a little over half my life span. So it would be great to hear from everyone out there who have been supporters for decades and have witnessed stellar players and blundering nitwits share the pitch wearing black and white.

My personal “favourite” is, and will probably always be, the defensive pairing of B&B. Boumsong and Bramble, the two of them looked like they were blundering about in a fog with no idea as to where the ball or members of the opposition were. Am still working out why they were consistently played week after week. Maybe it was to justify their transfer fee? Maybe it was due to a lack of defensive reinforcements? I have no idea…..

Enough ranting though. Who was your most agonisingly pathetic performer in a NUFC strip ever, that though you wished for it incessantly, the manager just would not drop?

NUFCBlog Author: fernando666 fernando666 has written 8 articles on this blog.

Related Posts:


185 Responses

  1. The biggest case of nepotism had to be Kenny and Paul Dalglish, who, unlike his father, didn’t belong anywhere near a Premier League football club (unless it was in Scotland). Also the site of once great players (and mates of Kenny’s) such as Ian Rush and John Barnes waddling out in Toon shirts like fat old gets playing a “seniors” game. Though in fairness to Barnes, he did still have a bit left in the tank, and knocked a few goals in too.

  2. fernando666 says:
    October 19, 2010 at 6:27 pm

    “Guess this article isn’t going down as well as I’d hoped…”

    Whoever published it did it in the “gannin’ home from work” slot, Fernando, which makes alot of difference. It’s a really good little article and it WILL pick up later on.

  3. The problem is that we don’t work with the players day in, day out.
    We all screamed for nolan to be replaced by Mr lover lover and look at the result. Lover man was terrible. May be, just may be the managers do know best.

  4. Thanks you lot…can’t help but wonder if Bobby Shinton will be on here a little later to slag it off…
    :P

  5. F666, unfortunately a lot to choose from!

    Surprisingly i remember a lot of frustration with Milner who couldnt cross a ball to save his life at one stage.

  6. Fernando – Probably, but you get to learn to ignore him ;)

    This will pick up later as it’s a good, thought-provoking article.

  7. Staffs – Milner still can’t cross a ball and was shyte against us. I don’t give a toss what anyone says about how much he went to Coty for, the money we got for him was a good deal….

  8. I recent years it is difficult to forget the ‘Bramble Moments’ that gifted goals to the opposition.

    One of the most pointless was probably Justin Fashanu, who made one appearance, got robbed of all his bling from the dressing room and then disappeared off to Torquay with some Coronation Street actress.

  9. Am with Toonsy on Milner. Good cracking drive, but definitely not worth what City paid.

  10. Toonsy, true enough.

    I remember Warren Barton was a major frustration but not for the lack of effort – he was just shite. He once scored a goal at Anfield, the ball hit him on the butt n rolled over the line – obv one from the trainin ground – n he celebrated like it was the winnin goal at the WC! :lol:

  11. :lol:

    That pic of Nolan made me chuckle.

    The problem we have atm is that C.H is dropping players, but the players taking their places arn’t any better.

  12. Hugh de Payen says:
    October 19, 2010 at 6:52 pm (Edit)
    I recent years it is difficult to forget the ‘Bramble Moments’ that gifted goals to the opposition.

    “One of the most pointless was probably Justin Fashanu, who made one appearance, got robbed of all his bling from the dressing room and then disappeared off to Torquay with some Coronation Street actress.”

    I was inside the place where he committed suicide once, a really grotty old railway arch which was just down the road from where I lived in Shoreditch. It was a horrible place to bid farewell to this world. I also saw him at his peak quite a few years earlier, playing for Clough’s Nottingham Forest against Leeds.

  13. Or what about Frank Pingel the ‘highly-rated striker’ who couldn’t score goals?

    Ye gods he was dire.

  14. Frank Pingel was a class striker,14 games 1 goal and if I remember rightly he jumped with his eyes shut,ball hit him on the back of the head and went in, like I said class.

