Tyrone Shoelaces

I don't think Ipswich will struggle. Hurst knows what he's doing, he'll sort them out. Any away point is a good point, it's just a shame we couldn't get all three.

What you need to understand is not everybody has the same opinion as you . I wasn't at Saturday's game but lots of people said Nyambe was our best player. Some people said he was pretty poor and a weak link. One or two said he was our worst player. Those three groups can't all be right. That's what happens in football . It's a game of opinions. It's a Rovers Message board not the North Korean Central Committee. If Jim or any one else wants a moan this is the place to come.

I'd agree with you there. We've got him quite cheaply. If he's a roaring success we'll be able to ask a good fee for him and if he isn't we won't lose out financially.

My reaction is one of caution. Players sometimes make systems work and sometimes the right system makes players look great. He could turn out to be the new David Bentley ( slightly different in style, I know ) or he could turn out to be the new Matt Derbyshire.

That's what I suspect is behind this signing.

Last time we played 4-2-4 was in the mid 1960's , we were awesome, a team chock full of goals. Ask anybody who saw that team.

There in lies the problem. The dreaded 3-5-2 looms again. If that's not the case I don't see how we're going to get the best out of Armstrong.

He's not a winger Jim, right or left. He's better running after the ball than with it. Normally his first natural movement is away from the ball not towards it. He's a striker pure and simple.

Well it's our 1-4-2-3-1system on display.

Yeah but we'd have still been hanging on at 3-1.

Well it shows the manager is being backed, that's good. Potentially a very good signing. What concerns me is how we fit him into the team. If he's just going to replace Samuel out on the right I don't really see the point, he's not a winger. If we plan to play him up front along side Graham , that's very brave on our part. No many teams play that way today. You wouldn't expect him to play up front on his own, Craig Bellamy he isn't.

We find ourselves hanging on too often in my book.

You still need to be able to take advantage of the added time. Lots of times they did.

I think at this level you need a bit more creativity if you're hoping to do well. I don't think you can afford two water carriers when we still consistently concede goals. If we were keeping clean sheets regularly I could see the rationale of two defensive midfield players, but we aren't.

If you keep the ball in the opponents half " flukes " tend not to be fatal. When you have 18 players in your own penalty area anything can happen.

Nail hit right on the head. Teams that concede regular in the last minutes of the game are lacking in either mental fitness or physical fitness, or both. Fergies teams scored regularly very late on because they had the physical fitness to play for the full 90 minutes and the mental resilience to keep playing football the right way under severe time pressure. They knew that five minutes is a long time in football and chances will come if you play your football and don't just keep lumping it onto the centre halves head from the half way line.

I agree. Nobody is above criticism in my book. The manager gets the pats on the back when things are going well, he gets kicked up the backside when they aren't . That's fair enough for me , any other way is just asking for trouble.

I've not got a problem with that. I'll just keep my eye on the stats for this season.

How many did we concede when that shyster Coyle was in charge that season ? I don't see the point of being economical with the facts. You're not a teacher are you ?

It's a bit of a pointless discussion because we won't be signing Allen any time soon. Having said that he'd be perfect to replace either of Smallwood or Evans. We don't want him playing too far forward, we want him getting the ball forward from the back third of the pitch to the front third. Feeding Dack and Graham. What those two ( Smallwood and Evans ) rarely do.

Tugay only got 13 goals for us in 270 appearances but I'd call him a playmaker. Allen's a class act at this level.

I didn't see the game but I agree with you about Joe Allen, just what we're short of.

In that case why don't you start a thread regarding goals in the first ten minutes ?

At the end of the season we'll see. At the moment not being able to play out a game has cost us 2 points already. I hope we don't need them come next May.

I'm not on about last season. The opposition last season was very poor by and large, it took most of them all their time to score at any point in the game. It's the seasons before that when we were playing at this level and conceding late goals regularly that worries me.