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Post by mermaidsal on Feb 26, 2020 23:17:05 GMT
Oi upstart, you trying to tell me something? That would have been such an easy game to lose, instead it was one of our best, most joined-up defensive performances under MoN. We really did do the job right through the team and I thought Mick's read of the game was excellent. Still glad I didn't drive all the way to Blackburn for 90 mins of it tho... 9 from me add * if you were there please
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Post by mermaidsal on Feb 22, 2020 19:04:24 GMT
high, high on the list of totally dickbrained decisions in our most dickbrained phase in recent history. I'm shedding no tears and he sure as hell won't be, he must hate the sight of SoT (wonder how many days he actually even spent here?)
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Post by mermaidsal on Feb 22, 2020 19:00:42 GMT
Well he certainly doesn't let life get boring... Mick got us back together really well this week and today. One more time. That wasn't Baadiff's best day but they've got the quality to be a constant threat. We dictated the tempo for long sections of the game, defensively lot better, I was happy with the starting X1 (allowing for permanent issues about Ince, I'm still right more often than Mick about that), might have made the subs sooner but overall, a fine solid job of work (and, 10 fouls to their 7).
8* from me
add * if you were there please
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Post by mermaidsal on Feb 22, 2020 18:54:15 GMT
She's here, hold your horses xx
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Post by mermaidsal on Feb 15, 2020 17:35:35 GMT
Can the title be changed to Dave Watson illness ? People not reading the article and putting RIP which I find both disrespectful and sad Done xx
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Post by mermaidsal on Feb 15, 2020 17:34:24 GMT
Awful news - Penny sounds brilliant though, and others around him. It's stating the obvious I know but this always seems to be the players we loved because they never shirked a challenge xxx
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Post by mermaidsal on Feb 15, 2020 17:04:07 GMT
That was bad. Not the first half hour obvs, but they're a mid-table side at best and we were just completely bloody overrun. Where's the steel, where are the robust routines from the training ground, and looking at the stats where are the fouls? If you want to see a game SCFC have genuinely dominated in the MoN era, check the fouls column. We need to be ahead every time because, frankly, we're not consistently good enough to win games clean and right now, no problem with that. And we're slipping back to a relegation form GD.
As for Mick today I felt like either he had no Plan B or made all the wrong moves implementing it. If today was a battle of minds Mark Warburton pissed it. One so-so day at the office and this bad one = roll on next week. Please.
4 from me
add * if you were there please
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Post by mermaidsal on Feb 12, 2020 22:21:46 GMT
Dominated the game, outplayed and outsmarted where it really mattered. tbh that's what top and bottom of this league look like. So how to rate Mick on tonight? He did a lot of things right and to me at least it didn't feel like another Derby. I'm not usually big on blaming players when problems could have been sorted with better training ground routines - but it didn't feel like that today either. We might have dominated but Preston had the quality to bother us constantly and that didn't help us make good decisions on the pitch when it mattered.
Wonder how many if any of our starting X1 would have got into that Preston side? I'm not sure anyone would and that speaks volumes.
So I'm saying either, too many players' limitations got shown up tonight - or, we've still got a few months' hard work before we've got the confidence as a squad to win games like this one.
A surprisingly generous 7* for MoN from me
add * if you were there please
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Post by mermaidsal on Feb 8, 2020 22:54:10 GMT
Cheers Albs, sorry I was late back x After Derby that was a fantastic bounce back to business as it should be (almost said 'as usual' but that would be tempting fate). Lovely strong flowing performance as a team for a good chunk of the 90, and Mick added cojones with whatever was said at HT, just when needed. And rightly, against my judgement and many more, stuck to his guns with Ince and was brilliantly rewarded. So, one more 10* from me What’s the craic with the “if you were there” stuff? I’ve wondered for a while, as in why does that make a difference It's kind of a habit from history really, ignore if it's annoying - it's def not meant to imply someone's a better Stokie because they've paid to go to the game. On the old board, so this is when streaming was nothing like as widespread so for most of us it was either be there or hear Nige's version, there was a serial liar called bringbackmuggleton who kept claiming to have been at every Stoke game ever and have privileged knowledge of almost everything on earth. So it was partly to try and sort the bullshit out. But even now we've got much better streams I still get a lot out of suffolk and others doing a pitchside report on away games.