    To be fair Fernando most of them(if not all) havnt brought last seasons form into the prem…Nolan also played well v Everton imo :-)

  15. One of the hardest things for a manager to figure is who are his practice players and who are his gamers. When I was playing American football at Ohio State our notorious coach W W “Woody” Hayes had guys in practice on the weekdays that looked like world beaters. Some of the gameday starters practiced like they were dislexic and hungover. But when Saturday came around those stumble bums ripped the opposition to shreds, while the weekday stars “rode the log” (as we called the bench). This is the challenge of the manager, sorting out the wheat from the chaff. In other sports where substitutions are more frequent and changable, it can be learned if one is careful and critical. In the EPL, where every game is so important, and a player change can lead to a loss, that is the big challenge. CH must be on that learning curve now. Let’s hope he masters it soon.

  16. wouldn’t quite agree richie…the majority of them, yes, but jonas, jose, collocini, williamson, harper & krul (the little we saw of him) appear to have done fairly well this far…

  17. Worky, did you get my email? No need to reply or anything but I just wanted to make sure it got through.

  18. Nolan is a good battleaxe and goal poacher when against big slow teams, but he shouldn’t be undroppable.

  19. BeeGuy says:
    October 19, 2010 at 7:05 pm

    “Some of the gameday starters practiced like they were dislexic.”

    Being dyslexic myself, I can assure you it doesn’t matter one jot when it comes to physical ability. I actually find that ignorant and offensive….

  20. Tom

    I agree he’s a little slow and basic for the prem, but he won’t leave, he’s got a v good contract until 2013 and won’t want to take a pay cut to go elsewhere. All we can do is get the best out of him while he’s here and I don’t think thats as a player in the hole upfront after the first 7 games.

  21. Fernando…..agree they are doing well,just saying not as well as last season or we’d be top ;-) ..but obviously thats as much to do with the standard of opposition tho.

  22. Toonsy, if you’re honestly dyslexic, the fact that you can churn out quality articles like these on such a frequent basis deserves far more credit then it already does…impressed…

  23. DJG

    If he can’t play the “in the hole” position anymore, then he can’t do anything anymore. He is too slow to play in midfield (and the likes of Guthrie, Barton and Tiote play there better) and he can’t play out wide.

    Making him captain was a mistake.

  24. Fernando – Honestly, aye. I’ve just learned to deal with it mostly, and doing this helps to be honest. I still make balls ups though like :lol:

  25. true that richie…i suppose we can only hope thatchelsea, man utd, man city, and arsenal get relegated and cardiff, reading, peterborough, and leeds take the step up…we’ll be fielding the World XI…
    ;)

  26. Cannot understand the stick Nolan gets and sick of reading about people whinging about him – good against Villa, excellent at Everton and Wolves. Was no worse then anyone else against Blackpool, Stoke etc. The likes of Carroll, Barton, Williamson have done very little recently but seem to escape criticism? Nolan is very important, a leader, good vision and good experience – we were awful the whole game against Wigan without him.

  27. Hugh de Payen says:
    October 19, 2010 at 7:06 pm

    “Worky, did you get my email? No need to reply or anything but I just wanted to make sure it got through.”

    I didn’t get it Hugh, but I may be able to retrive it. I was just thinking about that when I saw your comments. The e.mail for getting in touch with me now is different from the one before, but I don’t want to put it on here due to spam bots. Also I don’t know the best one to caontact you on as I know you have quite a few. Could you send me a message via the contact form on here from the best address to write to you?

  28. Tom

    Once we get a better coach in it might lift him a bit. Im not suprised we are so run down after the chuckle brothers. Don’t get me wrong Im not a Nolan fan or anything, but form is temporary class is perminant, Nolan is a player who was capain of a decent Bolton side and banging in prem goals, also our top scorer from midfield last season. Yes this is a different league but he can’t suddenly be a donkey after his experiences, drop him, give him a rest and get him fitter and faster on the training pitch, bring him on if Barton or Guthrie are having a poor game imo.

  29. Slightly odd to have a pic of Nolan with an “undroppable?” caption when he was dropped last game.

  30. TC – He wasn’t dropped though was he. He was rested due to tiredness and niggless, according to Hughton.

    Plus Fernando sent that pic a week or so ago when it was very topical how Hughtin would never drop Nolan.

    Cheers for being constructive and not acting the tit though eh ;)

  31. Ok don’t worry, Fernando, I’m here.

    I know articles are classed as failures unless I’ve commented.

    Nice little article this. Thought provoking for sure.

    My player up for nomination is: Carl Cort

    Was he even any good fit?

    Bankrupt now, bless him.

  32. @41 which is why TC, I specified that CH isn’t afraid to make changes…
    just seemed the most appropriate for my piss-poor editing skills…
    also the most popular for the costume by public demand, I’d dare wager…
    ;)

  33. People are using Nolan as an easy scapegoat. But the truth is Nolan didn’t play on sat and apart from Collo, not one player was good enough.

  34. No article on this blog is a success without your having graced it stu…thanks…you’ve made my day…am eternally in your debt and all that rot…
    ;)

  35. Fernando – You also have to deal with a lot of people missing the point. Just thought I would add that in like ;)

  36. I would drop Carroll after his recent performances and this farcical situation from Sun night at 4.30am.

    I would play a similar team that was getting goals and results in the cup away at West Ham. With Ameobi and Ranger upfront. Lovenkrands is not good enough, he is a winger from scotland not a striker and he was barely making the team in the champ, I predict he will be away end of this season or maybe in Jan.

  37. DJG – Barely making the team? Lovenkrands? The same Lovenkrands barely made the team by making 32 appearances and scoring 16 goals? A ratio of 1 in 2…..

  38. Albert Craig,Marcelino, Niki Papavasiliou, Silvio Maric ………..I could go on forever ;-)

  39. toonsy a lot of that was from the bench if I remember correctly.

    He barely got a touch of the ball on sat m8. Fair enough he was in a shocking team, but he didn’t make any decent runs or do anything remotely like suggesting he should be playing.

  40. ENJOYED the read m8,can you do one on the ungetables,seems like some fans dont like certain players in certain roles,but who can we get,(going back just a little ;)) i think once we went though about 6/7 left wingers in a short time the fans didnt like,until c.waddle came aboot,ive seen all this before,you cannot please all of the fans all of the time,funny old game like

  41. The only players I think we have got who look anything like scoring are Ameobi and Ranger, and C.H won’t play him.

  42. one of the previous posts mentioned that the players CH is puttin in r no better than those bein dropd n i think that hits the nail smack bang on the head! i was pretty happy with the team news b4 the Wigan game n they didnt perform. Lesson learnt, less critical of CH in future….

  43. we once had a busby babe at the toon,he was shite too,one season he lasted i think,then went to mighty grimbsy :)

  44. StaffsToon says:
    October 19, 2010 at 7:46 pm
    one of the previous posts mentioned that the players CH is puttin in r no better than those bein dropd n i think that hits the nail smack bang on the head

    I’ll take the cedit for that.

    16 DJG says:
    October 19, 2010 at 7:01 pm

    :)

  45. Toonsy, maybe I should have said undiagnosed dyslexic? What I was implying was that some of these guys did not seem to be able to read the playbook or run in the right direction. One of my classmates is dyslexic and rose to the level of branch bank manager. She got to that level before she was diagnosed. She laughs about it now, but had some rituals she had to perform to protect herself from being fired for incompetence. That was quite hard for her – subduing her naturally bubbly personality to cover her problem. It was a great day when she did learn what she had been up against and could take steps to deal with it. She is now a much happier person, and loves to look at someone who is topsy-turvy and diagnose the cause – a laugh at her own expense.

    But in any case, sorry to offend you & will do my best to not do it again.

