Well, it was Paul Trollope then. When the news came on Wednesday that the former Bristol Rovers manager was to be the man charged with overseeing Cardiff City’s 2016/17 season, it was regarded as such an inevitability that the lack of “pomp and ceremony” which accompanied it seemed so appropriate.
Of course, there will be those who will say that the low key nature in which the news was broken, and then received by City fans, was wholly appropriate – after all, this was the club which made one of the most low key managerial appointments in ages only eighteen months ago offering up more of the same.
To a large extent, I said all I wanted to say about Paul Trollope as a new City “manager” in my piece last week and this one will be more about where do we go from here really. However, I do want to mention that my view is that low key doesn’t have to mean bad and, having got to know and hear a bit more about the man in the last seven days, I’m more optimistic than I was that Trollope can do a good job as the man in charge of the footballing side of things at Cardiff.
One thing which occurred to me for the first time on hearing news of his appointment was that I couldn’t remember Paul Trollope talking in public once since he arrived at Cardiff – I must have heard an interview with him when he was at Bristol Rovers at some time or another, but it didn’t make any impression on me.
Now, in the past, I would have said I would have said I couldn’t really care less how a City manager came over when speaking in public as long as he was doing a decent job for the club where it really counts, but that was in the days before Alan Cork.
Apparently, Cork was one of those players who is portrayed as being good for team morale because he is one of the dressing room jokers. At Wimbledon, he was considered one of the primary reasons for the “Crazy gang” tag which became a virtual trademark of theirs while they were tweaking the noses of the elite for more than a decade during the eighties or nineties.
Cork was a funny man it seems, but it was never a talent which manifested itself in his media appearances during his time as Cardiff manager. Not to put too fine a point on it, Alan Cork was very poor at media relations – at times, he came over as being virtually monosyllabic.
City were the league’s leading scorers in winning promotion from what is now called League Two in 2001 under Cork’s management and the man deserved credit for turning around the fortunes of a talented squad which had been under performing before his appointment.
Should how a manager performs in front of the media be a contributory factor towards sacking him? Alan Cork’s struggles in that department as City boss fifteen years ago make me, reluctantly, believe that they should in this day and age.
However, there was a feeling abroad at the time that virtually anyone could have got us promoted that season given the amount of money we were spending compared to others in that division and, when the spending increased dramatically in the third tier, there was a notion that nothing but promotion would do for Alan Cork.
I was among very many City fans who was not convinced by Cork at League One level and welcomed his dismissal when it came, but, in a funny way, I didn’t like myself much for wanting the man sacked because I had to admit that one of the reasons for this was that he was so poor in front of the cameras and microphone.
So, going back to Paul Trollope, I was a little concerned that I’d not heard anything from him in public because I figured that one of the last things someone who needed to be able to convince sceptical City fans that he was the right man for the job wanted was a weak media presence.
A bit of research on a Bristol Rovers messageboard reassured me to the extent that, generally speaking, the reviews of him as a manager of their club tended to be pretty positive. There were critical opinions of him, but I’d say there was something like a 2:1 ratio in the “did a decent/good job” camp to the “was an awful manager” one.
Among the criticisms of him though was that the football his team played was generally effective, but dull and I saw the word “mogadon” being applied to the style of football played under him and, on one occasion, to how he came across when interviewed.
Having now heard Paul Trollope speak as City’s new (and old!) Head Coach, I can, to a degree, understand that mogadon comment. Trollope certainly didn’t come over as poorly as Alan Cork did, but, whereas one of his predecessors, Malky Mackay, was able to get the media eating from his hand after his first press conference as City manager and generally said all of the right things to get fans onside, it was hard to imagine him convincing those sceptics I mentioned earlier with the power of his oratory.
Adequate, but no more than that, was how I would describe Paul Trollope’s performance in his first meet the media appearance as Cardiff boss – I’d put him around mid table when it came to City managers as public speakers.
