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Post by ted1965 on Mar 23, 2008 9:42:16 GMT
After a good nights sleep, well one where I kept hearing seagulls and seeing flying tangerines, morning came and we are still top of the league. Though it doesn’t make the last few weeks any less disappointing, we have now thrown away 4 points in my opinion by playing in an ultra cautious way. I am not sure whether it’s by instruction or simply the players themselves starting to think about where we are and suddenly becoming nervous of failure. The only good thing to come out of yesterday, we didn’t lose any ground apart from Hull who are like a train gathering momentum and speed, lets hope they suffer a derailment soon or we could be looking at one from four for second spot.
If you look at yesterday you can indeed find reasons why we struggled, no Fuller who is on his day almost unplayable at this level and of course we certainly missed Lawrence his guile and ability, they are also the goal threat of the side and if you took those out of most other squads at this level you would lose impetus, though you should still be able to take a game to the opponents at home with the players we had out there.
We can look at many other factors, the delayed kick off and whether a referee should be travelling down on the morning of the game, for me it’s all hot air to cover the fact that we are losing momentum and direction at this most important part of the season. The one thing in football you need to be prepared for is the unexpected. It’s certainly not a terminal problem, though the solutions need to be found now, a win of course and all will be rosy in the garden again, that’s football and the fickleness of football supporters.
The manager needs to gather them all together and say, we have reached where we are as a team, we don’t have the depth of squad of some of our rivals but we have a wonderful team ethic, nobody is more important than the sum of our parts. We need to play each game as a must win cup tie, leave absolutely nothing out on the field as we sit in the dressing room at the end of each game. This is your moment, the time to push all those criticisms down the throats of our detractors. We are where we are on merit, we have earned the right to be top of the league. The last 6 games are not exactly frightening though far from easy at this time of year no game is going to be easy, those fighting for their lives will find that extra in the fight to survive, those who are still harbouring slim hopes of joining the play off party are running their legs off and those who are marking time can relax and play without the fear of the outcome. They are all winnable and we are good enough to win them.
That is what we need now, the lets go for it, play without fear of losing and take the games by the scruff of the neck, there is no good looking back and saying if only, we should of done this, or that. It’s time to throw away the shackles of mind and body and say we wont die wondering. I honestly don’t believe if we fail attempting to win games people will be as annoyed as when they believe we are going through the motions.
This season has been a remarkable one in so many ways, in a normal season if you had dropped 10 points from your last 5 games you would be falling behind the pace and looking at consolidating a play off place. This season we have been extremely fortunate that apart from Hull all the other candidates for automatic promotion have hit the fabled marathon wall as well. Though we do look a leg weary side at the moment, a side who are running on memories rather than momentum as we were just a short time ago. I suppose if you look at where we are compared to where the majority thought we would be when we kicked off against Cardiff in August it may seem churlish now to complain about the last 5 games. It would have been almost unthinkable that we would have been top of the league at Easter and still with as a good a chance as anyone and better than most of being promoted when the season ends in early May.
I guess we are all in for another 7 weeks of finger nail biting, hair loss through self inflicted grasping of handful’s and pulling sharply, there’ll be a queue as long as the Jarrow march down at that hair loss clinic by the end of the season, it’s no wonder some are looking into wigs at least with artificial hair you wont freeze if you pull it out.
Come on you mighty Potters, 23 years is too long and I really want to see August in the sun against some big time Charlie’s who we have absolutely no chance of beating according to the media when we kick off our first top flight game for three decades.
We have to win promotion not hope others fail to take it away from us.
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Post by You want salad on kebab boss? on Mar 23, 2008 9:55:49 GMT
Yeah !
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Post by You want salad on kebab boss? on Mar 23, 2008 9:56:34 GMT
Seriously, I think its just nerves, we WILL get promoted this year !
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Post by lancer on Mar 23, 2008 10:32:43 GMT
Bloody hell, ted, after reading your post, I'm ready to turn out myself for the rest of the season. Very inspiring, mate.
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Post by Adster on Mar 23, 2008 10:37:06 GMT
ted, as always a pleasure reading your posts.
sometimes they have me in stitches other times i want to shout out me window goarnn stoke!!!
infact, i will just do that now, even tho the people of snowy middlesex will look at me strangely and ask, but who the fuck are stoke?? and i will gladly tell them all at the end of the season that we are a premiership team.
GOARNNNNNN STOKE ;D
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Post by kinnell on Mar 23, 2008 12:17:05 GMT
Um.....could you just repeat that, Ted? ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
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Post by ted1965 on Mar 23, 2008 12:32:25 GMT
;D ;D : ;DNot without the aid of oxygen and a base camp
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Post by kinnell on Mar 23, 2008 12:55:28 GMT
;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
Seriously, some good points there, mate, just as there were in War and Peace!
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