  46. Going back to Boumsong and Bramble, Shepherd never really backed Sir Bobby with spending on defenders, apart from Woodgate who was sold at a huge profit. In the 5 years, Bramble was next most expensive at £4.5m, the O’Brien at £2m, Wayne Quinn at £800k and Distin on loan.

    Boumsong was the panic money given to Souness after he signed Ronny Johnsen out of retirement.

    Perch was basically a Calderwood signing. My money is on him going up to Hibs with Ryan as cover for Simpson, unless Hughton gets sacked. One of the TOTT lads was saying a month ago that Llambias was waiting for an excuse to get rid of Hughton and the replacement will be in to spend all the profit that is being made this season in January.

  47. Toonsy @ 47: Am beginning to get that feeling…don’t ask me why…just a hunch…

    Icedog @ 52: Definitely an idea worth looking into mate…

  48. richietoon says:
    October 19, 2010 at 7:41 pm
    Albert Craig,Marcelino, Niki Papavasiliou, Silvio Maric ………..I could go on forever.
    >>>>richie, in fairness I was at Old Trafford in 1993 when Papavasiliou slid a perfect through ball for Coley to open his EPL account.

  49. Carl cort was a good shout.Ketsbia for me often threatened a good performance but rarely delivered.

  50. Sorry folks I forgot to also mention Paul Sweeney and the mad professor Billy Askew. Gems the pair of them lol.

  51. remember going to watch the toon every day training at durham,daglish had bought tomlinson,he couldnt hit shit with a stick,and went on to prove it on the pitch,played a little better when he left like

  52. DJG :lol:
    Would have bigd u up for it but
    on the mobile, dont see the comments numbered n pain in the arse scrollin down n back again!

  53. TGS…aye but unfortunately that was the only thing he did…not a patch on Pat Heard tho ;-)

  54. TonyGreenSupreme says:
    October 19, 2010 at 7:47 pm

    “Anyone remember Pat Heard? Hopeless.
    What about Fumaca? Awful.”

    Heard was the first of wor Jackie’s quality signings.

    I always used to call Fumaca “Funacka”.

  55. Anyone remember when Big Jack said “don’t take it out on the players, take it out on me I’m big enough to take it”….so we did and he wasn’t :lol:

  56. StaffsToon says:
    October 19, 2010 at 7:59 pm
    DJG
    Would have bigd u up for it but
    on the mobile, dont see the comments numbered n pain in the arse scrollin down n back again!

    Don’t worry bout it mate. I think it’s a fairly obvious point that most people are probably thinking.

  57. Ice – Nicky Butt was ace ;)

    I was flicking through some match reports from a few seasons back the day and eben found the words “another physically dominant performance from Nicky Butt”

    Where was I when this happens 8O

  58. icedog says:
    October 19, 2010 at 8:08 pm

    “funny like theres never been many good ginger-heed players”

    Gingerist! Nicky Boot was “Player of the Year” once. ;-)

  59. Icedog.

    We’ve got two ginger players, Conner Newton is one of the best in our reserves and we’ve just got another one who set up two goals for them recently.

  60. TOONSY you are our young m8,it was 19–,i cant remember now :) i tryed to google it they forgot too

  61. i said NOT MANY,

    WORKY kilcline i remember he had one leg shorter than the other and one built up boot the one he kicked every sod with lol

  62. magpie6699,
    I was at SJP in 1977 when Graham Oates scored a 30yard own goal against Manure.

  63. WORKY thats wishful thinking he didnt come to the toon,still he was fair hair with ginger cast imo

  64. TGS 91 – think I remember that own goal.
    Also Tony Cunningham – bless him, a real tryer – but he could trap a ball further than most players could shoot it!
    I do think Fumanchu was about the worst though.

  65. TonyGreenSupreme says:
    October 19, 2010 at 8:23 pm

    “Billy Bremner ginger hair = great player.”

    Radgie Keegan threw a punch at him once in the 1974 Charity Sheild final. Mad get!

  66. How about Stephane Guivarch, a Dalglish (I think) signing who scored on his debut and then disappeared off the face of the earth..

  67. Off topic but did anyone hear Radio Newcastle tonight? Apparently Kevin Gallacher spoke to Hughton last night and Hughton said to him that he didn’t even know if he’d get a replacement, let alone who it would be.

  68. Alright lads…getting fairly late in the day at this end of the world…night all…
    :)
    @ Icedog: Thanks for the inspiration for the next article…
    ;)

  69. RICHIETOON think we helped 666 along ok on his first post.
    wait till he gets to know us poor sod doesnt know what hes let himself in for :),hope hes got plenty hair,toonsy lost his

  70. @ Ice: Ice, you really don’t check the authors bit, do you…? Not exactly the first post, and I live next door to an asylum, so insanity’s my forte…
    ;)

  71. toonsy says:
    October 19, 2010 at 8:50 pm
    Stu – Hughton says different like….

    What’s he said?

    Actually I wouldn’t be suprised if we don’t appoint anyone for a couple weeks. That way if we lose against WH and get beat by Sunderland Ashley will sach Hughton and bring in a new team.

    Questions will be asked if we drag our feet with the appointment though…?

  72. neet f666… Ian Baird and George ‘Rambo’ Reilly, Kevin Dillon, Daniel Cordone, Geordie Geordieadis :-)

  73. magpie6699 says:
    October 19, 2010 at 8:39 pm

    “worky – didn’t they both get sent off?”

    Aye, they both got sent off. First British players to be sent off at Wembley or something like that, which is odd.

  74. Tommy Cassidy – fat Irish bloke, he sprinted at 3 miles an hour and looked like he owned a pie factory, remember him scoring a goal from almost halfway line and the crowd was silent for about a minute in disbelief !

  75. Boumsong is a weird one, he’s crap but we paid 8 million, sold him for 4 to juventus, he then moved to Lyon and he’s now at Panathinaikos – not a bad selection of clubs for a bloke who can’t trap a ball or tackle on top of that he’s a regular French international wtf !

  76. No knocking Tommy Cassidy. You are probably talking about the Sunderland goal on New Year, and he repeated the same thing a couple of weeks later against QPR

  77. From my recent past Damien Duff (what an appropriate surname) was the most undroppable player I can recall. Could never work out how he managed to get into the starting line up game after game (when he wasnt injured of course) and yet deliver F ALL.

    In three seasons he played 76 games scoring 6 times yet ended up in 2009 as the 92nd richest player in 442 magazine’s all time top 100 earners (that word to be used advisedly).

    Damien (Overpaid and Over ‘ere) Duff – still makes my blood boil.

  78. 124 – I ain’t knocking him tho he was a slow fat cvnt who could fall over his own feet, still a crowd favourite – you’re right about the goal, a classic
    Ahhhhhh the days when players had a gag and a pint at halftime and washed their own kit at the end of a game and all for 2 quid a week ;)

  79. Great read fernando, far better than that other dyslexic fella knocks up.

    Some classic cases for poor players in here, and you could make a canny poor team with the likes of Hooper, Bradshaw, Sweeney, Boumsong, Marcelino, Askew, Fereday, Carr, Craig, Reilly, Pingel and some canny subs as well.

    But in many cases, a lot of these lads were played because we had little else to offer at the time.

    In the case of James Perch, I think literally a Northern League player could do the same job. Harsh maybe? I think it’s frightening that he gets 5 figures and plays for my home town. I hope he proves me badly wrong but for now he’s top of my list, if only because he’s in the here and now.

  80. Michael Owen – undroppable whenever fit, luckily that wasn’t often – biggest waste of cash ever

  81. Bloody hell, CLiNT – we could do with some stringent refs like that at some of our games! ;)

  82. Ok, looking at the clip from 132…at what point can the 4th Official step in and say, ENOUGH!! Or, is there really no way they can?

    That was nuts.

