Old McDeano's Pharm
Below the Conifers of the Kilner Bank
Remind me again, when did it change from being called Dalton Bank?
I have asked before, can't remember an answer.
Underneath the Floodlights
Not far from Leeds Road
HD1 6PG Tips

PG Tips? I prefer Tetleys or Yorkshire Tea to be honest, but I buy what's on offer in Morrisons and ASDA - well, what Yorkshireman wouldn't?

I prefer beer to milk too if I'm honest, but if I'm really honest, beer spoils your cornflakes.
(No, neither in me tea either).

Kick-off 19:45 UK Time
Friday 04/03/22

So here's the thing. Town are 3rd, Posh are bottom.
How to write a thread that doesn't get pinned on the wall as Posh's Team talk on Friday?
Otherwise, talk about things changing minutes after you type them .. oooh, when to post this week?

Hmmmm ....

I'll be there

I'll need to get a shift on for this one, don't the clowns in EFL HQ in Preston know what the traffic is like on the M6/M62 on Friday?  Not to mention our southern based fans coming up the M1 or paying almost peak price train fares from that there Larndan? Then staying overnight or longer? Still, nowt like a weekend in Yorksha, away from it all, is there? Just no consideration for the travelling fans, tsk, tsk. The few coming up from Posh will no doubt have similar issues driving up the A1/M1 and across the M62.

One of our occasional nemesis's (nemesi?) - it's one of those oddball rivalries that crops up in football now and again, trundle up the A1 and across the M62 to the Big Blue Stadium on the bonny, bonny banks of the River Holme on Friday night.

Friday night? Are we on the tellybox again?

No, for whatever reason the tellybox companies couldn't agree to fit our FA Cup game v Forest in this week, so we've been shuffled off to ITV4 for next Monday night.

ITV4? Gimme strength.

At least we get full tellybox payments on Monday unlike those poor sods on the BBC Red Button the other night.

Anyroad, after Fergie's lad got the bums rush from Pish Posh once again, another old face in the form of Grant McCann has been recycled through the revolving door that is the Pish Posh Manager's office.

Now, it's not my place to decide who Cockanee(ish) gobshite Barry Fry and owner Darragh MacAnthony should recycle through the bottom of their main stand as their manager, buuuuut they don't seem to look very far out of the box and when they do they tend to look in the wrong box or maybe just through the wrong window ("It's Play School")  more often than not.





MacAnthony obviously knows his limits when it comes to what he'll spend, and I won't argue that they've unearthed more than a few good'uns on the pitch over the years that have gone on to much bigger and better things, even after beating us at Old Trafford, and made 'em a bob or two.

Would you, however, expect a tad more ambition from the so called "biggest club" in your county given that level of success? Would Town fans accept MacAnthony's ambition if (heaven forbid) he owned us? Peterborough has about 20,000 more in population than Huddersfield though without the surrounding conurbation (and history) to swell the fan base. Cambridge fans are welcome to comment.

Would we also expect that from our biggest neighbour in the county (in their eyes)?
Nah, be honest, ours that think they are the biggest club in our county, play in a dump full of mud and can't organise a piss-up in a brewery let alone a football club. Neither can L666s for that matter. 

On the tellybox

Not showing anywhere at the moment other than iPlayer (maybe, if you're lucky) or them there dodgy interweb feeds.

Latest news

Well I think most are aware of the football news this week. Fairly trivial tbh in regard to the news coming out of Ukraine.
Like most bullies, Putin only picks on those he thinks are easy targets, picked on a harder one this time.
I wish my former colleagues in Ukraine good luck in all of this and I hope they survive.

Deano is set to be back in full control. However much more of his brass he will now loan to us again when he buys Phil the Skint's shares back remains to be seen.

The lads up the A62 have sacked their bucket sitting guru and brought in only the 3rd Yank ever to manage a side in the Prima Donna League (so far). Can you name the other two?

Chelski are up for sale as will/he won't he Bodgit sits on his thumbs and prevaricates about sanctioning rich Russians that have bunged his party a rouble or two.

Abramovich may have brought more trophies to Chelski than their fans could ever have dreamed about, but thanks to his (er) £1.5 Billion of loans we now have a Financial Fair Play System that we never used to need and is generally widely abused anyway. We now also have two teams owned by Arab nations who (do or will) abuse the system to their own ends, meaning there will be more Direbys, Bates versions of L666s, Wendies, Ipswich's, et al.

