So, another international break falls by the wayside and another golden generation is tarnished before it’s even grown into its shin pads. Whilst, in Australia, a young man, who looks a bit like a big girl, proves he’s anything but by ignoring all those people ignoring him and takes a load of wickets, before his mates get shated by a bloke with a handlebar moustache, or something.
Meanwhile, back at home, Latics have come over all Keane as the United ’starlet’ is lined up to benefit from Coyle’s desire to get it up the opposition, or something.
Which (probably) has nothing to do with Brighton coming to town this weekend, or something.
That’s quite enough of that sort of frivolity, this is a football site after all, not a carry on film, but in the absence of anything substantive to write about (other than the manager, his aversion to tactics and whether it matters, AGAIN), I’ve decided to drag out the old notapatchon stalwart “things that make you go mmmm…” where I make like a politician and tell you what you should think, or should be thinking about… or something.
I come from a land down under.
Actually, I don’t, no matter how much my mate might try to convince you I look like Kevin Iro, but I wish I was bringing you this article from the place where all good Neighbours characters go to die. The Ashes ptII started in Brisbane last night and who wouldn’t want to be somewhere where summer is about to kick in and you can’t hear the sound of leather on willow over the sound of locals abusing Stuart Broad?
At a guess, you’re not there either, which begs the question of how you’re going to get our ashes fix.
“Listening to it on the radio in bed” is a cop out, course Test Match Special trumps a session of Nas and Athers chewing over events whilst trying to hide old bitterness, but if we’re playing “Ears, Mouth, Eyes” then eyes beats ears every time, plus you’ll have fallen asleep before you know it.
I’ve just done the start and close on the first two nights, but I’m really considering the practicalities of staying up for Friday & Saturday (if it goes that far!). The biggest question (apart from whether I can live with a month of arguments after it) is what I’d do about The Brighton game? I ‘m not nineteen anymore, I don’t have the stamina I used to, but the football bug hasn’t properly bit me yet this season, and this might be a real dilemma come bed time tonight.
If it does, I’ll probably do the wise thing and let my eight year old decide.
Bielsa-bub and Klopp-trap
I couldn’t help feel sorry for Roy Hodgson this week. The baggy old, saggy old England boss is about as far from football hipster that you could imagine and there he was facing ‘son of Bielsa’, Jorge Sampaoli and Special Agent Dale Cooper armed with the progeny of Jürgen Klopp. Say what you like about Roy, but he was definitely looking out of place.
An effect that wasn’t helped by his team flapping around, just about valiantly, in the face of their technically and tactically superior visitors. In a theme that will seem familiar and close to home, it wasn’t just that England weren’t very good at what they did, what they were trying to do wasn’t very good either.
The reality is that these were probably the wrong fixtures played at the wrong time and whilst Roy probably always knew he had a lot of thinking to do over the next 7-8 months, now the rest of the country do to. Still, we won’t have any problems with over-expectancy now, eh?
Keep it in La Masia
I’ve been a bit busy this week, so I’ve not been keeping in touch that much, but I would imagine that a few people have picked up on comparisons between the Seagulls’ manager Óscar García Junyent and that bloke that used to manage us. A product of the Barcelona system and a subscriber to the principles of Johan Cruyff, Garcia has his Brighton side well placed in the league, with only a few loans and free transfers added to their squad.
I’ve not seen them play much, but it’s easy to imagine this game could very well give us an idea of how what we’ve got looks like next to what we could have had. I’d imagine that the Premier League experience and extra money spent in our squad will win the day, but expect that a whole new batch of style versus substance debates will have broken out across the borough come Saturday night.
Still, arguing with other Latics fans beats watching X-factor.
Through the back window
Yep the transfer window slammed shut back in September but someone left the cat-flap open and clubs outside of the top-flight are still able to sign players on loan. Until next Thursday that is when the “Emergency” loan window closes. I doubt Sky will be dragging out their massive iPads but if Latics don’t pick up a couple of players then we might see a few Jim White style aneurisms on messageboards and wherehaveyou.
The only candidate to solve the “we need a striker or else we’ll never win the Europa League, FA Cup and get promoted” conundrum appears to be Will Keane. A twenty-year old from Manchester United, with one senior appearance to his name, I don’t know loads about him other than he’s well thought of, has a dodgy leg and isn’t Kevin Davies.
An interesting prospect, however the move seems in doubt because of injury so lets hope Coyle has other irons in the fire (and not just to put creases in his training shorts).
The Final Countdown
Talk about convoluted. That subtitle is a Europe reference (geddit?) as next Thursday’s game against Zulte Waregem could very well see Latics in the knock out stages of the Europa league it’s definitely time to dig out those ‘Believe’ banners and get behind the lads to see if we can’t create another bit of history.
And obviously that’s for the good of the club and not just because getting through to the next round represents my best chance of seeing Latics play away in Europe.
And before I go…
If you spot the Perm clan looking at bit giddy tomorrow afternoon, it’s not because we’ve had a sudden change of mind about Latics current style of play and it’s definitely not because of the cricket.
No matter what tomorrow brings sporting wise we’ll be in eager anticipation of watching “The Day of The Doctor” tomorrow night.
Call us sad, geeky or whatever you want, but it’s even better than arguing about Owen Coyle in the X-factor avoidance stakes.
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