Tyrone Shoelaces

I can't see us being able to retain 4 or 5 centre halves all of whom are considered to be nailed on first team players. If we get 3 we'll be doing well. We'll always need a couple of fringe players that can fill in there from time to time. Until I see evidence to the contrary I can't see why Wharton shouldn't be given a chance to be one of those players.

Me too. Let's see what players we have to work with first.

Yes, both are real shocks.

Don't you mean Mark Venus ? I thought he was the chief negotiator.

That depends on how much I'd had to drink.

Who was managing your lot - Tony Mowbray ?

It used to all depend on who was put forward by individual schools PE teachers. To be honest I don't think a lot of kids fancied playing centre half at school. All that heading ? The lad who actually played in town team I referred to really fancied himself as a midfield player and later on played there but funnily enough he was nothing like as good as the player he was at centre half.

Not that season and not at centre half ! Being fair to the coach he was new to the area and he didn't know any of us properly. He had our star centre forward ( who signed for Hull on leaving school ) playing in centre midfield until somebody had word with him. Having said that he was a natural and he played centre midfield like he'd played there all his life. Then he discovered beer, fags and women and that was that !

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 ?