brummie

He's already there, brummie. He's already there. Obviously, I'm speaking of a hypothetical world in which there is a greater club than Tottenham.

In this and that incident at Liverpool recently, all the talk has been "laws of the game" and making a case to support or reject the decision taken by the referee, but there has been a notable lack of common sense. It is hard to come to any conclusion other than Clattenburg bottled it at Old Trafford. And that's before even looking at the way he waved the Spurs players away like errant schoolboys, but then practically drew up a chair, poured a nice stiffener and stocked and lit a pipe for Rio so he'd feel comfortable in discussions.

Bale really is superb at the moment. He'll get a move to a big club soon enough.

He had a few niggly injuries when he first came, so is only just getting a run of games. We don't know how to use him is the main problem. He makes decent runs and gets into good positions, but we're not giving him the ball enough. He played up front last night :-/ Carew "ill" (bad dose of "cant be fucked"), Heskey on bench to start, Agbonlahor out, Delfouneso left on bench looking like Leroy from Fame.

Just under 35,000. Yeah, we were dreadful in the second half. Downing has been our best player by far this season. Heskey, though, it makes me wonder what the fuck MON was doing with him, such is the turnaround in the player. And Reo-Coker as well. Steve Sidwell is the worst midfielder I have ever seen playing for Aston Villa, and I have been attending matches since 1973, and am not one for hyperbole.

Awful game tonight. Made the monumental decision to fuck off home five minutes before the end, convinced nothing could go wrong.

Captained the England under 19s. Or something. Born here.

The only good thing about hearing this tedious story as the main headline on the news constantly is that it has replaced Liverpool's ownership as the main headline on the news. Still, it takes one's mind of Gideon and his vile Spending Review.

Here's something which isn't worthy of a thread, but is a fact I feel like sharing. Ciaran Clark has opted for the ROI over England this week. He's going to be one of the best defenders in the country. England's loss.

Under Houiller, Villa going back to what's served them so well. Get everyone behind the ball when the oppo have it, then look to break at speed. Very tough to break down, and Drogba missing makes all of the difference. Can't agree with that at all. We're playing entirely differently. We're keeping the ball a lot better, to start, something we were woeful at under O'Neill. These are early days, but you can definitely see it starting to take hold. I thought we played very well at Spurs, and played very well today in spells as well. Of course, part of the not relying so much on the break thing might be that Agbonlahor, main weapon with his pace, has been out for much of this season so far, so it is less of an option. The results haven't been brilliant, but I'm enjoying watching us far, far more than I did under MON. I say that as one who rarely goes away these days, incidentally, and I'm aware that our hitting on the break game worked much better away from home, but at home the last four years that usually translated to a cluelessness in terms of knowing what to do. Apparently the coaching regime consists of training with the ball - possession, passing, shape - in the mornings and physical work in the afternoon. A few players have said that under MON it was just a couple of hours physical work in the morning, then home at midday - no work with the ball whatsoever. Quite shocking, really. I don't know if the results will ultimately make it worthwhile, and it's not really as simple as "style A is better than style B, end of", but we are starting to play a different style of football. Ironically, our record at home against Chelsea is extremely good, so MON managed to get results in this fixture. Them missing Drogba and Lampard helped, but we were without Agbonlahor, Heskey (yes, I know), Luke Young, Albrighton and Dunne, so it's swings and roundabouts. They still had enough class to hope to win the game. Incidentally, random observation, but Malouda was superb today. That fucker pops up all over the place.

That's beautiful, Parky.

That's pretty fucked up (the removal thing). And hilarious. Please, please, please, administration. Why would anyone want to buy them now rather than when in administration, and therefore much cheaper?

No, no, no. Spurs are awesome. They're so swoony and amazing.

