Lallana's Left Peg

It's the 10th June. The season has been finished for three weeks. The perceived lack of information around transfers and kit is consistent with how the club have done things the past few years. I can't see where any level of valid criticism can be levelled by anyone other than someone who is negative and is looking for a moan about absolutely nothing.

Away to Villa.

It was a bit chaotic at times but considering our opposition play 20 times a season and that was our first game since WorldNet last July I think we battled well. It was good to have a run out and I may head to Watford later to pick up the 50% of the skin my legs lost during the game. Good to see people again and looking forward to WorldNet.

According to Google translation:

Unless this table is wrong or I've interpreted it incorrectly (both are possible!) then I don't believe the 90min rule is completely abolished at all for all age groups therefore we still gain an advantage by having the Academy there: http://www.footballacademytalk.com/football-league-youth-development-rules-2013/ Particularly for kids in the 'Foundation Phase' where they can only travel for 1hr.

It was stupid for the FA to allow us to have it in the first place. Going to be quite hard for them to take it away from us now as the reasons for giving to us will never change barring a quite literal massive natural disaster that changes the geography of this country.

QPR have every right to want to shift the high earners before Redknapp burdens them with more crap. And lets not forget Redknapp also signed a left back in January that he hasn't played once. I can only think Redknapp is desperately trying to create a situation where it looks like he is forced to leave QPR but everyone can see through his tired routine. Class A ***** whose managerial career is slowly dying in the most satisfying fashion.

He was, but to be fair Baines and Pienaar were in awesome form and our 4-diamond-2 was ripped to shreds by Everton. Particularly as it appeared Jay Rod and Lambert spent most of their time running after Coleman and Baines as JWP and Lallana (in front of Davis and behind Ramirez) were always sucked infield.

Good luck on the fourth point Nige. Reading have some of the worst fans in football. Somehow they have a majority fanbase that appear to me as though they attend games and then have a look on their face like they expected to see a different sport or something and then just sit there in silent bemusement win lose or draw.

Is that because all young players improve, Turkish? Have you just fallen into the very trap you take great joy in using on others?

I demand the festival of football that was the game against D&R.

Is there anything we need to bring other than boots and shinpads?

Ex-Real Madrid apparently: http://www.dohastadiumplusqatar.com/niall-eyes-donning-england-colours/

Lallana only really starts out wide though - it isn't a position he stays in throughout the game. He is constantly drifting inside to get involved and he is very intelligent at finding space for himself and linking up with others. He isn't influencing games as much but that can be attributed to the big step up and the fact he just won't see the ball as much in dangerous areas either. He'll be disappointed with his season but I've no doubt he needs to start games for us and he has the talent. Lets not forget it was only last December that when he got injured many fans were gutted as he was central to the way we played and many wrote us off at that point. Post-injury he hasn't been as good but in the first half of the season he showed as much as anyone else in our team for me. However, I will say that there were times in the run-in this season that Puncheon clearly deserved to start ahead of him (assuming there was nothing else behind the scenes preventing this from happening).

Pace is present in all the worlds best players in the final third. It isn't always a necessity, but if we got a striker with pace who can also play up front on his own it would be a huge plus.

For what it is worth the Italian press linked Altidore to Lazio over the weekend as well.

It'll be interesting to see what sort of player he ends up being. I said it at the start of the year but I still don't know if he'll turn out to be a Shane Long type of player who runs all day and hassles defenders, or if he'll be someone that likes the ball to feet and joins in with play. At the moment he seems to do a bit of everything and with varying degrees of success. He doesn't influence games and tends to play as well as the team however I can see a lot of potential in him I am just not sure how it will all end up. A very interesting player who clearly needs to play to have any chance of getting better. I do like how direct he is with the ball at times and his ability to carry it - it moves the team up the field and lots of defenders don't like that. He has deceptive pace as well. Would prefer him to be more composed with his chances but he isn't the only one guilty of snatching at shots. Plenty to be encouraged by but I haven't a clue how good he'll end up being nor what sort of player he'll end up being either!

As the season wore on we seemed to revert more and more back to how we played under Adkins. The games against Everton, Man Utd, Wigan, and Man City just after he took change saw a big change and his style implemented straight away. Pushing high up the pitch, hunting for the ball in packs, and being quite aggressive in our play. Then we got our pants pulled down at Newcastle as they played five in midfield and always made Cabaye the free man and he was pinging balls over the full-backs for fun which caused all sorts of problems. Ever since then I don't think Pochettino has had complete faith in our defence to be good enough to cope with being that exposed nor our attack to move the ball quick enough to do what he wants so he has set us up a little more conservatively. In terms of the future, I would expect to see us go back to being a bit more aggressive and for that to work we'll need a better standard of central defender and also players in the final third who can move the ball quickly (one and two touch stuff) - be that quicker players or just players of a better standard.

To be fair that looks in a better state than Bloomfield Road this season.

He is in America. Belgium face the USA tonight.

3G pitches are great, but a word of warning for everyone - had a pre-season friendly on one a few years back and I thought I could get away with wering moulded studs. It was a dry day and the next day I woke up with plantar fasciitis which took me two months to shift (and I think that was quick from what I read) so definitely going to wear fives boots for the game.

I've been quite impressed with Holloway's approach to the playoff games and surprised that he played as defensively to stifle the opposition compared to the swashbuckling attacking with reckless abandon associated with his time at Blackpool. That said given the amount of airtime he'll now get as a Premier League Manager he will be highly irritating as he most definitely likes the sound of his own voice.

Fairly logical however don't forget about the considerable number of other clubs in Europe who can either offer as much (if not more) money than us for players and / or are better than us. So that trims down the viability of the targets at financially challenged clubs.

I suppose in some respects, Forte really was unplayable. Regarding Astori, I've not seen much of him but his disciplinary record is a bit iffy. Don't know if that is the Italian game in general or not but I am not sure he could be so blatant with some of the stuff he does in the Premier League. I saw him in one game against Milan and the ball was looping in the air within the Cagliari box and instead of jostling for position with Balotelli he just decided to push him out of the way and he gave away a penalty A bit like what Fonte does every game when for no reason he just decides to barge the opponents five yards or foul him for seemingly no reason.