Itchen_block4

Seriously DP, how hard can it be to cockblock yourself?

Saw the therapy thread and thought there might genuinely be a gap in the market for a TMS problem page for those nagging little issues that don't merit their own thread, but deserve to be shared. Bird troubles with rule 1s and graphic details very much welcome. No facaecous "and how does that make you feel"'s here, just a place to share our experiences, share our advice and hopefully make the world easier for all of us. Here's a slice to get us started. Bit of a boring one, apologies: Got a girl's number at the students union last week. Tried texting her, but b!tches being b!tches, no reply so left hanging none the wiser. Eventually thought "**** it" and called her to put her on the spot. B!tch not interested, fair enough, they aren't all interested and this week I can go fishing for more poontang with a clean conscience. Only met her once and being turned down wasn't hard to take, but what ****ed me off was b!tch not getting back to me and leaving me hanging. I swear they do this deliberately. Next time I won't waste time in calling her, so I know where we stand. Can't give her the satisfaction. Nothing too deep please. If I have to look into the deepest,darkest crevices of your souls, I'll have to start charging! Enjoy By the way, anyone making **** up about threesomes after 30 pints will be shot.

I actually did get an A* in A-level psychology. Not that it gives me credentials to therapise you bunch of basket cases, but feel free to fire away if you're sufficiently convinced.

I still maintain my point though. Morgan, Davis and JWP wouldn't have given Scholes the tme of day had they been running on fresh legs. Our players are fit, but someone who has been busting a gut for 70 minutes isn't going to match up with someone who is fresh on. The ony way round it is to plan for it. In my book, that means making some sacrifices to the starting 11 so we can finish the game strongly.

I'd guess because Steven Davis hasn't really inspired of late. The kid is good enough to play and has shown he can handle the pressure.

Would that lot on your bench turn arounda 2-0 defecit or win us a level match at one of the toughest grounds in the league? Of course they wouldn't. This is a 90 minute game and we'd only see the best of that front 4 for about 65. If they brought Scholes, Giggs and Nani off the bench, they'd just cut us up late on like they did last time and the time before that.The long game is worth getting used to, because it's capable of winning these games that we really have no right to win.

Van Persie is a fantastic player. He'd molest any of our centre halves if we give him the opportunity. Their midfield is their weak point and if we win that, we give ourself a chance.

Not much to lose here. -------------------Boruc Clyne-----Yoshida-----Hooiveld-----Shaw ---------------Cork-----JWP ------------------Morgan Puncheon----------------------------Guly -----------------Rodriguez Play the long game here like we did against Chelsea. Go all out from the start and Fergie will just throw on the old guard to win the match late on, like they did at St Mary's. Play them at their own game by throwing on Lambert and Gaston later on when they can't deal with them. We haven't got much to lose anyway and if we can see out the first half, it gives us a real opportunity to actually win. Raised a few eyebrows against Chelsea, but it did the trick.

Go to form and fitness, whoever that brings up. None of them are entitled to a place.

Lambert's monetary value isn't huge anyway, so I doubt we'd be that worried about the money. Going back to Le Tiss, he kept us up year on year, but he also held us back by becoming too big and marginalising everyone else. The teams immediately after Le Tiss retired were some of the best for years and it was poor management/lack of investment that let that go. We have other players who are all capable. I sometimes get the feeling that our team is Lambert plus 10 others and I don't think that is healthy for the equilibrium of the team. After a bit of time getting used to life without Lambert, I do think we could really catch fire with a team of players roughly equal in the influence stakes. You're right in sayig that we should let Lambert go at the end of the season. It's one of those tough decisions between sentiment and progress that football is full of. It takes balls to make those decisions, but good managers make them. SAF has made loads of them in his time at Man U and got most of them right. I'm guessing that now, he just wants to win the league, so he can retire on a high and leave the poor sod in charge next with the thankless task of purging all the old farts.

Cortese knows **** all about football and isn't the one making those kinds of decisions. Cortese brought in Reed and made him a director, effectively on the same level as him, to be his football brain, as chairmen don't have a great reputation for doing things properly when they try to get involved in structuring a football club. As for Lambert, Pochettino knnws a bit about tactics and will move things around to get him in while he's still here. All this talk of Lambert going elsewhere, I think may have had more to do with Adkins than some people might like to think. Lambert isn't that quick, but that's not really an issue since the average centre half is hardly Usain Bolt. He's just a real team player, which is great in a 442, but a lone striker needs to be selfish to leave the play behind and look for gaps. It's frustrating when Lambert comes short and there's no one ahead of him. Adkins clearly recognised this, but as some smart arse will point out, he's too influential to leave out and Adkins recognised that too. It wasn't Le Tiss retiring that sent us down in 2005. In some ways it made us a better team, it'a no coincidence that Strachan's 02/03 team was one of our best.

Despite being 2 goals down against Chelsea, we played pretty well in the first half. We worked extremey hard, passed well and Steven Davis wasted a great chance. Both goals came from us not clearing the ball properly. We could count ourselves unlucky to be 2-0 down, because we really did play like a team. We couldn't afford or attract the sort of player who does what Lambert does and frequently gets in behind players, so decisions have to be made somewhere along the line. For less than really silly money, you need to compromise. Unless of course one of our kids turns out to be an absolute beast, which we've got no guarantee of.