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Post by mermaidsal on Feb 8, 2020 19:32:45 GMT
Very useful start
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Post by mermaidsal on Feb 8, 2020 19:27:26 GMT
Cheers Albs, sorry I was late back x After Derby that was a fantastic bounce back to business as it should be (almost said 'as usual' but that would be tempting fate). Lovely strong flowing performance as a team for a good chunk of the 90, and Mick added cojones with whatever was said at HT, just when needed. And rightly, against my judgement and many more, stuck to his guns with Ince and was brilliantly rewarded. So, one more 10* from me
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Post by mermaidsal on Feb 8, 2020 19:22:41 GMT
Never heard a good word said about him. Always remember someone saying he used to weld two halves of cars together...proper death traps. Don't know what truth is in it but not something people just make up. That could be what drew him to Broughton Hall It's the nearest you get to a cut and shut mansion, an early 20th century building lunked on top of a - not sure how old but very, Jacobean I think? - house when it was turned into a monastery. The shit I know....
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Post by mermaidsal on Feb 6, 2020 1:44:21 GMT
Come along way since selling dodgy cars in stoke 😎 Not in terms of taste!!
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Post by mermaidsal on Jan 31, 2020 22:17:10 GMT
Cheers Ange - and really enjoyed your Sentinel column x
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Post by mermaidsal on Jan 31, 2020 22:15:32 GMT
Oh well, he's not perfect after all. We slipped back badly tonight, no point trying to dress it up. They bustled us, we lost our shape and as 11 individuals we were way less than the sum of our parts. Mick didn't second guess Derby right from the outset and he didn't reboot us effectively at HT either. And we really could have done without our GD dropping again.
4 from me
* if you were there please
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Post by mermaidsal on Jan 25, 2020 18:13:52 GMT
Look at today's stats and you'd think we got overrun but that just wasn't the story - the gameplan worked beautifully imo, we made them show us what they'd got, then we stopped them doing anything with it ('stopped the opposition playing' is my fave phrase I know... but finally we're getting it right) and created the space for ourselves to sort them out. And we're tough again, look at that lovely fouls stat. We're really starting to look like a football team you mess with at your peril. 2-0's maybe flattering, it was a much harder game than that but we're due a few breaks.
9* for Mick from me
add * if you were there please
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Post by mermaidsal on Jan 25, 2020 18:09:20 GMT
Youngest 70-y-o ever, happy birthday legend! xxx
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Post by mermaidsal on Jan 20, 2020 22:08:26 GMT
So we always beat West Brom, apart from a brief interruption.... Can't see what all the fuss is about really... Just awesome management tonight, force of character on the pitch, soaking up pressure without losing our shape badly. Ok there are bound to be blips but the way we're gaining confidence, as a group, week on week is showing us players whose quality and strength we'd lost sight of under the last two amateurs. 10 from me add * if you were there please (Really annoyed with myself, I often go to WBA away games, this time I decided I was too busy with work. Idiot Sal)
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Post by mermaidsal on Jan 11, 2020 23:10:25 GMT
Common on a lot of forums, I feel like discussion is so split up and at the end of most games there'll be a positive or negative thread created and it'll turn into a bit of an echo-chamber with people reluctant to comment if it goes against the grain. Having a neutral territory for discussion makes some sense? I know some goes on in the match thread after the game's over but it drops in traffic like a stone. Maybe it's a shite idea but maybe it's worth giving a go? mermaidsal is it even possible? try it next week and see? don't think we could call it official till it becomes an institution in its own right - but if gets good hits and decent quality discussion not just slagging matches (not that we ever do anything like this on here then I can start pinning it xx
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Post by mermaidsal on Jan 11, 2020 18:35:40 GMT
so very sorry, this is awful news
love and condolence to those left behind
RIP tricks
xxx
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Post by mermaidsal on Jan 11, 2020 18:29:57 GMT
It pains me to say it but Rowett's got Milwall in great shape. They did a really effective job stopping us playing - but we didn't help ourselves today, we could and should have taken way more of the initiative and that's down to management and tactics as well as the players. The Bet365's meant to intimidate opponents, not us lot. Compared with recent efforts, underwhelmed by Mick's work today tbh.