And some Town fans are bleating on about Deano's loans!! Loose change compared to the coin some plonkers are prepared to throw around.

Elsewhere ex-Posh and former Town tormentor-in-chief and Free Agent of the Parish, Lee Tomlin has stopped training (just for the fun of it) at Wrexham and signed a short term deal with the Wa'ssall lads just down the road from me.

The Carlos Files

Now given that Carlos (note, not Carless this week) was one of The Bucket Man's trainees and disciples, I think a little compare and contrast is in order. This is all my opinion and only backed up with facts (usually and often of my choice, you know how I work). If you've a problem with my opinion or facts, go talk to the L666s owner, or the loonatic that is Putin, if he'll answer the phone. You'll get a similar result.

Last season I will (through gritted teeth) admit that L666s were generally playing well and deserved their 9th place in the Prima Donna League (as did The Blunts the season before). However, and I get the injury thing to some extent, this season, maybe more so since the January Sales started, they've had a bit of a problem at the back. To the extent that they leaked 24 goals in 8 League games this year alone (13 against 3 Lancastrian clubs ffs) and only won 2. That doesn't exactly show Yorkshire up in a good light now does it? The bucket sitting guru openly said he had no idea how to solve this. Well, if that's not asking for your P45 I don't know what is? In case it escaped your attention, he's since received it.

Now lets take a (maybe jaundiced?) look at Carlos, this season. I'm not the only one who's hardly been his greatest fan and I won't hide the fact that bringing him from L666s might be part of it.

Way back in November, Town started with a draw at Peterborough, we beat 3rd place (but a bloody awful, let's be honest Baggies fans) WBA 1-0 at home and lost the rest to Cardiff away (despite leading with 16 minutes to go), QPR to an only goal, and a previously piss-poor Boro at home in Wilder's first match in charge where we were mostly played off the park. Carlos at this point was about as popular on here (and elsewhere) as a fart in a space suit.

We haven't lost since that match!!!

We've drawn maybe more than we should have, but suddenly, if not brilliantly, things started to click, particularly in defence.

The draws at Barnsley and home to Coventry weren't exactly helping things having scored first in both, they weren't defeats either but the natives were still restless. Since then we've still drawn too many, but we've won or got a point at places or against other nemesis's (nemesi?) for the first time in many a year.

Away at Brizzle, away at Forest (yeah we win some, we lose some), Burnley in the Cup, a slug fest at Reading.
Then this month at home to Direby, a point a Preston, wins at Fulham and at home to Cardiff in a mirror image result of the game at theirs.

Has he had his "best 11" available, if any of us, or he, can pick one, through all of this? No.

We can't win without Hoggy - we did
We can't win without Colwill - we did
We can't win without O'Brien - we did (not as often as we'd like to mind and it was mostly earlier in the season thanks to Covid)
We can't win without Lees - we did (at Brum and maybe others, I must check)
We don't have an influential midfielder - in came Eiting, up stepped Jon Russell
Who'd a thunk we had that influential midfielder at the club all the time playing in the B team?

Well, he's also ex-Chelski and they don't keep lads around for long that can't play a bit do they? I mean, that young lad that Bruce tried to sign a few years back that didn't want to move to Yorkshire didn't turn out too bad once he pulled a first team shirt on for them did he?



Yes, him.

There's another one here on loan still to lace his boots up in anger for us. We await with baited breath his debut (maybe Monday).

We don't have a 20'ish a season goal scorer - Ward steps up, he'd only scored 4 after that Posh game he's now scored as many (more even?) as he ever has. Keep it up, he won't be far off 20 come Matchday 46.
Our keeper isn't up to it - and that lad we've brought in was sat on the bench at Milton Franchise Keynes Dons last season in League 1, so how good is he gonna be?
OK I'll give you the issue with Schoffer, he flaps a bit (well a lot to be fair) but Lee Nichols has come in after Schoffer was injured (well, at least once before Burnalee where he was really injured to be honest) and is now arguably the best keeper in the division. Strange thing is, Tranfermarkt still value Schoffer (£720K) above Nichols (£540K). How does that work? By the way, Nicholls just got voted player of the month.

