TyldesleyLatic

In some aspects of his management he is very good. In other areas he isn’t – the insistance on the ball being passed out from the back being one of them & one he openly takes the blame for when it goes wrong. So what on earth is wrong with Latics supporters also putting the blame for that on him??
I understand the philosophy behind it – keep hold of the ball coz if the opposition don’t have it then they can’t score but there are times when players just need to put a boot through the ball & get rid of it. And Swansea’s 2nd & 3rd goals last night are just 2 examples of that.
The additional problem to the way Latics play with the ball at the back is that time & time again the ball gets passed about between the defenders & when there doesn’t seem to be an option on they eventually knock it back to the keeper who promptly proceeds to hoof it up the field. So it seems the defenders are told not to hit long balls very often but if needs be they can knock it back to the keeper to do it. So the worst footballer on the pitch (the keeper) is okay to hit a long ball but a defender who will/should be more accurate with his passing, isn’t

Its only my humble opinion but Martinez’s biggest failing is a seeming inability to see that there’s more than 1 way to skin a cat. Long ball sides will often have to get the ball down & play it around in order to win a game & teams who can pass it about will often have to go more direct. Yes Bobby can be flexible in his formations but the under-pinning philosophy of how to play doesn’t change.
Again I’m not saying anything revolutionary or heretical coz Martinez himself says that he has a philosophy about how to play & that he’s very stubborn & won’t change that philosophy

The fact that some other clubs may well want him as manager can be seen as a sign he knows his stuff but it can also be taken as a sign of club owners buying into a media image of him – it’s not as if Latics have never had players before who get raised on a pedestal by the media as out “star man” but the people who see em every week know they have numerous failings e.g. Jimmy Bullard, Victor Moses etc.. which hinder their game

used coach innovations for the semi-final (www.coachinnovations.com) & they were very good complete with a drop off point before the game at a working mens club where the booze was nice & cheap
I know they’re running stuff for the final although they’re also running coaches for City fans & its them who have the use of the club for the day

Wish I’d known that before I turned down the opportunity to buy a load of tickets in the neutral bit yesterday!!!!

Mine & my mates tickets have arrived by all accounts – after being told what i was told by the ticket office last week & knowing none of us could queue up we ended up panicking & ordering em through that ticket2final.com & paying the fee on top.
Anyway my mate dealt with the guy at Latics once they’d been confirmed & asked as near to row 20 on the lower tier as possible.
We’ve wound up with row 23 in the upper tier!!! Bit hacked off he’s phoned up & been told that was the lowest down the club could put 6 tickets together.
I phoned up myself to say I was looking at coming down with 2 mates & ordering 6 in the lower tier & was told that there are only the single ones dotted about here & there. If we wanted 6 together we were looking at the £115 tickets or the £85 ones in blocks 502 or 524-525 & none are available for a group that large lower than row 21 in block 502.

Anyway the point of that tale being that blocks 524 & 525 don’t show on Latics plan of the seating for us & gives us half that upper tier if true

You can order em online at tfl.gov.uk & they cost a fiver although that seems to be a refundable deposit.

Doesn’t seem worth it for me to be honest – staying in East Acton. I’ll get a 1 day travelcard for zones 1-4 for £8. With an oystercard the price cap for a day’s off peak travelling between for zones 1-4 is £7.70 & I’m likely to make at least 4 trips on the tube which with an oystercard would cost me £2.70 each (without the price cap)

The handball wasn’t even the biggest injustice in that game!! I can understand why it wasn’t given coz even 14 years on & after having watched it countless times I can’t say which part of his body he put it in with – Shaun Goater still insists it cam off his chest even in private conversations

Anyway, the biggest injustice in that game was early on when Kevin Sharp exchanged passes with someone on the edge of the box, had knocked it past the last line of City defence & Gerard “The Iceman” Wiekens took his legs out & sent him flying. Absolutely nailed on penalty that the ref wasn’t 10 yards away from & was looking straight at it. You can even see some City fans in the Platt Lane End put their heads in their hands in anticipation of it being given

In fairness to the ref for Saturday when I first saw the footage of the incident that led to the free kick that led to Spurs equaliser I thought that Beausejour clearly pulls back the Spurs player early on, then they’re both at it, then they both fall over, so the assistant got it right. However when i saw it from a camera angle behind both players it didn’t look so clear

As for other injustices, the one that always sticks in my mind is when Latics were 2-1 up at Anfield & in complete control. Liverpool get a free kick not that far outside Latics box & the ref has to have words about encroachment to a couple of Latcis players as Liverpool are getting ready to take it. The ref then blows his whistle, Liverpool take it & immediately it is taken Valencia comes tearing out & blocks the shot. Steven Gerrard complains to the ref, who blows his whistle, brings play back & books Valencia for encroachment. Replays clearly show Valencia didn’t move till the kick was taken & even benitez said there was nowt wrong with it.
5 minutes later Valencia goes into a challenge, gets a deserved caution, gets sent off & within 10 minutes Liverpool are 3-2 up

I remember that, I was there. That was the one and only time I left a game early, to go and see some tits in the Flying Scotsman. ;)[/quote]
You mean the pub that was shut after last season’s Arsenal game? (along with virtually every other drinking establishment in London)[/quote]

Yes, but it was a hive of activity in those days[/quote]

After making numerous attempts over the years to find that place, a mate living in London found where it was & I went in there one afternoon, bizarrely, with said friends wife.
The women in there were absolutely rotten & when I said to the lady with the collection jar that I wasn’t paying to see current dancing girl take her kit off I was politely asked to leave
This story also links into the Kevin Francis/Dean Connolly (loosely)story as it was the same mate who was a steward who saw the challenge at close quarters.
When we met up with him later he was a bit miffed that I’d took his missus into a strip bar :ohmy: