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Groundhopping Owl

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Everything posted by Groundhopping Owl

  1. Agree - this season has been a disasterclass of post-promotion mismanagement. After promotion it’s all about harnessing the momentum and feel-good factor and carefully strengthening where necessary. Last year Ipswich finished one position and two points ahead of us and we drew both games. Now look at the gap. Cheers DC - yet again.
  2. With Röhl’s methods we’ve been pretty allergic to the top sides, it’s true. There are four “league within a league” teams who are up there by definition because they’re very good but two points from eight games against them is pretty meagre nonetheless. It would probably be daft to make any major changes in the midst of the run-in mayhem but Danny could do with going away and reflecting on these games over the summer - I’m confident he will learn from this as he develops, I just hope we’re the ones who benefit from that, not someone else while we’re back at the mercy of DC’s managerial merry go-round.
  3. First half we matched them and maybe even shaded it in terms of carrying a threat. Then ruined it by stopping playing 10 seconds before the half was set to end. After that heads dropped, we couldn’t get back into it and L**ds managed it pretty professionally. Not particularly impressed with them though, they might stop up in the PL if they do go up but I suspect it would be have to be someone other than Farke in the dugout to keep them above the dotted line. More importantly, as for we’re concerned - tonight doesn’t necessarily stop our momentum given we’ll have Poveda back plus hopefully Ihiekwe and Iorfa. But it’s worrying that even in the midst of a brilliant run we can hardly get a point off the four “league within a league” promotion contenders. Lose at Ipswich and it’ll be 2 points from a possible 24 against the top four. Combine that with too many losses, some pretty heavy, against the teams around us and we’re giving ourselves another mountain to climb after successfully making up for the Xisco disaster.
  4. Think the first half proved the lineup hasn’t necessarily been the problem. Famewo was probably always going to start and it’s ultimately him switching off that’s cost us.
  5. Should we be thinking like that after a run of five wins from six? Albeit with the odd one out in that run being against Leicester…
  6. What a result. What a first half performance too, brimming with confidence. And what a response to having the goal wrongly ruled out then losing Bannan. To get three points here was absolutely massive, we’ve properly concertina’d the league table the last few weeks with these wins over Birmingham, Millwall and Plymouth. That being said, I’d snap your hand off for a point against L**ds, particularly with Poveda unavailable. That would be enough to keep this momentum going.
  7. Bannan concussed from that coming together at the end of the half? Rare that he misses minutes - bad omen that I’m immediately remembering what happened after he was subbed off (tactically on that occasion) against Plymouth last season. We’ve a job on to keep up the same level of creativity now - where’s George Byers when you need him…
  8. I think a lot of Germans would question Röhl’s judgement, and indeed probably go a lot further, if he were in charge of a Bundesliga club and tried to bring in Schulz. I’ve spent a fair chunk of time living over there and, while I wouldn’t claim to be some all-knowing seer when it comes to Germany, I’ve never had the sense that their sense of morality is particularly different to ours (you could get into to the weeds of contrasting the respective intellectual influences, but this is Owlstalk not an academic journal). I agree debate shouldn’t be shut down but you’re getting into dangerous territory by suggesting there’s some innate difference in senses of morality between countries. In my experience, Germans just apply their sense of morality much more rigorously within football than we do here because they see it as part of society and not just a vehicle for making money. It’s why I prefer their footballing culture to ours, much as it’s far from perfect (Ultra culture is a very double-edged sword, it drives me mad to see it spreading across Scotland). There’s a reason no German clubs are making any effort to bring in Schulz. The same reason Jerome Boateng will in all likelihood never play in, or for, Germany again.
  9. I feel just the same, never felt more distant from the club. The amount of reputational damage we’ve self-inflicted over the last year and the number of people both inside and outside the club willing to just carry on like everything is fine makes it pretty difficult to feel that same sense of belonging.
  10. See I actually agree there. The definition does fit, certainly where the English game is concerned. But, much as I’m pretty powerless to do anything about it, I’d still rather carrying on registering opposition to that being the state of things. And my opposition to Wednesday contributing to that problem rather than being the exception to the rule. Even if, let’s face it, that opposition doesn’t amounts to much more than the odd strongly worded post on here.
  11. Banned from Elland Road, or banned from Leeds games? Even if it’s the former, how did he rack up the points to get an away ticket for a big cup game at a club they (somewhat tragically) see as a “rival”? Whichever way you slice it, the banning order system in its current form clearly isn’t working.
  12. Great attitude. Let’s just accept football as an amoral wasteland where scumbags can wander around soaking up the adulation of fans young and old at clubs up and down the country - whether those scumbags are on the pitch or in the owner’s box. I thought I could be cynical about things but Christ alive this takes it down to a new level.
