He’s been going through the wars in recent weeks. Although, or rather because, we don’t have a suitable replacement, we’d be best off resting him for the final two games to ensure he doesn’t get a serious injury that could run into pre-season. Garcia, Evans or young East would have to fill in.
With Ceefax now confined to history, do you have any Hull City themed memories of it?
I can still remember when Alan Fettis scored and it appearing on screen ‘Ferris’. I can only think the reporter didn’t believe it was the substitute goalkeeper and took a stab at another name so as not to appear foolish in reporting a goalkeeper had scored. Or perhaps he or she just a typo hitting the r key next to the t key, who knows?
There was a TV in the shop window for, I think, Admiral Insurance with a mock Ceefax page showing a match being played by Hull and Crewe (admiral, hull, crew, geddit?)
And of course, the rituals:
- waiting for pages to roll on to the next one
- the classic pages numbers P302 for football, P312 for football briefs
- checking the latest league table as soon as you got home from a match (press ‘hold’ for your team’s half of the table… in fact I think we were often in a division sharing a Ceefax page with another division!)
I think I also recall that the league tables wouldn’t display the separators between the play-off zone etc. until later in the season, which meant it was getting serious when they were added. The excitement!
And when you had poor TV reception, trying to make out what a page said whe^ !t a// $#0w£d l!#£ +h!$
Do you have any fond memories of Ceefax, or City matches you followed on it?
How City will be ruing the missed opportunity of winning at Watford. We’d have been two points off the play-offs now with two games to go. Fryatt had a good chance at Watford he didn’t take, unlike last night.
Still, we’re not stringing ourselves along we’re going to make it.
Hull City’s solitary nomination in the 20 Seasons of Premier League shortlist is in the Best Goal Celebration category, for Jimmy Bullard’s at Manchester City, of course.
www.premierleague.com/en-gb/20-seasons.html
I guarantee that whenever “You are so southern, you’re practically French” is sung, you’ll hear a voice somewhere among the ensuing laughter say: “It was good when we sang that at Brighton.” I think it’s part of the song.
What’s happened to Chris Iwelumo then? With his past record he should be doing better than sitting on an average Championship side like Watford’s bench. He got a big cheer when he came on but hasn’t got near his usual goal tally for Watford.
We had the chances to give them a real thrashing but didn’t take them. Still, this was a much more entertaining game than I was expecting and I’d rather watch this kind of game on a regular basis – getting a result or not – than what I’ve become used to.
The two goals were very similar. Corner comes in, three defenders all go for it and miss it.
Kuszczak made two great saves in the first half, Chester from a corner again and Fryatt with a volley hit first time. The highlights on BBC perhaps show Fryatt’s was one you’d expect him to save, although Koren was unlucky to see the rebound go wide. Kuszczak’s out of contract in the summer, Bosman-watchers.
Fryatt had a better chance in the second half he should have hit first time. He did the same last week against Middlesbrough. The early shot if hit low doesn’t even require particular accuracy to beat the keeper, you can sweep it past him before he reacts, but take a touch and he’s ready for it. He needs the confidence and encouragement to have a go, most of the season he’s been too hesitant.
We had a number of chances in the second half where it just wouldn’t go, and Evans missed a gilt-edged header. Making those chances is a big improvement.
Rosenior had the best game I’ve seen him have for a while, getting down the wing a lot. I don’t know why we didn’t try changing to natural wingers instead of inside-out wingers once Watford were down to ten men, Brady came on but played on the right when you might have thought stretching the play would make it harder for Watford.
Cameron Stewart is still making poor decisions and his only development appears to have been changing from a one-trick pony (coming inside running at the defender at speed) to having no tricks at all. He tossed off our last chance of the game when he broke away from a couple of defenders on the half-way line and could only see the goal-of-the-season and not his teammates in better positions, wellying a long-range shot nowhere near the goal.
Two out of form teams, something had to give and there was poor defending on all three goals yesterday.
0-1: Chester and Cooper were only looking at McDonald, leaving Emnes unmarked and onside.
1-1: Hoyte dallied to allow King to take the ball and have a free run on goal. For once his heavy touches worked in his favour. With his third he knocked the ball well in front of himself but had pace to chase after it, and with his fourth he smashed it into the goal.
2-1: For City’s winner, McManus stepped out to close down King thus offering Fryatt the space in the middle he so rarely finds in home games to go through on goal. Typical Fryatt finish, holding off a defender and poking it past the keeper.
I think we should keep the same 4-2-3-1 system. Fryatt can play the lone striker role. He’s scored a number of goals for us when holding off the last defender, particularly in away games last season, and most recently at Leicester. Having proper wingers to give us width, space for Fryatt and Koren in the centre, and crosses and cutbacks he can attack would really help. Assuming we don’t sell off any of our first team players – any word on Koren staying? – I would say two wingers are all we need to sign in the summer, as well as Mannone. Another striker option would be nice, but not as essential.
