[theo_luddite]

The Rotten Johnny
McGalphsmiths Stadium
By the never ending roadworks on Leeds Road
HD1 just behind the old Gasworks Gasometer
That we could have filled with cheap gas to keep the energy costs down this winter,
Had it ben maintained.
Humphh!!

Kick-off 15:00 UK Time
Saturday 12/08/22

Town welcome them "furrinners" from that there Welsh Wales to The Principality of Yorkshire (are you sure about that? Ed) on Saturday.
Well we got rid of The Grand Old Duke of York so we must be due another Prince in return soon, surely?
Have they any spare 'uns down in that there Larndan?
Edwood the Usually Unready dun't seem too over worked reet now. He'll do.
Failing that, the ginger one that lives in LaLa Land.

Let's see, what has happened in the last few days.

The Prince of Wales and his assistant have done a Dr. Who and morphed/rejennyrated into younger versions of their former selves.
All done at the stroke of (what was later to become a very leaky) pen. No magic sonic screwdrivers were harmed in this transition.


Royal pen and sonic screwdriver.

Wonder if he'll be giving up his Club Seats at Wembley and his Twickers Debentures then as he'll now surely need some posh seats in the stands in Cardiff?
Plus he'll have the added expense of new kits for the kids. Just what he needs in these times of a financial crisis.

The original PoW, the one with the big ears that just got promoted, obviously still uses the same brand of dodgy fountain pens we used to use at school before it was accepted that BiC had actually invented a far better replacement (that all the teechurs used) and in multiple colours too. BiC's only leak about once/year versus at least once per week for the inky boys, but boy are they gooey when they do and they normally fart totally in the wrong direction.

Town still haven't won a game since we beat Stoke, Cardiff have won at Boro, 2-3, though that was also their fist win since beating Brum the same day we beat Stoke.
Prior to the Boro game they'd only scored 4 league goals in 7 games all season. Not that we've much to shout about in that department. 

The BBC are still playing the same stuff they started showing last Thursday night/Friday morning on an interminable loop. They just change the camera angle slightly every other day and move the reporters further down the queue or river bank to make it look all new. Elsewhere in the world, everyone else is allegedly watching BBC World News, so there's nothing going on anywhere else that matters, including where other than another bloody long queue that we always like to join. Is there an Ice Cream van at the other end selling Thatcher's Mr. Whippey? Yes, she was responsible for helping to invent that abomination too. They have however gone back to doing regular weather forecasts after nobody missed them (be honest) for at least two days. We know the weather is usually going to be crap but it's nice to be told just how crap every 30 minutes or so.

Just in case you missed the important news in amongst this wall to wall stuff on the news - Danny Boy got the tin-tack after losing at home to Wigan. After seeing/hearing his post match interviews, I think he knew what was coming. Easy to say in hind-sight I know and the lad's not daft, but possibly the right bloke at the wrong time given his lack of (first team coaching/managing) experience and the fact that our recruitment team brought in a load of already injured players that couldn't do anything to improve an already demoralised squad. What could possibly go wrong? How did they get that lot past the insurance company? Um, interim manager, if it goes well, give him the job, if it doesn't park him back with the reserves maybe? No, pay him off until he gets another job and pay someone else with more experience to do what they could have been hired for in the first place.

Buy it cheap, buy it twice.

See our last match thread for more comments. http://www.sportsbabble.co.uk/showthread...679&page=2

Not the first to be sacked by Deano while Deano was away enjoying his holibobs, he might not be the last.

Showing no respect

In the race to look the daftest in the name of "showing some respect", it appears British Cycling are in line for the gold medal. After the FA, P(D)L and EFL needlessly told everyone football was off last weekend, British Cycling decided it would be disrespectful to ride a bike on Monday 19th, even if you normally ride one to work and still have to go to work.

They've since back-pedalled a bit on that (see what I did there?) but are still saying it would be disrespectful to go on a club ride that day with your mates. Well, Monday is now a Bank Holiday, Charlie boy approved it - meaning I can't earn a bean, thank you very much - so if I want to get on my bike for a bit of free wheeling that day, I will.

Norwich City Council were front runners for a long while, closing their bike racks from 9th to 23rd September for no obvious reason at all, however they were pipped at the line by the numpties above. I mean, if you can't ride a bike, why on earth would you need a place to park it?

The local golf courses are almost completely booked up already for Monday. Funny how that works, but to be fair I've never seen a cyclist on a golf course with a bag of clubs on his/her back, so I doubt I'd see one on Monday either. The R&A seem to have caught the mood of their members, given that the most infamous Royal that was recently a member-on-high is now persona-non-grata in R&A HQ at St. Andrews (oh the irony) after being caught marking his card with the wrong score on the (ahem) 17th hole. 