  13. Agree that the supporter engagement panel is a joke - which means that this response from the club is too. I went to a Q&A session with DC in the early days before the sessions were “formalised” into the supporter engagement panel and the whole event was a farce, the amount of sycophancy and soft-balling was unbelievable. Even some of those who were allegedly there to represent different groups of supporters were offering up loaded or self-censored questions. Thankfully the event was long enough ago that I’ve forgotten most of the grisly details but I very clearly remember one bloke genuinely beginning his question with words to the effect of “Now I can hardly believe I’m having to ask this but some people have requested I bring up the band yet again…”, thereby absolutely laying it up for Trevor Braithwaite or whoever it was sitting next to DC to eagerly agree it wasn’t a topic worthy of any significant discussion and bat it away. It was a pathetic waste of time. The only channel for proper scrutiny on the engagement panel was the Supporters’ Trust, so they were promptly kicked out of the meetings. That should have told folk everything they needed to know.
  14. I feel pretty sick about this in all honesty. Read bits of the German coverage around Schulz and the details that came out of the trial were grim. There are things that aren’t worth a boost in the relegation race, associating someone like that with our club is one of them. He should be kept well away from Hillsborough. If not, there are plenty of supporters who will be inclined to keep away instead, particularly women.
  15. Thoughts on uptake of these? Any chance of them reaching general sale?
  16. Emi Martinez I suppose. He wasn’t much good for us though really was he?
  17. Deary me, that was miserable from start to finish. The gulf in class was obvious from early on, even taking the goals out of it Sheaf was head and shoulders above anyone else on the pitch. There’s just too many teams in this division that are way better than us and this window has demonstrated yet again we can’t fix that with our resources and the same old people calling the shots upstairs. And to top it all off, all the unpleasantness at the end means there’s a shadow looking even more over the whole day. It’s very rare that I come away from Hillsborough wishing I hadn’t bothered but today is one of those days.
  18. I hope he’s refused at every other entrance too. Or even at the UK border. Toxic influence on the club.
  19. Yeah in principle I’m not against him starting, he has clearly improved of late. Can imagine some expected Ugbo to go straight into the lineup but it never sends a great signal when new signings are pitched in having only had a handful of sessions to prove themselves. Fletcher’s issue is he knows strikers are judged on goals and the longer it goes on the more pressure will be on him, and the more pressure there is the more chances you miss. Really, really hope today is the day when he breaks his duck.
  20. Agree. One of Moore’s better tactical moves was telling Bannan to think like a number 10, let’s hope he doesn’t slide back into his old ways of wandering as deep as possible to receive the ball.
  21. Claus Lundekvam, James Beattie and Marian Pahars. That team that got two consecutive promotions - Lambert, Lallana, Schneiderlin and co. Wasn't Clive Woodward involved there briefly? Obviously very recent but that game on opening day was just appalling on every level. A newly promoted club facing a newly relegated one and we had less than 20% possession in the first half. Possibly the meekest surrender I've ever seen at Hillsborough, we arguably had more of a go in that 1-0 cup defeat to Man City a few years ago.
  22. Agree with those saying DC would probably have been sacked Darren by now had he been allowed to start the season and would maybe even tentatively agree that we're better off with Danny - his coaching assistants are certainly miles better. However, just imagine if Darren had been given even just those 10 games we wasted with Xisco. Don't tell me Moore wouldn't have delivered significantly more points with the full momentum of promotion behind him, it wouldn't exactly have been hard to improve on the utterly pathetic 2 points Xisco managed.
  23. Pretty much echo all this. Didn’t want Danny as I didn’t think we had the squad in place to play his sort of high-intensity football and we couldn’t afford to accommodate the mistakes of a novice manager given how far behind we already were. We compensated for the latter problem by putting in an incredibly experienced group of coaches behind him (genuinely the biggest masterstroke witnessed at this club in years) and Danny’s worked so smartly since coming in that all of a sudden this squad looks capable of things I’d never thought possible. Couldn’t be a bigger thumbs up from me. I hope he stays long into the future, and if he does go then we’d be mad not to keep the coaches behind him and maybe even just shuffle one of them into the head coaching role. This set-up is working, please for the love of God DC don’t mess with it.
  24. Good half. We’re still quite limited on the ball but creating what we can and the pressing seems to cause teams more and more problems with each passing game. The red card has probably turned a game where we’d have taken a point into one where we’d be disappointed with anything less than a win. The players can’t dwell on that too much, just stay cool and keep the game under control.
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