One of the men I’d have above Trollope in that table would be Lennie Lawrence, who always came across as being completely at home in front of the media. It was interesting, as well as fairly predictable, therefore to see the man who was in charge here for three years from 2002 being linked with a return to Cardiff in the kind of father figure/advisory role he had with Trollope at Bristol Rovers.
Lawrence held similar positions when working with Dougie Freedman at Palace, Bolton and Forest and it’s worth remembering that he was hired initially at Cardiff fourteen years ago as a “consultant” who would work with Alan Cork.
In many ways, bringing in a senior and respected figure like Lennie Lawrence would be a good move by City in my opinion, but you would have to wonder where it would leave former manager Russell Slade?
Mention of our “Head of Football” brings me on to the oft repeated line which goes “nothing has really changed at Cardiff except that Trollope and Slade have swapped jobs”. This viewpoint (which, incidentally, is not strictly true – Slade has a new job title, while Trollope’s is the same as it’s always been!) has it that it will be business as usual at City with little or no real change to what we’ve seen in the past eighteen months or so.
People who feel that way claim the news that, apparently, his employers at City are willing to allow Trollope to continue with his work with the Welsh squad supports their position – Slade will still, effectively, be calling the shots on the playing side when it comes to the first team and it will be business as usual during international breaks when Trollope is absent.
Maybe they are right, but I don’t believe that they are – my guess is that briefings being given by the club about Slade playing no further part in first team matters are the truth. Indeed, whether they are true or not, I feel the recent stories linking Russell Slade with the vacant manager’s job at Blackburn offer the clue that our former manager’s lifespan at Cardiff is likely to be a fairly limited one.
If Paul Trollope is going to be allowed to continue in his Wales role, then I’m sure it will be a subject that is raised if or when we make a stuttering start to the new season and the first international break comes along.
I am tempted at this point to say that, in my youth, Dave Bowen was able to take Northampton Town from Division Four to Division One while also managing Wales, but I suppose those who say that it’s a completely different world now compared to fifty years ago do have a point.
Therefore, the identity of the new appointments, which Paul Trollope said were imminent, among his support staff becomes very important. For me, someone like Lennie Lawrence would be a safe pair of hands who could oversee a lot of the Head Coach job demands while Trollope is away and one or two quality additions to the coaching staff could ensure that things would be able to tick over well enough during those periods in the season when the first team aren’t playing.
Whether it be regular season or international break time, one person who will not be involved with the first team any more is Scott Young – he’s another one who will still be employed at the club, but as to how he’ll be involved, your guess is as good as mine,
Not surprisingly, things are pretty quiet on the transfer rumour front right now – I mentioned our reported interest in Norwich’s Alexander Tettey last week and the only player I’ve seen linked with us in the past week is also at that club.
A serious contender for the award of best loan player I’ve seen at Cardiff. Gary O’Neill was superb in his two month spell at City in 04/05 and was well on the way to turning around our season when his form prompted Portsmouth to recall him and install him in their Premier League team – I doubt he could prove as influential for us now as he was back then,*
I would have loved us to have signed Gary O’Neill permanently after he had played so well for us during his loan spell here back in 2004 – in fact I would have immediately installed him as club captain and started to build a side for the next five years around him if it had been my choice to make.
Having just turned thirty three, I wouldn’t be as enthusiastic about O’Neill coming here now, but I suppose that, if one of our targets for the new season is a leader in the middle of the park, we could look to him as a short term fix.
If the local press are to be believed, Paul Trollope has three main targets for the new season – that leader type in central midfield, a winger who will add pace to the squad and, hardly surprisingly, a goal scorer. Chairman Mehmet Dalman has said that there will be funds available to Trollope when it comes to recruiting new players, but I can’t help thinking that the transfer kitty is going to have to be boosted significantly by wage bill savings as a result of player departures if we are going to have a reasonable chance of succeeding in finding someone who scores at the sort of rate that will help us make the transition from Play Off hopefuls to serious contenders.