I guess they don't do Opta, or whoever else the PlayStation/EA/Football Manager info the rest of the world uses. Apparently some of that stuff is more accurate than the stuff teams generate for themselves. Scary. 

So what kind of a defence is that we've recruited? - arguably the best for yonks that we've had if I'm honest.

A fit and in his prime Chris Schindler would improve it, not sure the rest of Wagbo's back 4 would. Gonads at a push. Stir, stir - arguments welcome.

Hey Mr. Tally man,
Tally up the goals, man ...

We've conceded 36, scored 46 and so far we're 3rd on 59 points.
Last season we scored 50 and conceded 71 all season, nearly double the total conceded so far and finished too close to the trap door for comfort.
At 35 games last season, we'd scored 39(-7), conceded 51(+15) and we were 19th on 38(-11) points.

We're not scoring many more (yet) but bear in mind we only scored 56, conceded 58 and lost 0:3 at home on the last day of the season when Wagbo took us to the Prima Donna League.

Those rare animals that score 20 (or in Mytrovic's case 30+) goals a season might help a bit, but it's your defence that get's you up there and promoted by making sure you don't lose. The goals the team score give you the 3 points rather than draws to ensure promotion. I mean, whoever heard of a team getting promoted with 101 goals and conceding over 60? I mean it's just never going to happen is it?

What? Town? 4th Division? Oh, Ok! 

It's often your lack of defence (as an inability to score up there is almost a given, ask Norwich, WBA, Town, Chefs, Uncle Tom Cobley and all) that brings you back down from the Prima Donna League. If you could draw almost every game 0-0 and win a handful you'd stay up most seasons. Six sheets of 8x4 ply nailed to the goal sticks could help, well at one end anyway.

By the way we lost that last game to Cardiff in case you were wondering. Did I mention them before somewhere?

These days Corboran usually has a reasonable game plan to start with, which previously wasn't very obvious to us or the players, so it seems, and sometimes last season at this time of year there wasn't much he could or would do about it when it was all going tits up. This season he has players available who will comfortably switch from 3 at the back to 4, 3 in midfield to 4 or 5 or a two, one up front to 2 or 3 and if needs be, one sitting. All those situations can equally go in reverse as and when required and further more the subs seem to know what to do for the most part too.

I've never seen so many changes of formation in a game let alone a season that I remember. Not that my memory is that great I'll give you. I'll also say this is right now probably the hardest working squad since Mick Buxton's Division 4 winning team.

It's not that Wagbo's teams (usually) didn't work hard and I said it about them at the time, but they would often pass the ball around the back for minutes on end to take a breather. It's not as often that this lot do it in comparison, but now I don't worry about it too much if they do. Well not as much as in the first half of the season. My main criticism is they sit back too early after taking a 1-0 lead (or used to).

Bielsa, to me, (and I don't watch them quite as closely as I do Town, I can't think why, so again may not be fair) didn't seem to move his troops around like that this season. Glad to see they've brought a Yank in. Megnut's and PK's coming up anyone?

Without the benchmark of playing (yet) in the Prima Donna League, I think Carlos is now doing a far better job in the Chumpionship on a fraction of the budget than Bielsa ever did or had - though give credit to the Town backroom guys in recruitment for doing a great job too - but Carlos has had to turn those 20+players into a team where only 11 can play at a time and a keep a few more happy on the bench. He seems to be doing it in spades right now.

If it goes tits up by or around Easter will I be disappointed? Yes, but overall it's a blast right now.

Elsewhere .....

Chelski (https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/60585081) oh and that's now changed, all in the same day  - (https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/60585081) and Everton (https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/60584223) now have a few things going on in their board rooms they likely weren't expecting this time last month.

Former Norwich City manager Daniel Farke has left Russian Premier League side Krasnodar without taking charge of a match.
The German joined the club in January and had signed a deal until the summer of 2024.
He was set to manage his first game last weekend against Lokomotiv Moscow.
But, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, operations at Krasnodar airport were suspended and the fixture was postponed.

A statement on the club's Twitter feed said: "Krasnodar and Daniel Farke terminated the contract by mutual agreement - together with the German coach, his assistants Edmund Riemer, Chris Domogalla and Christopher John leave the club.

