Tyrone Shoelaces

Yes I agree. I played in every position on the pitch at some point. Even one game in goal - and one game as the ref. The less said about my refereeing the better. Playing briefly as a centre forward taught what service suited strikers best and how hard it was to play with your back to goal. I remember going for a town team trial once and we all lined up out in the pitch. Me and another lad both lined up in the left back spot, but there was a gap in the right centre half position. The coach organising the trial said to me - You, move across to the right, you're playing centre half today ". When I said I'd never really played there much he replied " Get over, a good player can play anywhere ".

Without being too much of a contrarian I would argue that having a few games at left back would give a would be attacking player some knowledge of the pluses and minuses of what playing at full back entails. If the lad has football intelligence a short spell there won't have been wasted and he may use what he has learnt to his advantage.

I can see that you are quite new to this game.

Some players never wise up ie Jones at Man Utd, he's still making the same mistakes as he was at 17. Then you get the likes of Wayne Rooney who knew all you need to know at 17.

They need to be better than moderate with their left foot otherwise they're coming inside all the time and congesting play.

It's certainly going to be an interesting few months.

Not in every case. Some clubs could bat on with a reduced wage bill. It'd be less expensive that playing on behind closed doors. I can't see the season starting again this year so something will have to change. Obviously quite a few clubs were sailing close to the wind before the virus, it's not looking good for them.

The players would be put in a position of either accepting a significant cut in wages or not getting paid at all when the club goes bust.

That's not going to come along any time soon though is it ? It's hard to see a way forward other than suspending the leagues until such time as a vaccine is found.

Yes you're right- wherever there's easy money to be made the crooks will gather.

Yes, I've given a few like that as a full back and received a few when I was playing as a winger. As you say- normally a booking but occasionally it would be a telling off from a lenient ref. The secret was to get it in very early in the game.

It was a bit late but the number of crocodile style rolls by the Celtic player tells me it looked worse than it was. Definitely an early bath these days though.

After Johnson's speech today It looks like next season just got moved further away. I suspect we won't see any " normal " football this year. How long can we go on playing behind closed doors ?

The dingles are probably grateful that somebody is putting Gibson in the shop window.

Exactly, how many people would volunteer to go into work tomorrow if they still got paid for not doing. To 95% of pro sportsmen it's just a job of work. Most of them won't do anything without being paid. The ones that will are a very small minority.

I see the goalkeeper on loan at Rochdale isn't far behind in that list.

That sounds painful, didn't Donald Trump suffer from that ?

Quality post as usual. Peggy Lee would have been proud of you.

I saw a bit of Sanchez at Rochdale. He's really tall but quite agile for a big guy. He reminded me a bit of Raya in style in that he was capable of clawing one out of the top corner one minute and passing the ball to an opposing forward the next. Like Raya he's still got a bit of learning to do. Going off my brief experience of him if I had to chose between Sanchez and Walton I'd go for Sanchez. Not a great recommendation I know but at least Sanchez will stop a fair amount of shots.

Don't tell 'em Paul !

If you were getting this sort of treatment managing in industry there would come a point were you'd have to say - " Sort this out or I'm off ! "

I'm surprised by that. He didn't look to have that killer burst of speed that he when he joined us after the op. Just my opinion of course.

That injury took half a yard of pace off him though.

We still had the likes of Fergie, Hole, Newton, Rogers, Hunter, Wilson, Metcalfe, The Don Etc to admire at least half of that time. We had a couple of crap seasons then. I'd swap the last ten years for that era tomorrow.

Well he's done it once so maybe you are right.