Typo, meant to say 3 at the back. The idea is to commit two defenders into the middle in possession so we can have bodies in the middle and weight up front. ****ing difficult to do though and you get shafted down the flanks if you get it wrong, hence why not many teams do it. Lambert is a good player, but hasn't fitted our style since we decided that a 4231 was a good idea for not getting mashed up in the middle of the park. Because he's a good player, Adkins has been frantically been moving players around just to fit him in. It's easy to forget that some of these systems didn't work that well or employed certain players in unfamiliar or unsuitable roles. I'll make it absolutely clear that I don't blame Adkins for this, it was his job after all. It doesn't take a genius to realise that he doesn't really fit. It's a shame as he's a talented, popular and influential player. ~We may have tried to move him on in the summer, but it didn't happen and freezing out a player like Lambert is too much to ask of the manager given his undoubted talent.

Apparenty he's a believer in 4 at the back. There isn't time before the Everton game to put that in and doing it this season woud be a huge risk. His football philoosophy is broadly similar to Adkns', ie playing out from the back, high tempo passing game, but prepared to be pragmatic, so I wouldn't be surprised to see minimal changes in the short term. Nigel Adkins was doing a good job and we don't want major changes to tactics and formations at this stage. I wasn't particuarly optimistic about this game anyway, so not the ideal game to judge Pochettino.Eveton are a strong side who are where the are for a reason and let's not kid ourselves that a draw would be less than a good result.

Why though? Solves the Guly/Ramirez issue and the 442/4231 issue and gives us a powerhouse to bring on to change the game. Not the worst plan by a long chalk.

**** happens, we go and win the next games. In this league, we don't need to win them all. 18 points from 16 games will sit us nicely on 40 points and it's very much achievable. Even if it comes down to the last day, our final game is a very winnable home tie against Stoke, so no need to get the noose out early! Back to Everton. For me, same team that started last night, but with Gaston in for Davis for a more expansive outlook from the start. Lambert coming off the bench was really effective last night as it was on the opening day and it's something I'd like to see ss do more often.

Did Brett Ormerod think of her whilst ****ging Kevin Phillips' wife?

Nobody, but they still don''t fix the terms of the deal. They are highly experienced and respected and have worked for their reputations for years. Even so, if the chairman hands them a big list of top class players he can use his own contacts to get good deals on, I expect they would follow them up. Cortese has bigger things to do than running round Italy scouting players, so he isn't qualified to do more than broker the deal.

Vibrating seats Cheap cocktails/mixers - girls guzzle these down Clean toilets - Men go in, have a **** and come out again, but women actually spend time in them doing make up and ****. Groups of women can't go five minutes without *****ing with each other and the toilet is a safe haven for them to do this. Clean toilets would make a good impression. Tighter shorts for players Being kid friendly - attract the milfs Turn the concourse into a massive nightclub post match. Only after a win though.

That's Rodriguez's problem. People expected him to be Lambert mkII, but he's quite obviously not. The debate here isn't one of quality, because both players have plenty of it in their own way, but one of style. It was clear from the start of pre-season that Adkins wanted to play fluid football in a 4231 system. It's hard to do when your striker drops deep to be a second playmaker instead of breaking beyond the lines. He's very good at it, but it has meant that we've had to make tactical concessions to make it work, some of which have paid off and some of which haven't.

Apart from worldies like Messi and Ronaldo, most of the strikers that bang the goals in tend not to be involved that much. Rodriguez isn't Lambert and he'll get nowhere by trying to be a tribute act. The team just need to work on adapting to his game. As strikers go, his interplay is quite good and it's not like carrying an out and out poacher. Keeping the ball and moving it around is what midfields are for. Strikers shouldn't have to do it because they can score a lot more goals by leaving the play behind. 442 is hard to do in this league and there isn't a second striker to run ahead in a 4231. Adapting our style will be the difference between staying up and going down. Might seem odd, but Lambert needs to learn to be more selfish and have more faith in the people behind him.

Who do you suggest then? Les Reed has a tough job to do and it's not one that many people are qualified for. There aren't many football people who are also qualified as business managers and that's what Reed is there to do. Lots of chairmen think they can do his job and get it spectacularly wrong, either because they're hopeless like Rupert Lowe or because they don't delegate properly and give themselves too much to do that they know **** all about. The chairman, the manager and the bloke in charge of scouting seem like fair people to have on the signings panel.

The transfer commitee consists of Nicola Cortese, Les Reed, Paul Mitchell (head of recruitment) and Nigel Adkins. Les Reed's job is to make sure that each level of the club is integrated and that the long-term plan is adhered to. It's in his interest for us to sign players who will have a future here and to avoid troublemakers who might disturb the way we do things. His role in specific transfers is probably quite minimal as he is neither a coach nor a scout with a great deal of authority on what we need or what's out there. Specifically who we sign is decided by Nigel Adkins and Paul Mitchell who represents the scouting team.

-------------------Boruc Clyne-----Yoshida-----Hooibeld-----Shaw --------------Cork-----Morgan -----------------Ramirez Puncheon----------------- ----------Guly -----------------Lambert Keep it simple here. Use the width, ball into Lambert. Their defence are all over the place and we'll get joy from this if we can get our fullbacks overlapping.

Billy Sharp is half the player Lambert is with the ball and he's not the quickest either, but he has a selfish streak that lets him make a run or sniff out a goal at the expense of getting involved in play. Lambert I feel is too much of a team player and that compromises his ability to score goals. Championship and L1 defences just aren't up to much and Lambert wasn't really tested. When we had Rasiak, he would get accused of being lazy (he was tbf), but he banged in the goals because he was sniffing out the openings rather than getting involved. Rodriguez isn't the ball-player or physical threat that Lambert is, but he's not bad in that respect and he has a selfish streak and a bit of pace to pick out the holes in defences.