O.K. I'm quite willing to take a hammering for this.

Having just watched a video of the Leeds game I was absolutely shocked and dissapointed at the amount of time the game was spent being played in the air and not on the ground.

Now both teams were responsible for this.

I don't find it at all enjoyable, actually quite often boring. It is responsible for the game being played at such a hectic rate and often the cuase of many of the mistakes.

Now I'm not attacking good wing play, the crossing of balls and switching play with a good 30 yard cross field pass. But much of the game was spent pinging the ball up and down the centre of the park. I actually found myself thinking 'am I watching Aussie Rules or soccer (football)'.

I get to watch an hour of Italian soccer once a week where they have a match of the round game that is generally a 40 minute extended highlights of a game. Now I know people say Italian soccer is dead boring with few goals. But I really enjoy most of these games and think 'man imagine Nobby, Dyer, Acuna and some of our other players playing this style of game. We'd really begin to tear opponants apart.'

Also when I watch, Spanish football this is the case.

I also believe this why teams like Man.U, Arsenal and Ipswich are doing well. They play the ball around on the ground alot more than many other EPL teams, with a hell of a lot of off the ball running etc.

With NUFC, I don't think players like Speed, Lee, Barton etc would do well in this type of game. However I think Shearer would. It's the type of game our South Americans would revell in, and I think our youngsters have shown it'd probably suite them. Hughes and Griffin have definately shown they have the ball playing abilities to. So to Dyer and LuaLua. Also CC prefers to have the ball on the ground at his feet a la Kanu.

Spiel over. Open season on Tre!

-- Anonymous, February 02, 2001

Answers

Get down on your knees and thank the big guy in the sky your not a Sun'lun fan.
Plan A and no plan B bast*rds!

-- Anonymous, February 02, 2001

Tre
That just about describes to a tee the Mag style for as long as I've supported them, with the odd period of completely out of character a- la-Keagan style play, and you're dead right - it's excruciatingly awful to watch.

Spiel over. Open season on PB! :-))

-- Anonymous, February 02, 2001

What a load of balls!

You're probably quite correct Tre, and it takes skill to play it on the ground, especially with these newer, lighter balls. We used to have the same problem playing on the beach at Blyth with a plastic Frido. Perhaps we should revert back to training with them to instill some more control in the players. All too often we've been "treated" to a game of head tennis where nobody (not NUFC alone) can bring the ball under control.

There's nowt like a good kickin' o' the balls on the ground.

-- Anonymous, February 02, 2001

Dead right Screacher forget the million pound technology of Nike, let's get back to grass roots level.

Make the Premiership teams play with 99p bargain plastic balls. Those things are amazing, hit it with the outside of your right foot looking to curl it from right to left then amazingly it takes on some reverse swing and in mid-air it swings left to right!!

Who'd be a goal keeper.

-- Anonymous, February 02, 2001

What's that kid's game called - the one they're trying to get all schoolkids to play? Well, basically the ball is smaller (so proportionately better for kids) and heavier - so they can't kick it miles in the air.... The South American countries play it a lot.

-- Anonymous, February 02, 2001

but they sting when they hit your bare leg in the cold

-- Anonymous, February 02, 2001

Come on Mac. We don't discuss that sort of thing on here. I'm sure Greenspun would create another BBS especially for you SM Blokes.

-- Anonymous, February 02, 2001

Screach are you saying Macbeth is a Sad Mackem????!

-- Anonymous, February 02, 2001

wasn't it Clough who said something like:

"if God had wanted us to play football in the sky, he'd have made football pitches out of clouds instead of grass." ?

-- Anonymous, February 02, 2001

The most important question here is...

Who is this Mutch fella we keep playing the ball to?? If the other players don't know either, that could be one of our problems. ;-))

-- Anonymous, February 02, 2001

Andy Mutch was Stev Bull's partner at Wolves for ages and I think he played with Teddy Sheringham at Millwall.

He retired ages ago!

-- Anonymous, February 02, 2001

Problem solved! Don't pass the ball to Mutch...in the air or otherwise. Simple really. ;-)

-- Anonymous, February 02, 2001