  83. toonsy, I always preface comments by saying how bright your articles are. But Nolan WAS dropped. It might not be for the reasons you’d like but nevertheless no miraculous turn of fortune took place in his absence, quite the opposite. As fans we pick a weakness and use it as a stick to beat the manager when things go wrong. We were even worse with loven in. Hughton’s game is all about unity, the very thing this article undermines.

  84. we twice finished in the top 4 with bramble in the defence. Is that an answer as to why we stuck with him?

  85. ….and he only played 16 games that season so can’t really take all the credit for that. :-)

  86. I wonder would Mike Ashley go sanction a deal for Mr Rooney. :lol:

    but i kinda dread seeing him coming now.

    Cause

    with Him,carroll and barton= i am totally speechless. ;)

  87. I don’t think Rooney has ever punched a team mate, AoD.

    He might have shagged one or two of their gran’s tho. ;)

  88. Well boater,
    y’say nothing changed on satda & state we were in fact worse.
    Er…We drew at home, rather than lost, in my book, that’s better & a step in the right direction.
    I don’t get how a draw is worse than a loss like.
    Although i’m happy to be proved wrong mind.
    ;)

  89. AoD,
    don’t worry mate, rooney won’t be coming here.
    Anyway, we don’t need any more passengers.
    :)

  90. Can’t understand the criticism Nolan gets, he’s looked far better than he did most of last season and has scored 3 goals already for us, as well as getiig himself in good positions in other games.

    And considering he was dropped for the last game then why claim he is undroppable?

    We don’t have many other options due to our lack of quality in midfiled and up front, so unless he is playing really badly week in and week out i’d have him in the team

  91. Frenando-Nando name rigs a bell from the biggest wind up merchant back in the day on nufcblog.com or is it just coincidence ?

    Welcome back.

  92. Mags,
    some will always find someone to dislike.
    It’s not always rational, then they’ll wait for a mistake & take it as an opportunity to say ‘told y’so’.
    ;)

  93. Careful Macas or you’ll have toonsy calling you a tit :lol:

    Nolan wasn’t dropped he was “rested”. ;)

  94. Marnin, all. Going back to the article, like…

    It does seem that all the top managers start certain key players when their form doesn’t justify it. Ferguson, for instance. I think consistency and that ‘spine of bosses’ down the middle of the field has it. Nolan, like Sol and Harps, has a natural leadership quality which I think is a lot to do with why we’re no longer easy to roll over and why we’ve found ways to fight back when 2 years ago heads would go down.

    And I also think Nolan gets unfair stick. He’s had some poor matches, but those saying he shouldn’t even be in the squad have very short memories. CH seems to have it under control, anyway. As usual.

  95. One thing I can’t understand about last week’s selection: why did CH try the one thing I think we all saw didn’t work last season, only to see the same result? I’m talking about the RW and Guthrie out of position.

    I would assume there were off-field reasons for not playing either of our natural wide-right players instead, but when he did relent and play what was a more obvious line-up, suddenly it all started to click.

    Anyone got any theories, beyond CH having a bad brain day?

  96. Whumpie

    Some teams get away with playing one wide man and a sort of midfield triangle. They typically have a fullback of international calibre though and a DM who can sweep across. We clearly cannot play this way though. What we need at West Ham is a clear well drilled formation where everybody knows their role and are playing with more heart and passion. I knew after a few spankings the ‘team spirt’ would evaporate, it always does, last season we lost only 4 games and I don’t think any of those were within 3 games of each other.

    At West Ham…

    Perch still play at RB with Routledge RW. He’s playing for his position now and if he screws up or looks out of his depth this time I think it’s time to give Simpson at least a chance (although I would be v suprised if he’s any better).

    Guthrie has to play in the middle, or not at all. He is just that type of player who needs freedom and dribbles with options to left and right; give him a set position and only one direction to cross from and he’s knackered.

