Ashford goal the difference as City record rare FA Cup win to maintain recent improvement.

7 Responses to Ashford goal the difference as City record rare FA Cup win to maintain recent improvement.

1. Dai Woosnam says:

   January 10, 2025 at 12:12 pm

   Thanks, Paul.
   6,127 at the game, yet Everton get a full house of 39,000. I am trying to work out the reason.

   Could supporters of the Blades be contaminated by the arrogance of their manager? It still stuns me that Wilder could show such a staggering lack of self-awareness a year ago as to make this appalling ‘show respect to a Premier League manager’ remark… https://tinyurl.com/bdfmuycv

   But in truth I had taken against him a good while earlier because I was starting to see this bloke was not the ‘man of the people’ he had projected himself as being.

   I had so been taken in by him, that when I saw him on Football Focus tell Dan Walker that just like Dan, he also frequented the Two Steps Fish & Chip shop in Sharrow Vale Road in Sheffield… and they both agreed it was unbeatable, and the best such establishment in the city… I was determined to check it out.

   For also, that was fighting talk to a chap like me living in Grimsby, the town so synonymous with the best haddock, that you cannot buy cod in 95% of the myriad f&c takeaways in Grimsby and Cleethorpes. We regard cod as a Hull fish… historically the fishing fleet of Hull fished for cod, and the Grimsby fleet fished for haddock… to such an extent in Grimsby’s case that the port holds the British record for the biggest landing of fish in history.

   And so about 3 years ago during a gap between lockdowns, I drove across to Sheffield just to check out Two Steps… and had a good conversation with the very personable owner (Laggy) and his wife…
   https://tinyurl.com/58eysuhx

   And consume his haddock which interestingly was cheaper than his cod*, and also try his mushy pea fritter… something not peculiar to Sheffield residents, but an exotic creation to Grimbarians.

   Had I not thought Wilder a ‘man of the people’ I would not have embarked on the journey, but somehow he convinced me that Two Steps was worthy of a pilgrimage for a trencherman like me. (In fairness, it is a pretty good f&c shop and worth the visit… though I could find half a dozen within 4 miles of me that are easily its equal.)

   But now? If Chris Wilder endorsed my local butcher, I would immediately become a vegan.

   [Right Dai, breathe normally. That is Mr Wilder out of your system. Such things are better out than in.]

   Football.

   Delighted we beat his team last night. Our keeper gave me some palpitations with his occasional madcap kamikaze playing out from the back… then fortunately deciding on a sensible long accurate goal kick… only to find that task also quite beyond him. (Omer should get Jak to give him lessons in landing the ball on a sixpence.)

   Will someone also teach Rubin how to a head a football… à la John Charles giving the 16 year old Tosh weekly heading lessons that were to pay off in ways he could never have imagined.
   * https://tinyurl.com/cny5kmj4
   TTFN,
   Dai.
2. Dai Woosnam says:

   January 10, 2025 at 12:44 pm

   PS to my comments.
   Re the third link (https://tinyurl.com/yrhb89sz) check out the YouTube ‘top comments’ to the right of the screen. The third one down is from a chap called Vin Adamswood… which is an anagram for David Woosnam.
3. Blue Bayou says:

   January 11, 2025 at 1:51 am

   I mostly agree with all you say Paul.
   One part I wouldn’t agree with though is your description of Sheff Utd comfortably beating us just before Xmas. Until Kieffer’s quality strike in that game to open the scoring, I thought we competed very well against a top placed team who’d won 8 and drawn 2 of their previous 10 games. Despite Sheff Utd having the majority of possession, I thought we were going to contain them. Admittedly after the first goal, Sheff Utd concentrated more on keeping the ball, which they did pretty well, and I feared we’d likely not get a goal back.
4. The other Bob Wilson says:

   January 11, 2025 at 7:19 am

   Thanks Dai for an interesting Fish and Chips read – a subject , too, close to my heart! We’re old enough to remember Chris Wilder as a player – not that I have many memories of him, I just recall him as a lower level, no nonsense, journeyman defender and for some time that was what he looked like being as a manager. I can remember reading a book about twenty years ago about “the modern game” and there was a section on some young, up and coming, manager who the writer thought had a very good relationship with the media because he was so open and forthcoming with them. I’ve long since forgotten who the manager in question was, but I’m pretty sure he didn’t do as well as the writer thought he would.
   I may not remember who the chapter was about, but the funny thing is I can recall this person being contrasted very favourably with Chris Wilder, who was described as “very dour” and unapproachable. I think Wilder was manager of Oxford at the time and I paid little attention to him until his Sheffield United team came to Cardiff early in the 17/18 promotion campaign and they turned out to be one of the best visiting sides of that season.
   Wilder definitely did a very good job in his early years at Sheffield United first time around and, as his team climbed into the Premier League and his appearances in front of a national, as opposed to local, media grew, I think he tried to change his public persona, hence what you call his “man of the people” act.
   Since his career has taken a downturn, I think he’s become more like his usual self again and, although I think Scott Parker is another boring manager who has proven himself capable of getting teams promoted to the top flight, but then looks very limited when he gets there, I hope it’s Burnley and Sunderland who go up automatically (I could never wish success on Leeds). We played Sheffield United’s first team just before Christmas and two fine finishes by Kieffer Moore apart, i was not very impressed by Mr Wilder’s team – they were shockingly bad last time they were in the Premier League and I’d expect them to do not much better if they were there again next season.
   It was a little surprising to see us playing out from the back on Thursday because it was beginning to look as if the arrival of Richard Shaw had brought about an end to the practice. Interestingly, when Joel Bagan replaced Perry Ng in midfield, the playing out from the back virtually disappeared in the second half – I thought Bagan was an improvement on Ng in the middle of the park as well.
   i’m guessing that Rubin Colwill is something like two inches taller than Toshack and probably more than that than Charles, but I don’t see him being a “natural’ header of the ball like the other two were. Rubin’s actually surprised me from time to time in the last two games by winning the occasional header against his marker, but that miss against Middlesbrough demonstrates his shortcomings when the ball is in the air – Charles or Toshack would have buried that chance without a second thought.
5. The other Bob Wilson says:

   January 11, 2025 at 7:33 am

   I think my use of the word “comfortably” was more to do with our limitations in that we barely ever looked like scoring Blue Bayou. As I say in my reply to Dai, I wasn’t overly impressed by Sheffield United in our first meeting with them. I thought we were better organised than normal that day and was just beginning to think we could get s 0-0 when Moore scored his first goal – I suppose a better way of putting what I thought about the game would have been to say we never looked like equalising once we fell behind.
6. Brian Andrews says:

   January 11, 2025 at 9:18 am

   I have been going on about Colwill’s aerial limitations for some while as readers to your column will know and it really does puzzle me why our coaching staff have failed to address the problem. Far, far too often he jumps with his back to the ball and by so doing is never “attacking” the ball. Perhaps he doesn’t want to damage his expensive “hair do”!
   And on Thursday, when he had a golden effort to shoot, he opted not to. Someone needs to have a serious chat with the young man.
   Finally, thank goodness for Ashford. Surely he must now become one of the first names on the team sheet.
7. The other Bob Wilson says:

   January 12, 2025 at 8:17 am

   Nice to hear from you again Brian, I’ve been on Rubin’s side for years, but I’ve found watching him in recent months very frustrating. I think he is a lot less confident in his finishing than he was when he first came into the team and I’m not sure that he’ll ever be that good in the air, but what I noticed on Thursday was that his first touch was unusually slipshod. It’s a testimony to his natural ability that he often managed to retain possession despite the ball getting away from him at first, but I’d rate him as equally culpable with Etete (who had the excuse of it being within the opening five minutes of his first senior team game of the season after a long time out injured) of butchering that great chance created by Ashford in the opening minutes. Colwill took another poor first touch on a ball that I don’t think was meant for him and. although his backheel presented Etete with what should have been a goal, the whole thing became a mess which encapsulated why we score so few goals from open play.
   It’s early days yet with Ashford, but, from the moment he came on at Oxford on Boxing Day, he’s been decisive with his decision making and looked like it was all coming pretty easily ro him – this is in contrast to the Colwill of recent weeks who is beginning to make things that he should be doing without thinking look something of an effort. I think it might be time for someone to take him to one side and tell him to stop trying so hard and relax a little.

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