Whether those wage bill savings can be achieved is certainly debatable. This week, Tom Adeyemi joined Adam LeFondre as someone who will not be signing for the club they have spent the season on loan at.
On the face of it, I find it very hard to come up with many players who would be likely to return to the clubs they’ve been loaned to if the opportunity arose. I’m pretty sure Justin Edinburgh would have Deji Oshilaja back at Gillingham if he could and the same could probably be said about Semi Ajayi at Crewe, Declan John at Chestefield and, maybe, Tommy O’Sullivan at Newport.
The thing is though that the departure of such players would send out completely the wrong signals at a club which is, supposedly, looking towards youth again after a period where including a twenty five year old in the first team was seen as a move fraught with danger amid fears that they weren’t quite ready yet!
Not only that, the wage savings to be made from such moves would be pretty small. No, the departures have to be from that pretty large rump of senior players who are costing the club a lot and, in most cases, doing little to justify all of the expense.
Maybe, Reading’s reported interest in LeFondre will come to something, I suppose Preston could be interested in getting Eoin Doyle back on a permanent basis and there may be some Italian team desperate enough to take Federico Macheda off our hands, However, I can’t help thinking that we’re going to have to be looking at letting regular members of last season’s first team squad like David Marshall and Bruno Manga go to help finance the sort of signings which stand a chance of bringing lost fans back and convincing those who are not enthused by Paul Trollope’s appointment.
- picture courtesy of http://www.walesonline.co.uk/
Paul,
I think you have made a very acute observation regarding the almost Harpo Marx silence of Paul Trollope during his time as second to Russell Slade. Perhaps he was just being loyal to the manager, or — surely not the case — he had nothing to say. At any rate, I have heard very few comments from Paul Trollope since his appointment. One was the claim that he would be his own man. But, in the (often misquoted) words of Mandy Rice Davies when told in court that Lord Astor denied having an affair, “he would say that , wouldn’t he!”
Another recent comment from Paul Trollope is more alarming. In a repetion of what Russell Slade has said many times in the past, the new top man asserts that he aims for Cardiff to be in a play-off place by the end of next season. This statement, which could be taken as a realistic assessment, nevertheless reveals too much caution and an caution and lack of ambition. His stated aim should be to finish TOP of the Championship, even if he doesn’t believe it is possible. What he is actually telling his team, however, is that he doesn’t think they are good enough to get to the very top. It is a truism that players thrive on confidence — but in his own words the new manager has shown what is effectively a lack of ambition and has undermined the confidence he has in the players or the tactics he aims to follow next season. It’s like ambitious soldiers coming forward for SF selection in the Beacons being told to try climbing Pen Y Fan with full bergens, even though they are not up to doing it and if they get somewhere near the top, that would be good enough. In fact, as we all know, that would not be good enough!
Even the talk of bringing in an “old head” to advise Paul Trollope may well suggest that even the powers-that-be are hesitant about his managerial abilities, or even that he is equally hesitant himself. He really needs to shout it from the rooftops that he is both his own man and the right man to hold the reins at Cardiff, and then prove it by canny signings and a style of play that is both successful and attractive.
Many years ago the local bank invited a number of schoolboy job applicants to come for interview. The manager (yes, it was that long ago) asked each candidate what they hoped to get out of the job. One pointed to the manager and said “You’re sitting in my chair”. He got the job.
I hope my thoughts on Paul Trollope’s appointment have not come across as totally negative. I sincerely want my assessment to be wrong. As a final thought, Shakespeare somewhere has the words that “Ambition should be made of sterner stuff”. That is what I hope to see next season. Ambition expressed, and ambition achieved!