As for needing a Plan B, we’ve already got one we’ve gone to at times this season: 4-4-2, with two centre forwards up top and Koren dropping back into a central midfield or wide position. I recall this working nicely at Reading in January. (Incidentally, since that game when we went ahead of Reading in the table, City got knocked out of the cup, have won just twice, had five goalless draws, two score draws, and now four defeats. Reading won eight on the bounce and have taken 34 points from 39 in all.)
So I’d be looking for a squad like this:
Goalkeeper – Mannone (Reserve: Oxley?)
Defenders – Hobbs, Chester, Rosenior, Dawson (Reserve: Dudgeon, Cooper, Bradley, McShane?)
Midfielders – McKenna, Evans (Reserve: Cairney, Olofinjana?, Kilbane?)
Wingers – New left winger, new right winger (Reserve: Stewart, Garcia, Koren)
Forwards – Koren, Fryatt (Reserve: Mclean, Simpson, Cullen)
Released – Basso, Gulacsi, Harper, Brady, King, Adebola
Apparently Burnsy said Adebola’s cost City £750k, in return for two starts and six sub appearances.
Last season, he came off the bench 27 times for Forest, helping them reach the play-offs. He seemed like a good signing to do the same for us. His link-up play in the first game of the season was excellent, and he could have had assists for a couple of goals if Fryatt had his shooting boots on.
Watching the goals on TV, the first came from a Coventry free kick in our half. Cooper is the only one of our back four who is goalside of his man when the ball comes into the area. It was Hobbs’s man that headed at Mannone. Cooper did the right thing by trying to head it out for a corner, with Hobbs’s man still free to tap in the rebound otherwise, but obviously miscued it.
The second doesn’t show the Cov scorer in the picture when the ball was played to him, but it’s possible Bradley was playing him onside.
Sinking fast STOP No chance of rescue STOP Passengers desert in droves before last minute STOP Chief officer lost STOP Captain praises crew’s efforts and refuses to change course STOP
If only your legs were 20 years younger. We could really do with you now.
City’s Play-Off hopes seem to be sinking faster than the Titanic and it would require a titanic effort to save something from the wreckage.
Maybe the iceberg was the frozen pitch which forced the original game at Pompey to be postponed. This game would probably have produced a result. Instead it became part of the sapping backlog.
Team selection now needs far more than re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic which is what has been happening.
Aldershot manager Dean Holdsworth said: “I spoke to Nicky Barmby this morning and it is a situation where we would have done the same thing.” www.theshots.co.uk/news/Aldershot84285.ink?newstype=p
What’s the ‘situation’? Joe Dudgeon’s injury? We already have Liam Cooper, perhaps Sonny Bradley is more comfortable at left-back. Is there anything more to it than that?
Why does NB play 4-5-1 we have no idea when we play that formation,is there any wonder our forwards are not scoring Fryatt is no good on his own upfront,no wonder the forwards we had are scoring for other clubs.
Remember the mess-up over Daniel Ayala’s loan to Hull City when he’d been injured?
Blackpool cost keeping Jonjo Shelvey on loan from Liverpool by talking him up:
“The reason we haven’t got him is because we were talking about him for months and he was somebody else’s player.
“He is on the bench for Liverpool at the moment and they bought him for a lot of money, so well done to them.”
Music after goals and at kick-off are stupid because they’re the only times the crowd doesn’t need assistance to make a noise. The rest of the time, the crowd quite clearly does need something to make them liven up as this has failed to happen ‘organically’.
Asking a few pass-holders to move seats and making part of the East Stand a designated ‘support section’ for those who do so all day long together at away games would seem the most natural way of starting things. Extending it round the North-East corner and behind the goal would have even more impact. Adam Pearson talked a while ago of the possibility of moving the away fans to somewhere like the West Stand upper tier. Has that been given up on?
A lone drum isn’t the nicest of sounds but it’s much closer to the traditional sounds of football grounds than something played over the PA system. Fans used to drum on the sides of the South Stand at Boothferry Park or the back walls of away grounds, and would join in with an air-horn. Why is a drum worse?
Perhaps the single best reason for bringing in a drum would be to get rid of the drum. Instead of joining in with the drum, in defiance the crowd would have to sing up together to drown it out.
BBB has joined Cheltenham Town on loan from Notts County. They’ve also signed Steve MacLean, formerly of Scunthorpe. That would’ve been a deadly strike partnership about nine years ago! Darryl Duffy’s there too, so maybe not.
www.ctfc.com/page/LatestNews/0,,10434~2688335,00.html
Deadline was 5pm yesterday. The League’s regulations are:
53.2.1 Emergency and Youth Loans are permitted both during the Transfer Windows and, subject to the provisions of Regulation 53.2.2, also during a Closed Period.
53.2.2 Notwithstanding the provisions of Regulation 53.2.1, a Player cannot be registered on an Emergency Loan or Youth Loan:
(a) during the period of seven days after the end of a Transfer Window;
(b) in the first half of the Season, after 5pm on the fourth Thursday in November; and
(c) in the second half of the Season, after 5pm on the fourth Thursday in March unless in accordance with the provisions of Regulation 54.
www.football-league.co.uk/regulations/20110629/section-6-players_2293633_2125731
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