    Ameobi deserves to lead the line with Ranger his enthusiastic deputy. Carroll has been v poor recently and no way deserves a start after he seems intent to press self distruct.

    Williamson Im sure just had an off day but needs to return to his best form if he wants to stay in this team. We need Jonas and Enrique to be on fire and also Guthrie/Barton.

    Two forward please with Bartons defense spliting passes that have been worringly few and far between recently.

  97. Good analysis, DJG. I’m sure CH will go one up front initially, at least to ride out the first 20 minutes. The problem for me is how to get Guthrie into the line-up without dropping Barton, although Barton’s passing is so poor right now I’d be tempted to play Guthrie if it had to be one or the other.

    As for Perch, I think we have to assume that Simpson isn’t fit yet and Raylor just ain’t cutting it as a defender.

    ———Timmmehhhh
    Perch – Colo – Sol – Jose
    ———Tiote
    Routledge – Guthrie – Jonas
    —–Ranger – Shola

    Subs: Ole, Willo, Raylor, Simpson, Barton, Nolan, Smith, Carroll

    er… how many subs do you get now…?

  98. u are right mate ch..must be either cluelass or had a bad day..sorry why play gutheri on the right hand side..when he comes in side.. and thats why wigans tactics switched charlie boy running at perch on his own….no cover..which left that side wide open..thats why rout must play to give us balance..plus he gets back to cut out perch if he comes forward..which gutheri isnt able to do..2 cover for his mistakes..

  99. BeeGuy says:
    October 19, 2010 at 7:05 pm

    “Some of the gameday starters practiced like they were dislexic.”

    HAHAHA you spelled dyslexic wrong whilst trying to take the piss out of it. Now that is irony if ever I saw it. I know you Americans struggle to grasp the concept of irony at times. So double irony it is.

  100. dont get that ch..it didnt work in cc..every 1 was running at simpson..he got found out..when we played central midfielders in them areas ..why doesnt anyteam run at enrique..this season nobody has had much change..so they target the weak area..ie perch..enrique will end up at real or barca..when they get on 2 how good he is…the top prem league teams already no..2 me cole him secound..but he will be better then him..defending wise a lot stronger..but going forward cole..

  101. Er…Both wigans goals were pumped into the box from their right, our left.
    Weren’t they?

  102. yes..but thats what i mean..perch was up field for the first goal..he ran back..with no cover from gutheri..which if rout was playing we would have had his pace with more cover to deal with that play..

  103. asim,
    i’m not saying Routledge shouldn’t play, he should.
    But both goals took deflections, either to the man, or to the net.
    These things happen in a game, not necessarily anyone’s fault, just shit happens sometimes.
    Yes, we need to toughen up at home & not be so defensive, but at least we had the sac to get back into the game with the right subs, will this be remembered, probably not.
    Like you, i wouldn’t have started Guthrie on the right, he’s wasted there.
    ;)

  104. clint..me going to work..last word..not saying rout should play either..the main thing balance is more important then..who should play were..shit or bust..rout puts teams on the back foot..were if somebody else played their..it makes them push up..so enables them to be on the front foot.

  105. Another thread hijacked but to answer the claim that Routledge gives us balance so would a pair of scales and we’d probably not notice the difference :)

    If we’re going back to 4-4-2 then Simmo should play RB and Raylor take the right mf slot, at least he knows how to cross a ball.

  106. Ray Houghton,
    he used to work with CH & he’s got a similar last name, which is more to the point.
    :)

  107. Going back to the article, I’m starting to think that we’ve actually got less of the ‘undroppables’ syndrome now with CH than we’ve had in years. I can’t think of anyone in the squad who’s not been dropped at some point when a better option existed.

    What worries me more – but is inevitable, I suppose – is the few who’ve been dropped for worse options. Like Routledge for Guthrie out wide.

    Nah – I think CH has the balance right. He’s allowed the odd bad decision like everyone, and overall I still think he’ll have us mid-table by Christmas and we’ll bounce around that area until May. Job done.