It was encouraging to hear Trollope talking of new backroom and playing staff as well as liking full backs who go forward such as Fabio and John. This would suit a 3-5-2 which I think should have been tried months ago with the players we have. He also seemed to be obliquely distancing himself from the Slade tactics. All we can do now is wait and see what the summer brings because if changes are seen as positive PT will buy himself time to get his ideas across – let’s hope he’s got more of them than Rusty. However, I agree with Anthony when he says that much of what he said sounded very unambitious. Slade was often criticised for his lack of passion and PT came across as rather similar. I also think that maintaining his Wales connection is ridiculous – it may be part time but that also means that his Cardiff City job is part time if the situation remains unchanged. The removal of Scott Young from first team duties was a positive move although it appears that he may revert to a youth role – the continued involvement of a failed Welsh League/Premier manager at Championship level was always ridiculous and unnecessary but I suppose it was cheap.
I’d also like to go off topic and talk briefly about something which has been annoying and worrying me over the past week, namely the habit of morons invading the pitch at the end of games. This happened after nearly every play off game this week and forced players straight off into the changing rooms instead of being able to relax and celebrate before a walk around the pitch to thank the fans. This culminated yesterday in appalling scenes at Hampden ruining one of the best matches I’ve seen in months. Unfortunately, many football fans are like lemmings and once a few have seen it happen regularly on tv without any comeback, their moronic behaviour induces hundreds more to follow. Continued unchecked, there may be a danger of the return of some sort of perimeter fencing being needed or a bigger police presence at games inevitably resulting in extra expenditure in one form or another for clubs.
Finally, returning to our Club’s player recruitment, I’ve noticed that young Lloyd Isgrove of Southampton has been outstanding on loan at Barnsley and was man of the match in their play off this week. He’s a winger or central midfielder and might be available for loan again or even purchase and is the sort of young Welsh player being talked about for next season (now Russell is no longer in charge). Please note PT, I am available for next season and would be cheaper than Lennie Lawrence.
Dear Paul…
Good morning.
Long may the close season continue.
Just as on Test Match Special, John Arlott, Trevor Bailey, et al would really come into their element when rain stopped play, so this blog shines brighter than ever when the football is momentarily out of play.
Wonderful philosophical stuff here…with AMO’s gifted contribution as ever, a thing to admire.
So, as I understand it, the question is …
do we want a manager blessed with communicative gifts to rival rugby’s verbal star-of -stars, the late Carwyn James (a man judged too dangerously articulate for the Welsh job!) , or do we want one who is as articulate as a rigid lorry, but has the winning knack… a sort of Alan Cork after a Damascene experience that had turned him into a winner?
Before I address myself to that question…I note Paul, that you mention Mr Malky Mackay.
Now I, like virtually everyone else, loved the cut of his jib, after years of watching a paranoid manager scowling at the national Press and at war with the local Press and many of the fans. And I loved the way Malky carried himself.
But then, I saw his successful negative tactics, and much more importantly the contents of his soul…in his attitude to our great owner …who is every bit as worthy of success as the Thais who now own Leicester…
and is deserving of his own Claudio.
Somehow, Mr Claudio …Trollope …
…well, it does not seem too promising a prospect, does it?
I will just say this on the bigger issue…
Some of the most brilliant speakers in history have been evil murdering despots. Adolf Hitler had an audience in the palm of his hand. Benito Mussolini was so gifted in this department that well over half a century later, the then current Italian Prime Minister (Silvio Berlusconi) lifted his verbal tricks and even his facial and hand gestures.
My wife tells me that the thug Joseph Stalin could be brilliantly witty and skilled in his sentences…
And so what I am saying is it was not a case of speechwriters writing the words for these three blighters (though that of course happened, Josef Goebbels on occasions for Hitler, etc.) but these guys GENUINELY knew their way around the telling interjection (and soundbite of its day).
And so to sum up my views on Bluebird managers down the years…
Let me just settle for this one sentence…
The greatest speaker by a distance in my 60 year plus history of listening to Cardiff City managers, just has to be …
…brace yourself for this, Paul
….the worst manager we ever had…
…viz. Alan Durban.
BTW…if all our ex-managers had undergone a MENSA test, I will put money on Mr Durban coming top.
So where does that leave us…?