Going up - Coming Down
We all live in a blue 'n' white submarine

There isn't a team in this (Chumpionship) Division that right now looks like it could go up and stay up, even with more major investment.
I know there were a couple of good performances in the Cup this week but .....
Fulham have only beaten Posh twice by one goal with a side not far removed from the one that came down. Arguably better on paper and certainly better paid than everyone else in this division, they've battered a few (including us at home) but still aren't sailing off into the distance. A +2 goal difference (if 6 points) over the worst team in the League isn't exactly a glowing reference.

Posh have only got the same number of points as Direby (21) because Direby have had half their points taken off them.
Boro, WBA, Coventry, Forest have had sniffs at or being in the top 6 and may yet get another, but have fallen away for now. Town, Blackburn, QPR and Luton are sitting in the play-off spots but none of them can guarantee to be there after Matchday 46. The Chef's are also blowing hot dinners one week and cool summer salads the next. Whilst you might expect Fulham and Bornmuff to go up as automatics, it's not yet certain. Though you wouldn't back on either to do a WBA right now, top 6 appears to be an absolute minimum for both of them.

Eeee, I can waffle on a bit when I've mind to do so. 

I'd promised mi'sen to mek this a short'un an'all. Oh well. 

Out Injured/Suspended/Isolating

No further injuries from our trip to Small Heath Alliance in that there Peaky Blinder land.

Back training but not oven ready/Back in the frame

Lees, Pipa are both expected to be available for both this Friday and next Monday's fixtures and Chelsea loanee, Anjorin for Monday at least.

Musical Interlude

Couldn't resist this, oh how young was I when I first heard this on the big silver screen in the Odeon? Or was it the ABC?



Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
Another film with crafty cockney Dick van Dyke in a lead role
Who cares?

Then you have Andy Bell of Erasure


Paul Nicholas who was Dancing with the Captain at his Grandma's Party at the time



My girlfriend back then got right royally dischuffed as I quite fancied his co-star Jan Francis in Just Good Friends, a tellybox sitcom of the time for you young'uns.
Like it would ever happen now, eh Jan?
She (far more than likely) never reads this, fortunately, and is married some bloke she lives with in Kent, certainly not me, according to WIKI.

That girlfriend? ........ and er yeah, them again ()
Sometimes.



I know, it's not me usual rock 'n' roll, but it is what it is. Middle of the country but not quite Middle of the Road.

Last time out

Just in case it escaped your attention, Town beat Brum 0-2 at theirs on Saturday.
Bacuna came nearest to scoring for them in the 2nd half when he hit the post.
For the rest of the game I didn't even realise he was playing, so not much change there then. 



Posh have had two games in the meantime.
In the first of the new manager bounce games, the former Hull City Manager came 2nd to the new Hull City Manager 0:3. In the 2nd, after obviously not rolling the pitch, or even walking across it in wellies, they lost 0:2 to the Blue Mancs in the FA Cup 5th Round. Will their legs last on Friday? Well they won't be playing on a ploughed field for a start.





Stats - everyone doing a sports/footy thread needs a Statto or two to hug.
Pity the formerly excellent Statto website isn't around anymore (and maybe him or her that ran it). 



 
 

Innies and Outies



Wot, no mention of the great Reece Brown?

Who's banging 'em in

Noooobody

Yes these are the type of ads I had to put up with on the tellybox in Canada
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3sYC8KWKYs



They can't all win

A few might. There's a few around us that can knock spots and points off each other.



We've played 'em before

Deuce, as Andy Murray might say, I doubt we'd accept a draw this time round though.



Next up?

Forest away in the FA Cup on Monday then West Brom away on Friday, both games televised, well, somewhere. The Baggies match currently is on all over Africa and nowhere else - so if you don't live there, either move your ass quick or shift your satellite dish just a tad.

Pressers

Carlos on Radio Local

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0bs80nx

Or the Official Town Esperanto Video Version - it's the same thing, maybe a bit longer and if you can lip read you can try to work out what he actually said.

https://youtu.be/_TNddI3dmE4

A rough translation by The Unexamined

https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/sport/foo...e-23270620

The views from the Posh side of the fence

McCann has done a presser, but unless you sign into the Pish Posh website you can't see it yet, or even read it in the Local Pish Posh Press, so here's what's available so far. It lasted a whole 8 minutes.

https://www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk/spor...in-3585736

This lad wont be playing
https://www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk/spor...am-3595488

If they ever let the rest of the world know what devastating news he said in those fascinating 8 minutes, I'll let you know.