5* from me
add * if you were there please
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Post by mermaidsal on Jan 5, 2020 22:25:29 GMT
If we can sign a mark crossley , we can stay up I think most would agree , butland has thrown away around 10 to 12 points in the first half of the season If we let him do the same , on the back half of the season , then we are begging to be relegated Good (retro) shout, what wouldn't I give for a Crossley now? Lovely temperament as well as a top keeper.
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Post by mermaidsal on Jan 5, 2020 22:24:13 GMT
10th to 12th with a positive GD by the end of the season
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Post by mermaidsal on Jan 4, 2020 21:04:18 GMT
It's so hard to put a rating on games like this. What did Mick honestly want out of it? Getting to the 4th Round would have been a nice enough bonus but he's rightly got the blinkers on about survival. He's seen fringe players through a full 90 and he's learned, if he needed to, who we miss most when they're not in the pitch... so if he set out mainly to learn something useful, does that count as job done? We kept our shape well, we were combative if not beautiful - for me it was a really unlucky goal and we were worth a draw on another day...
Call it 7 then, maybe??
add * if you were there please
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Post by mermaidsal on Jan 1, 2020 17:40:16 GMT
Beautiful, just beautiful - it's def not like the unforced errors have disappeared (!) but to go behind away from home, come roaring back, then most importantly get our teeth into them and give them no chance to wriggle - that's true character. At last we've found it again - HAPPY NEW YEAR and cheers Mick, everyone on the pitch today and Stokies everywhere.
10 from me
add * if you were there please
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Post by mermaidsal on Dec 29, 2019 17:35:50 GMT
We played well for good chunks of the game, we kept our shape, fewer heads dropped than of late - they were simply better than us and tbh to only lose 1-0 wasn't bad on the day. Most encouraging stat for me (I'm dead serious given where we are in the table) was 14 fouls to their 11. Keep clogging boys, we're going to need it.
7 from me for Mick. We'll win games playing worse than today.
add * if you were there please
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Post by mermaidsal on Dec 26, 2019 19:14:24 GMT
So sorry for your loss - what a great dad he sounds, and what a brilliant family he's left behind.
RIP sir xxx
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Post by mermaidsal on Dec 26, 2019 19:09:13 GMT
No-one's going to say we were perfect today but that was a team of warriors right up to the very end. Cheers lads for the Christmas present and bigger cheers Mick for screwing them up to warrior pitch to deliver it. That's what we brought you here for and it's a joy to see it working (on the days when it does work). Not under any illusions that we've suddenly changed from pussies to warriors and won't ever slip back - but this Boxing Day, against imo seriously useful opposition, really does show the way.
9* from me
add * if you were there pleasse
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Post by mermaidsal on Dec 24, 2019 12:39:50 GMT
Merry Christmas everyone from the Oatie Management Thanks so much for your support this year, please don't ever feel it's taken for granted - have a lovely holiday, and everything you wish for you and your nearest and dearest in 2020 - and a few bloody points over Christmas would be nice too? xxx
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Post by mermaidsal on Dec 21, 2019 1:25:51 GMT
Alex Ferguson would have this squad 18th in the championship at best Fergie would be on trial for mass murder by now
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