Two unrelated comments before I tackle my lunch…
1. Was not the cup final great yesterday?
No, not the Wembley final…but the Hampden one, which I watched free to air on BBC 1 Scotland. I was delighted with it, as Stubbs is a proper manager who plays DIRECT football, whereas the ex Stock Market wallah who was Brentford boss (Mark something-or-other) is a roll-the-ball out and pass the ball backwards merchant, who deserves all he gets.
2. The best movie I saw for years was Sunshine On Leith, which I saw immediately upon its release. I note the twins were not at the game yesterday!
Incredible eh?
They would walk 500 miles…yet Salisbury where they were appearing last night, is 62 miles closer than that !!
Yet they did not hire a helicopter !!
What is the world coming to?
The Hibbies win their first Scottish Cup for over a century…and these self-PROCLAIMED “passionate Hibernian fans” are not there!
Tell me I have got this wrong, Paul. I must be dreaming it.
DW.
I feel so let down right now by our club in making Paul Trollope our new manager, the club had a great chance to get the fans on side with a top appointment and bums on seats for the new season, (after 2 poor seasons of football and dwindling crowds) and we get this. I feel cheated for my season ticket, and no doubt there may be a lot of fans out there feel the same. Dalman says he was the best man for the job, then would he please tell the fans what type of candidates were up for the post or was this all done and dusted anyway for the club to cut more players and costs. Cant believe the club is letting our manager go with Wales when he has so much preparation to do in shedding players that the club no longer wants, signing new players(what type of player will sign for an unknown manager) and working on the style of football that he has in mind for the new season, all baffling. I fear if we don’t start well Cardiff City Stadium will be empty as fans will have had enough of poor quality signings(players ,management, and board members all making very poor choices.(we may as well have stayed with Rusty) I hope I am wrong, but at this moment it does not look good.
Apols to Clive…
When I srarted my contribution, his posting had not appeared…otherwise I would have acknowledged his reference to the wonderful game at Hampden.
Talking of which, my closest friends in Edinburgh are all Easter Road season ticket holders. It was them that tipped me off when we signed that goal-scoring sensation from Chesterfield, that we were actually buying the biggest non-striking striker since a damp England’s Glory…(my words, not theirs).
And, I mention them, because I have just read what I wrote…
…and they will not be happy at my genuine typo on “Hibies”…
Apols.
2B or not 2B…?
That is not the question.
(As “Hibernian” is spelt with …one !!)
DW
Thanks for the latest weekly summary, it could be a long haul through this off season to provide much extra news, as I get the feeling like you, gone are the days of chuckling cash around to appease fans, and let’s be fair have we had value for money in the past with that strategy?
In my view this is a better “low key” appointment than Slade’s it allows continuity rather than major upheaval and cost.
Lenny will bring some badly needed experience to the set up,something that was badly missing from Malkys promotion squad.
What we need now is a character on the coaching staff/touchline, to motivate in tougher/critical games.
Loans can work , and as you rightly point out Gary was a class act. Didnt Stoke get promoted with a high percentage of loans?
I smiled at the mention of the mighty Dave Bowen’s name, I forgot about his role,how times have changed.
Keep em coming Paul, the blog updates brightens up my Sundays and my input and involvement greatly irritates her indoors , so win ,win.
The usual thanks to you all for your replies.
AMO, just like Russell Slade before him, I believe Paul Trollope is towing the party line when he talks of the Play Offs being the target. I have an inkling that Vincent Tan et al believe that a top six finish is a realistic target again and so that becomes the one we are aiming for.
Clive, Paul Trollope specifically talked about a more flexible tactical approach in his press conference and I’ve always believed that, as we were strongest in central defence, we should have made more use of a 3-5-2 system – Declan John and Fabio are, arguably, more suited to a wing back role than playing full back as well.