Forcing a 96 year old very frail woman, (still mourning her late husband's death from last year), to shake the hand of a pillock who partied the night away the night before her husband's funeral, after which she was then made to sit on her own for the funeral without a family member allowed to sit next to her for comfort or support. The self-same pillock that had repeatedly lied to her personally, let alone lied to Parliament afterwards (and often before). Then, less than 30 minutes later, being forced to shake the hand of what/who might be described as his "evil twin sister", if it wasn't for the accent and maybe age. Collectively these acts would surely have resulted in the fittest of 96 year old's losing the will to live. Apparently it sadly came to pass less than two days later that she did lose the will to live, based on what I've seen on the tellybox and in the absence of anything formal from Buck House (nowt new there then).

These comments have been pre-modded and are apparently not allowed in this thread as it's classed as some kind of anti-government or Republican protest or other.

Oh!

Politics on a match thread? Tut, tut, well I never. 

In other news ....

On the tellybox

Not showing anywhere at the moment other than iPlayer, if you are lucky and maybe living abroad. It might be elsewhere on t'interweb if you know where to look. Chances of getting commentary in the stadium these days on Radio Local are slim to non-existent. I pay my Licence Fee for a reason, clearly this isn't it. Even with the Bratfud City DAB frequency open last time at home, it kept cutting out. Pathetic.

Latest news

It appears our postponed match at Coventry has been pencilled in for Tuesday 24th January, this will give us 3 away games on the bounce after our coast to coast trips to Hull and Blackpool. According to the QPR website our game down there will be 8th November.



https://www.qpr.co.uk/news/club-news/hud...ed-150922/

Did I miss these somewhere else earlier?

Did I mention Schoffer in that rant above? Oh yes, so next subject please.

Town's latest charidee fundraiser - Walk 4 Pounds to raise money for the same causes we do on our Players 4 Pounds thread, must have some cunning detours or involve a lot of walking round in circles. The Long Route, from Menston is advertised at 25 miles and The Short Route from Valley Parade at 15 miles. When I Google Map these I get 19 miles and 12-13 miles at best and obviously only 7 miles from the start to Valley Parade. These must be Boothy miles.

Out Injured/Suspended/Isolating

No major changes here, Pearson apparently still nobbled and Hogg won't be fit until after the International Break

Back training but not oven ready/Back in the frame

Other than that, no further injuries other than those bought with injuries as a bonus.

Last time out

Did I mention we came 2nd again?



Did I mention Cardiff came first, after taking a 0-3 lead at Boro and nearly blowing it, winning 2-3? Can you imagine had it happened, taking a half-time lead and ending up drawing? Not like we'd ever, ever do that, not even against the Baggies,    but Cardiff hung on for the win this time.



Musical Interlude

Well there's a shy lass from Tiger Bay who wore green wellies at Galsto .....



There's tidy, maybe even half-tidy for an old'un - she took her wellies off for that one by the look of it.

It's about 6 years since I last did this as an away fixture, but I did it last season at home so I may repeat myself here ..no apologies.





It Might get Manic if I try to make this a Design for Life, but as said before they are from up in The Valleys from Blackwood .....

Hell, I've a vid to spare at the moment .....



The Sack Race

I think I may have mentioned the latest victim once or twice already.

The red hot favourites for the luke warm seat on the bench currently are :-

Well, we've another thread for that

Wagbo odds on and 25/1 the field as they used to say - the truly desperate are 33/1 - no you don't need to know who.

How ironic that the hot favourite had just signed off on selling his house when he came over the other week. !?!? 

Then again ........... some folk don't believe in coincidences and everything happens for a reason, just saying.

So Warnock it is then.

Tables & Form

That win moved the Bluebirds up to 15th on 11 points. Town are still stuck in 23rd with only Coventry being worse (still) with two home games in hand plus one against us.



 

A lack of green bands on our results explains exactly why we are where we are.

 

Innies and Outies

They paid about £0.5M for Kion Etete from Spurs U21's and and unknown free for Callum Robinson from the Baggies. I guess they spent the unknown fee they got for Sean Morrison - oh, wait - he hasn't got a club yet, there wasn't one. No, more likely the brass they saved on letting Alex Smithies leave, as he was their top earner, and Morrison was on a nice little earner too. Robinson has a market value of north of £4m (Transfermarkt), but I doubt Cardiff paid close to that.



For some reason, the expensive Etete isn't in this list

Who's banging 'em in

Their 7 goals are spread between the 5 below



They can't all lose

Brum play Coventry in another Muddled England derby, Swansea play Hull in another Yorkshire - Welsh Wales fixture and Boro play Rotherham in another Principality of Yorkshire derby.