Funny that. Our first goal was from a Pavlychenko cross from the wings and the second goal was from a Lennon cross from the wings. So therefore that according to you isn't long ball, thus concluding that we didn 't play long ball yesterday. Cheers for clearing up what is and isn't long ball Here's a reminder of that preaching. I don't know if you've noticed, we're in a bit of trouble at the moment, and having to take whatever we can whilst we're without a manager. What kind of tactics did you adopt in managing to lose at home to Wigan Athletic? We adopted the right tactics but played like morons and deservedly lost. You lot used the same damn tactics last season too tbh. Oh, that's a shame, did you resort to that lumping it long to Crouchy stuff again? I woudn't fancy watching that. Mind you, maybe I'm just tetchy about it, as I actually go to the games, which would make it even more annoying for me, rather than just flouncing around the internet, preaching on football purity whilst ignoring the predictable long ball guff my own team falls back on a bit too much. Incidentally, if you think it is a conscious tactic to cede the lion share of possession at home to Everton, you're insane. As you are if you think there should have been some gigantic change of style since MON flounced off. This is still O'Neill's team. I'm sure that, were we Spurs, we'd have turned into Brazil 1970 by now, but hey ho. Stop taking it so personally. I didn't instruct your team to play that style of football. We don't play long ball and it's fact we play good football (the way we made your team look like amateurs last season was beautiful and easy on the eye). Everton bossed you on your own turf. They play attractive football (win or lose) and played like the home team today. All you did was sit back and hit long to Young....sit back and hit long to Young.......sit back and hit long to Young. How Stoke can continuously get slaughtered for their style of football yet you lot get away with it is insane to me. Now I was as much a critic of MON's style of football as anyone, but it takes a particular lack of football knowledge to think anyone would sit there, scratching their beard like an evil football genius and come up with the concept of hitting it long to, errr, Ashley Young.

False. Countless times i've openly admitted when we've played shit. The difference is i accept when others criticise my team on a thread titled "OTHER GAMES TODAY" whilst you resort to personal insults. That's the difference. No, it's not about "playing shit". Every team plays shit. It's about you telling us how you're the incarnation of good football whilst ignoring the fact that you hit it aimlessly long more than most teams. It is a tactic you fall back on quite a lot. Like I said, it's nothing to be ashamed of, it works quite well at times. I just think it negates the high horse about football style.

I was referring to last year. Have you not noticed the big hoof to Crouchy? There's nothing wrong with that, KD, it just kind of invalidates your proselytising about other teams not matching your pure brand of football. You did it against us last season, you did it against us yesterday. It's a bit like listening to Josef Fritzl pontificating about child care.

I thought you were the one crying and moaning, to be honest, calling us the anti football and what not. The point is, I don't come on here and make us out to be the purest form of football. You, and Spurs fans the internet over, do. That may or may not have validity as a claim, but I suspect it doesn't when you spend so much time hitting it long to Crouchy. Your regurgitating that quote again proves that, one year on, you're still hitting it long to the big lad, just like you did against us last year. That long ball thing is something I noticed lots of people mentioning last week, when i had a peek at Glory Glory. Even MON didn't resort to that sort of stuff. Wingers witlessly banging it into the box and hoping for the best, yes. Hoofed balls from defence towards a 6'6 striker, no.

© me, here, 2006 - 10

I went yesterday. That hoof it to Crouchie and look for the knock downs thing is horrible to watch, but it works. We played very well and deserved a point. I could cry and moan like you did when i mentioned your style of play in this exact thread but i won't. You played well first half, second half we played much better than you (taking of pavlychenko and going 4-5-1 did wonders). You was up against our 4th and 5th choice cb's and 2nd choice rb so naturally you'd have a few chances. Btw Richard Dunne has been rather crap everytime i've seen you lot this season. I didn't cry and moan, i mentioned that it was a bit hypocritical for you to talk about us hoofing it (and as a critic of MON's style of play, even I thought that was harsh) when you yourselves have a propensity to lump it long to Crouchy. My point was that if you make yourselves out to be the modern incarnation of total football, you don't really want to be turning in to Blackburn when it suits you.

I went yesterday. That hoof it to Crouchie and look for the knock downs thing is horrible to watch, but it works. We played very well and deserved a point.

to be honest you couldn't see anyone beyond liverpool back then. You could, though. In the 80s Everton won it, we won it (closely chased by Ipswich Town), and shortly before, Forest had come from nowhere to win it. How much money you have has always played a part in football. Back then it was much easier to have success if you had money. The difference now is that it is impossible to have success if you don't have money.

