The truth is there’s no news, apart from the usual silly speculation rubbish.
Although I had a chat with my Stokie workmate about Glenn Whelan and he actually persuaded me that he might be able to do a job for us, in backing Mile Jedinak up.
Whelan apparently can only do one job, which is stay in a very small area and protect the defence.
Such a small area, that the the Stoke fans call it his “cage”.
Which is all well and good if you’re playing pragmatic footy, as it seems Steve Bruce has done up till now.
But then I saw “Andrew”‘s comment, where he suggested that the reason we’ve struggled over the last few years is because we’ve played so negatively, which made me think again.
Having thought about it, it’s quite appealing at a quick glance that we go balls out to win every game.
But isn’t that exactly what Di Matteo tried to do, with his 3-3-4 type set-ups?
We all know how that went, but the point is still valid, because don’t we have a team/squad that’s a cut above the rest of the league?
Hmm.
The fact is I don’t rate the team or squad as highly as it seems the general media do and how we’re favourites for promotion, is beyond me.
But, we do have top strikers at this level and we need to give them decent service; something that cannot be achieved by being too pragmatic.
My opinion says if we go too attacking, we’ll get our arses kicked, purely because there are too many sides that aren’t as poor as we think.
And then again, if we don’t attack enough, we’re quite simply going nowhere.
I’d hate to be the manager at the moment, but Bruce has to call things one way or the other.
He’s stabilised us, but that was a minimum requirement this season gone.
Now he has to make the call and I somewhat agree that we need to go for it more, this upcoming season.
Obviously, much will revolve around signings, but as I’ve said a few times, Bruce needs to get us off to a good start.
And if he doesn’t he’s a goner, rapido.
Which really doesn’t bear thinking about.
That was the worst England performance I’ve seen , reminds me of Villa last season.
I think England Managers have their arms twisted to give a shirt to someone in a friendly that they would not touch in a serious game. So i hope that is the last we see of Heaton in goal for England. He does those stupid parries for Burnley, and France obviously did their homework on him and had players poaching.
Three at the back is dangerous against a team that are better than you. If it is to work then you need one sweeper and two ball-attackers. Cahill is a sweeper. I am not quite sure what Stones is, except very over-rated, but he looks like more of a sweeper than ball-attacker. As soon as we mde a mistake we were wide open.
Hate to say it but Harry has stole a march on us by snapping up David Stockdale as goalie for the blues. Quite surprised he’s turned down the opportunity to play for Brighton in the prem to go back to the Championship. Definitely one of the better keepers in the league last season.
He didn’t reject the chance. Brighton were signing Valencia goal keeper, Matthew Ryan. So it was either sit the bench or go back to the Championship.