We've played 'em before

Town lead the head2heads by a short nose. We beat them at home last season (for a change), the first time in 8 attempts.



Next up?

Reading away, 1st October. There's a trivial break for international games going on.

Pressers

We're back to Esperanto again, Narcis is in the hot seat today.



The Unexamined short read and translation

https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/sport/foo...e-25032907

The views from Tiger Bay

https://www.cardiffcityfc.co.uk/news/mor...-ourselves

https://www.cardiffcityfc.co.uk/news/har...erformance

By the way, as I may have mentioned in the Grauniad  , my first memory of Her Maj is handing something described at the time as "12" tall and made of solid gold" to some young lad called Bobby Moore. She couldn't have jinxed it all this time since could she? I'd prefer to think that England have just been crap for the most part, but who knows?

[Lord Snooty]

Nice one, theo.

That Coventry away game could be four on the trot away from home if we get drawn away in the Cup.

[WakeyTerrier]

From a snippet of information I've had this morning I think we will see Town revert back to what we knew last season tomorrow in terms of formation and players playing in a role they were more used to.

[Lord Snooty]

Nice musical interlude as well.

Dame Shirl should've kept them hobnail boots Morecambe and Wise gave her. Would've looked good on that stage.

Duffy still begging for bird seed.

Dave Edmunds. Still got it. The 70s hairstyle. 

Manics. Got bored to be honest. Just noise really. 

[jjamez]

so essentially a 3-5-2 or 3-4-1-1?

I think Narcis spoke well in the pre match presser and it'll be interesting to see what the players do tomorrow. I'm hoping to see more energy on the pitch first and foremost, then some goals and finally a clean sheet

[theo_luddite]

Correct Snoots, I was only looking at League games and also trying to find when the 4th Round is too - not that we're likely to bother it much as usual.

It was fairly obvious in the 1st half v Wigan (they sent me to sleep for the 2nd half) and in the previous home match v Blackpool that players were getting frustrated either with each other, the tactics or both. I know every coach wants to put his stamp on the team, but Schofield didn't need to change much other than somehow make up for the elephant sized hole that was where LO'B used to play (which wasn't always the same position either) and the way Toffo finished the season (he didn't do or play much in the first half). Tino shows glimpses of the creative side of LO'B but he's still a kid, even if he's a big one. Maybe that was what Schofield was trying to achieve but everyone could see it wasn't working and things needed simplifying. It's always harder when you are at the bottom as everything goes wrong that can go wrong, but when you keep passing the ball behind your own players it doesn't help either.

[WakeyTerrier]

My info tells me that DS wanted to change the way we played but the older players told him it wasn't working(during training) In the end they would get to match day and have no real plan and players unsure of what role they were supposed to be doing.

To be honest, we went to Harrogate and thought exactly that but wrote it off as it was just a pre season game but I'm sure we all thought exactly the same against several opposition this season.

[theo_luddite]

I think the last pre-season game I went to was Arsenal, and that's only because I've a mate down here that supports them and he wanted to go too. I doubt I'd go if they played Wolves or Walsall in one down here these days, but I remember you saying that at the time Wakey.

[Lord Snooty]

Kasumu played half decent on Tuesday. He may have the potential to be the new O'Brien. Great last ditch tackle to stop us going 2-0 down.

As for Toffolo, I think he's the biggest miss of all the players who have left. Always there for the out ball when Nicholls was looking to get on with it. Up and down that wing like a lefty Malcolm Brown and chipped in with some crucial goals.

I don't understand why Ruffels has been ditched. He was the closest thing we had to Toffs and he had his best game for us against West Brom, but got dropped. 

[theo_luddite]

Nowt to disagree with there Snoots, but like I said, Toffo wasn't great even when he played first half of the season. When he started banging 'em in (5 of his 6 goals were in the last 7 games) he looked a lot better than he had all season. Just checked his stats and he played more than I thought first half of the season. He missed the first 3 games and played 30 mins at Sheffield in the 4th. His only goal at that point was at Stoke (lost 2:1) back in September until we played Hull in April, then he became unstoppable with 5 in the last 7 games.
Don't get why Ruffels was dropped either.

---

By the way - don't get me started on Center Parcs - currently in Bronze Medal place but VAR might change that.

“Good luck removing guests from the parks,” ran one Twitter response to Center Parcs (heroically refusing to submit to the “parcs” affectation). “You’ve trained them in archery, shooting, swimming, canoeing and swinging through the trees like apes. You’ve basically got five village-loads of ninjas to clear out.”