Agree with you about Lloyd Isgrove – I was only saying much the same on a City messageboard this weekend. With a year left on his contract, I’d say there’s a chance Southampton would be willing to sell him – I’m sure Barnsley would be interested if they win their Play Off Final, but a possible bonus from Trollope continuing with his Wales commitments could be that young Welsh players might jump at the chance of playing for and working with someone so actively involved in the international scene.
Dai, I’ll be returning to Malky Mackay later, but, leaving what his stint at Cardiff did or didn’t develop into to one side for now, he was very good with the media and I can remember thinking that I couldn’t wait for the season to start after seeing his first press conference as City manager back in June 2011.
As for the Reid brothers, I would say in their defence that any Hibs fan around their age who had seen their club reach five Scottish Cup Finals since 1972 and been beaten each time, might have begun to think it all had something to do with them and so not going on Saturday could have been a way of showing their true support for the club. After Saturday’s thriller, which put the later game at Wembley to shame, it will be interesting to see what they do if/when Hibs reach the Final again!
Rhondda Blue, your contribution brings me back to Malky Mackay and a theory I have about Vincent Tan. In the end, it may turn out that Malky’s greatest influence at the club will come from the way he turned our owner away from a very large portion of those who earn their living on the playing side of the game. I’ve mentioned before on here that I believe that the field for genuine candidates when a managerial or coaching post becomes available at Cardiff is restricted to individuals that our owner trusts because he knows them or because they’ve have been recommended by one of the small group of football advisors he respects.
Whatever you may think of Vincent Tan, I’m sure he was left badly bruised in a football and personal sense by his experiences with Malky Mackay and I can see why he may have come to a view that most “football people” are liars and cheats. Indeed, I’m pretty sure that many in the game merit such a description, but I believe there are more who don’t than our owner probably thinks. Therefore, I look at Paul Trollope and think that he is probably one of the better candidates on any list Vincent Tan would have worked with when selecting the next man to take charge of the team – my suspicion is that such a list would be a much shorter one than it needed to be and could have been though.
Russell, I think Stoke used thirteen loan players during their promotion season and it wouldn’t surprise if we made more use of the loan system this summer compared to other recent ones. I do believe that we need to be a bit more ambitious in the transfer market than we have been lately if we are to be serious top six candidates, I don’t believe more of the same as we’ve seen in the past eighteen months will be enough to result in the quality of new recruits needed to get us those two places up the table.
Paul,
I see that LvG has left Man U with a mad payoff.
And left with this startling stastic…
In their 38 EPL games this season, Man U topped the backpass table.
They were guilty of performing an amazing 3,222 backpasses.
No other EPL,team got even close.
It would be interesting to see where Mr Russell Slade’s team ended up in a Championship table of backpasses, after 46 games.
I will wager, if not the winner, then there or thereabouts.
DW.
Oh dear…Dai Typo strikes again.
(Statistic and a rogue comma…apols.)
DW.
We’ve talked about “anyone but Manchester United” on here before Dai and I’ve made it clear that I’m no fan of that club, but one thing I’ll always say about the Ferguson teams which won so much over a twenty year period was that they seldom played boring football – Van Gall’s team seldom played exciting football and, for me, represented the extreme end of a possession based approach.
Manchester United are one of a few teams in the world where just winning is not seen to be enough by their supporters – you also have to win with a bit of style and, while not being what I would call a defensive outfit, Van Gall’s team singularly failed to do that.
So, with that in mind, what do you think Man United fans would feel about a manager whose approach could be summarised as follows;-
1. The game is won by the team who commits fewer errors.
2. Football favours whoever provokes more errors in the opposition.
3. Away from home, instead of trying to be superior to the opposition, it’s better to encourage their mistakes.
4. Whoever has the ball is more likely to make a mistake.
5. Whoever renounces possession reduces the possibility pf making a mistake.
6. Whoever has the ball has fear.
7. Whoever does not have it is thereby stronger.
If Van Gall represented one end of the possession based football spectrum, then that seven point plan, surely, represents the other. According to someone who worked on the coaching side at the club at the time, that was Jose Mourinho’s philosophy at Real Madrid (particularly in matches against Barcelona). If Man United are a club where you have to win in style, then I’d say the same applies to Real Madrid and yet “style” has to take a back seat when you adhere to those seven points.