Here's another thing. Say you're in your early 40s (age picked with reference to people who can remember the 80s) Look at clubs like Newcastle, Villa, Everton, Sunderland (sorry), Leeds - traditional clubs Barring the arrival of a money-no-object trillionaire (being billionaire isn't enough now), would you bet that any of those clubs will win the league in your life time? I wouldn't.

You're not in a minority of one, the only difference is that I haven't been tempted to stop going. I didn't live too far from you in the late 70's and early 80's and worked and lived for football. I found it much easier going to away games as the travelling distance was much less. I travelled back up to Newcastle on a Friday for the night out, only to travel to London and places like that on a Saturday for the match. 3 hours travelling each way for a home game was a bitch especially if we travelled by train as we would have to leave 5 minutes early to get the last train to Stalybridge so that we could get a connection to Birmingham and then a connection to where we lived. I made loads of friends in the midlands just by travelling to games by train as Newcastle fans were probably the only ones at that time to wear team colours, especially to away games. I didn't like Newcastle Brown but I felt that I had to dring it because of its association with the area and club, we'd down 8 or 12 cans on the train then go straight to the first pub when we got off the train, they were mental but happy times. The other thing I miss about those years was the feeling of being on edge, being careful when going to away games. I remember going to Ayresome Park in approx 86 (our second division year), and being absolutely scared shitless from start to finish, it was an intimidating place to go to back then. Nowadays, a trip to whatever it's called now, the Riverside or whatever it is, strikes me as about as tense as a stroll around IKEA on a saturday afternoon (except with less people, obv). It's not about the fact that there are more people now at games than there were back then - of course there are, attendances are way higher - it is about the way the game has changed entirely since those days. Two things worry me. The one is that a lot of the old school supporters will gradually fall away - they've got a frame of reference for ticket prices and will have a point at which enough is enough (as opposed to younger fans who have always only known high prices). The second is that, in the PL era, the vast sums of money to come into the game have gone straight into the pockets of players and agents, rather than towards subsidising tickets and preserving the game for the next generation. Fuck only knows how families with kids who want to go to matches regularly afford it nowadays. I look around my ST seat these days and i see very few kids. Back in the day, there would be loads of kids at football matches. I'm aware that there are competing interests now - games consoles, internet, stabbing each other and taking drugs - but that suggests that football should be working *harder* to make sure future generations of support are there, not driving them away with stupid ticket prices.

I am probably in a minority of one (or possibly a handful) on this thread, but I think I enjoyed football much, much more in the mid 1980s when hardly anyone gave a shit about it. Treated like shit in piss soaked grounds we might have been, but it cost feck all, the league was competitive, and you didn't have to put up with the ubiquity of know-it-all-but-never-go Lovejoy-inspired types on the internet I once went to see us at Nottingham Forest. When we got off the train, the police herded us out of the station and put us in - quite literally - a cage for 90 minutes, before sticking us on a train back to Birmingham with the people who'd been to the match. If it sounds weird that someone could be nostalgic for a period which involved regularly getting treated like an animal like that (and I know loads of people who feel similarly) then maybe the question should be how football has managed to make rational people think like that. It costs too much - not just a little bit too much, but way, way too much, the players are cunts with an almost total detachment from the real world, the league is incredibly uncompetitive, the media coverage is predictable, cretinous, and an insult to the intelligence (oh, and fucking expensive, too), there's no atmosphere because the whole experience has been sanitised and had the passion squeezed out of it - all CCTV cameras, "sit down and shut up" and high vis jackets I still go, I've got my season ticket, I do a 100 mile round trip every home match, I fork out a decent amount to do the odd away game, more importantly (for me) i hand over a lot of my free time (going to matches, watching matches, arguing about matches) to football. So do lots of members of my family, and so have said family members for 100 years now, but I would not for a nanosecond point the finger at anyone who decided "fuck it, it isn't worth it" and stopped bothering. I've been tempted myself.

This is the first time we've had a truly fucked economy in the era of sky high football ticket prices. Lots and lots of people countrywide are now looking at the price of going to football matches, weighing it up against everything else and the economic uncertainty we're living with and opting not to bother. I don't have kids, and have got a season ticket, so I'm lucky in that sense, but I wonder how blokes who have a couple of kids feel when they're weighing up 90 minutes entertainment against the absurd cost involved.