28 shots on goal, blimey! There are just some games you'd wished you'd gone to aren't there! Show's what a settled side can acheive, have to say though it sounds like commons is a big part of our revival, and Barker too. How did Buxton play last night? I do wonder if anderson will ever get more than a cameo! Looks like we fear no one at the moment, amazing what confidence does for you as well.
Buxton was at fault for their first goal. Got outbullied by Fatboy Parkin. Other than that didn't really put a foot wrong again. He really benefits by playing next to someone as experienced as Barker. Barker's been outstanding ever since the Forest game, just awesome. Reminds me of when we had Stimac. He's as reliable in the air as Big Dave was, only Barker's got much more mobility. Anderson's great cover to have, and I'd extend his contract beyond the end of this season. He's more than capable cover for both Buxton and Barker. When Leacock's back that's another bit of quality to add to the defensive cover, and all this is without Addison. Suddenly we're blessed with talented options! The confidence levels were very apparent last night. Wouldn't have been too long ago that if we'd gone 0-1 down the heads would have dropped. Last night, the attitude seemed to be one of irritation. The lads just upped through the gears and absolutely battered Preston into submission. By the end of the game it really was getting ridiculous, I seriously expected Bywater to have a run at one point!
Surprise surprise, the OS confirms that there will be a Derby Vs Preston DVD! £6 again, already got mine on pre-order. Newcastle DVD turned up this morning so I'll watch that this weekend.
Aye, pretty horrendous match for Arsenal fans. I heard the goals on the radio last night and figured they weren't good - watched them on the TV this morning and realised quite how bad. Maybe not the best refereeing on the indirect free kick, but frankly that's the price you pay when your team makes a mistake and then moans about it instead of defending. Arsenal are incredibly frustrating at the moment.
They are. Available here; http://retail.wearederby.com/store/categories.php?category=MATCH-DVDs/MATCH-DVDS Ended up watching the Newcastle one last night. We were brilliant. Pearson was absolutely oustanding. Commons wasn't far behind, nor were Hulse, Barker and Bywater. Great performance all round really and well deserving of the win.
I've got them all so far, bar the Millwall one. Even at £5 I couldn't bring myself to subject myself to that again! Quality-wise, not as good as proper DVDs, but the picture is passable and the audio is from the RD commentary team. It was pretty good for the Forest game. For the Newcastle one, at times it seemed to be slightly out of synch with action happening on the pitch just after it had been described by the commentary. Wasn't that bothered though to be honest, it didn't make that much of a difference, and thankfully it wasn't really apparent when we scored the goals. Seems to be the same format on all of them; a few pre-match interviews with Nigel and key players (it was nice to hear from Jake Buxton on the Newcastle one), coverage of the arrival of the other team at the stadium, then onto the match, and finally wrapping up with post-match interviews with Nigel and the key players. All in all, well worth £6 IMO. Good thing about releasing them this way is that you can pick and choose.
Cardiff 0-2 Barnsley Derby 0-1 Swansea I've not read the match reports or seen any goals/red cards etc, but I think this is going to be one of those days I strike from my memory forever. Derby sounded at least on level terms with Swansea, but Cardiff I can only assume were total rubbish.
Swansea are the new Wimbledon. 10 men behind the ball for the majority of the game. One of their players took a dive to get McEveley sent off (although he should have been smart enough to realise that this was going to happen once he got a yellow), and they scored from the resultant freekick. After that, back to having 10 men behind the ball. I seriously can't think of a more boring team to have come to PP in recent years. A shame that a team can bore their way into the playoffs.
Kinda a shame really - Swansea were, I admit, a very decent footballing outfit under Martinez. If they were to go up though, they'd soon be found out in the Premier League. You won't have such worries when Cardiff visit Pride Park - if our injury crisis keeps up at the present rate, we won't have 10 men to put behind the ball. I never thought we'd miss Hudson in the centre of defence but his absence is clearly really hurting us. Conceding terrible goals week in, week out. If we don't get some players, or at least some fitness, back over the next month, we'll be limping to the end of the season and well out of the play-offs.
Sounds like losing Commons early on was a big blow for us, although if Swansea were playing that defensive you have to wonder if even he could have carved them open...
I think Commons was the only one really capable of opening them up. On e he went off no one else really knew what to do. A shame, we've played some really incisive football in the last 2/3 weeks, but we struggled for vision and craft on Saturday. Not helped by the massed ranks but even so, disappointing. Cardiff's injury problems sound very much like the run we had up until Christmas. It was only just recently that Clough's been able to name an unchanged team for the first time this season. At one point we literally had 12 players out injured at the same time. Good job we had a bigger squad back then!
^What was the Arsenal lad like? Heck of a way to make his debut! I see we've given a trial to Rooney? (John, Wayne's brother that is...)
Sunu had some decent touches, but largely wasn't really ready. I'm not entirely sure that he'd trained with the rest of the team before Saturday. Baptism of fire I think. Looks to have good technique, just needs to get himself acquainted with the rest of the team. Yeah, Rooney's on a week-long trial. My brother's girlfriend is a Port Vale fan. He went with her when Vale played Macclesfield and he think's Rooney's not that good. Then again, a lot of people thought that about Buxton when we brought him in.
True--Rooney is still quite young though so he might be another one for the development team I guess. I'd heard fairly good things about him a few months ago.
There's a lot of positive anecdotal opinion on him. Considering the players that we've plundered from the lower leagues I don't think we have too much to lose. Buxton's obviously done very well, and Pringle has done well considering that it was never intended for him to be anywhere near our first team this year. He isn't at the moment, but when we had the massive injury list a few months ago he was getting football and didn't look out of place. I don't see anything wrong with giving him a trial, seems like the logical way of going about it. It should give Nigel long enough to run the rule over him.
Yeah, I think it'll be next season or even the season after before Pringle gets a real run in the first team, and he may or not make it, but he was free (or at least very cheap) and if it pays off so much the better. As with Buxton, for free and on the wages he's probably on a bargain. All I want is that between all the lower league bargains we splash out the odd million on a Barker.