So, for me, if “style” is to mean anything under Mourinho at Man United, I think it will have to be through his own personal style which helps get so much of the media onside with him. Therefore, if his team are winning while playing in that way, the hype which, invariably, follows him around could help to keep the crowd behind him even if the tactical approach is about as far removed from what United fans want as you can get. However, if he’s not getting results and his team go out to prey on opposition mistakes every week, he won’t last a season.
I’m not too sure where City would have been in any backpass league table, but, if I had to guess, I’d say we would have made the Play Offs!
Paul,
Good morning.
That last sentence of yours made me LOL. Brilliant.
As for that Mourinho plan, I must say that nos 6 & 7 really made my eyes open wide !!
Great stuff.
I mean to say, individually they are not that compelling, but in conjunction with each other, they carry one heck of a psychological punch !!
So thanks for putting them my way, Paul…as I had never seen this 7 point plan before..
And of course, intellectually speaking, one knows that it is all so mch balderdash*, but delivered by Mourinho in his pomp, I can imagine that his team would buy it 100%.
Note that I say “in his pomp”: truth is that I see him as “damaged goods” now.
No, not because of this last disastrous season results-wise with Chelsea: but because of the doctor incident being just the latest of a series of examples of his disgracefully bad behaviour…and a “bridge too far” with me
I like managers who carry themselves well and honourably. Leicester, Spurs and Southampton have gentlemen in their hot seats: Arsenal, Palace and West Ham do not…though it seems re the last-named, that it is only me who remembers Bilic and his disgusting con-trick on Laurent Blanc…and the even more appalling refusal to ‘fess up, when asked some 11 years later.
As for the new boys in the EPL next season…
We have one gent in Burnley, and one bounder at the Boro (Karanka, Mourinho’s friend, who Gibson should sack now, if he has any sense).
And whoever wins the play-off, will not grace the EPL with their class as gentlemen.
We saw the real Steve Bruce in the tunnel incident after the 2-2 draw with us, at the endof our promotion season, when he harangued the referee, (wrongly) fearing he’d been pipped for promotion by Watford.
And did you see that Portuguese wallah hurl continuous abuse at the officials throughout the first half of the Brighton 1st leg?
Shameful.
Especially, since what he thought was a good Wednesday goal, had indeed been CORRECTLY ruled out for offside.
Let us hope that Mr Trollope is a gent and not a bounder.
Right. Off to lunch.
DW.
Oh golly…I stick an asterisk…and then forget the footnote.
Slipshod, as usual.
Apols.
The asterisk early on in my last posting…
I MEANT TO ADD
…why we intuitinely know that this claim of Mourinho’s is balderdash, is just to think of the Brazil team of 1970, or the Real Madrid team of 1960. Does anybody seriously figure that either of these teams felt fear when they had the ball…?!
Hardly.
It was their OPPONENTS who felt the fear!
DW
Blimey, I agree with you completely from the bit about Mourinho being “damaged goods” down Dai – though I do have a grudging admiration for Bilic.
Glad it’s not just me about Karanka, never liked the cut of his jib!
Can’t help thinking it will be Carvalhal who is celebrating on Saturday – Hull were hopeless in the Second Leg of their Semi Final.
Thanks for agreeing Paul.
And thanks for glossing over another typo from me…
“intuitinely”.
I meant to type “intuitively”.
Good thing I am not a musician eh?
I would be fired for all my wrong notes.
As for Wednesday v Hull …I want them BOTH to lose !!
Hull, for the way the fans treat their owner.
Wednesday, because it is a travesty that a team that limped into the Play Offs go up, plus I detest Ross Wallace…not least for his two separate karate chops on Kimbo during the Burnley game at Turf Moor when we clinched promotion…both of which warranted a straight red.
DW