"Neil plays hoofball. Comes from the John Beck managerial school. Will be gone by Easter"

Where is this s**t coming from?

We lost a football match on Saturday: not a war or something. Despite playing very badly, we even damn near got a draw out of it. That entitlement which Paddy Davitt refers to amongst the squad... is it spreading to some of the fans as well?

We don't have some entitlement to just turn up at CR and beat allcomers. We're not going to be some glorious sexy footballing side after 3 games. It'll take patience and hard work: almost everything worthwhile in life does.

And yes, I know we were ugly to watch on Sat - but we were without 4 central midfielders! So he had to change it, it didn't work, and when a system doesn't work, it almost always ends up looking like hoofball because the attack gets isolated and the midfield outnumbered. Does that mean he believes in hoofball? 'Course it bloody doesn't - though a pragmatic, horses for courses approach wouldn't be a bad thing in any case.

The kind of approach which left us regularly looking like a physical, direct, even at times hoofballing side under... Saint Paul of Lambert. And I don't remember many people complaining about it then.

Give the new manager time. He's only just got his foot in the door, he's not even got his assistant with him yet, he's only just started working with the players... and in his first game, he won away to the league leaders with 10 men, and it was his tactical change after the sending off which made that happen.

6 points from 9, and people think he'll be gone by Easter, and McNally's made a hash of it? Christ on a bike.

Posted By: thebigfeller, Jan 26, 23:01:19