No Rompy v. Pompey #

Ian Symes - October 20, 2008 @ 3:27 pm

Well, that was a poor game. Us and Pompey are at about the same level at the moment – let’s not forget that if they hadn’t have given up on the league as soon as they got to Wembley last season, they’d probably have finished above us. Pretty soon, they’ll go into decline and we’ll continue to improve, but at the moment we should look at it as progress against a side we haven’t beaten at home since O’Leary’s days, and an improvement on last season’s result.

But I’m not happy with the performance in a game that was there for the taking. Here’s why.

Continue reading…

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Capello Out #

Ian Symes - August 31, 2008 @ 11:09 pm

Seriously. If he thinks that Stuart Downing, David Beckham, Theo Walcott and Emile Heskey deserve to be current England players, and that Ashley Young doesn’t, he’s in the wrong job.

Match reaction to come tomorrow, when I’ve recovered from a particularly shitty train journey back to London.

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What the…? #

Ian Symes - August 20, 2008 @ 11:10 am

So, a young English forward scores a hat-trick in the Premier League at the weekend, and then doesn’t even get off the bench for the Under-21s in mid-week? Good one, England.

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Just 37 matches to go… #

Ian Symes - August 18, 2008 @ 11:28 am

Well, we’re second in the table, currently sitting in a Champions League position, we’ve got the joint-highest scoring record in the league, and the the Premier League’s top scorer is a Villa player – and an Englishman to boot. Add to this the fact that we’re unbeaten in all competitions and still in all three cups, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I’d quite like the season to end now.

We were bloody great at times yesterday. In the first half, we’d have scored three or four if it wasn’t for slightly shoddy finishing. But we were unstoppable going forward in the second half, particularly that marvellous twenty minutes or so. Ashley Young was bloody great – a perfect response to the likes of Theo Wallchart and Emile Heskey being picked ahead of him for the England squad. And if that’s the sort of performance Gareth Barry puts in when he’s unsettled and unhappy, then let him be unsettled and unhappy!

Gabby was also stupidly left out of the England squad, but proved himself superbly with that hat-trick – the second quickest hat-trick in Premier League history, don’t you know. The best thing about it is that it was a perfect hat-trick; the first was scored with the right foot, the second was a header and the third was a left footer. They were all great goals too. Can we put the misconception that we can only score from set pieces to bed now please?

It’s a shame we conceded the second goal – it took the shine off things a bit, and it made the game look closer than it was. The penalty was never a penalty, but the second goal came after a period of sloppy, unsure defending. It’s something we need to work on after last season’s poor record, but bear in mind that of our four defenders and goalkeeper, three of them were making their league debuts and one of them has just come back from a massive injury. It’ll get better with time, plus we’ve got Cuellar still to come in. If we can sort that defence out, we really could do something good this year…

We didn’t have time to cover the Hafnarfjardar game before the City one, but… well, job done, really. We can relax at home now, and maybe try a couple of kids out. The most interesting thing to come out of it was undoubtedly Gareth Barry playing, thus cup-tying himself until February. An interesting move, and one that apparently Barry was happy to make. I’m not going to say anything else about Barry’s future until 1st September, other than that he’s proved in the last two games just how much we’ll miss him if he does go.

Jesus, how perfect is it that we’re playing Liverpool on transfer deadline day? That is going to be very interesting…

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