This is why I don’t like it when people talk about players not being young at 22/23….
It’s really not a one size fits all and for every Rooney who is a man at 16 there are a dozen others who don’t mature mentally and / or physically until they’re 23/24.
It used to be said that players hit their peaks at 28……mins / physical / technical all coming together before the body starts to let down the mind and the technique. But with modern sports science and different training methods and equipment players may not peak until 32/33 in some cases (position dependent).
We wiote off players too soon in this country and many fans are three sheets to the wind barely watching a game and slating players who are sometimes 2 years below than at school and suggesting they’ll never make it!!
I’ve never seen that particular thing going on at a footie match, but in the good old days of the terraces it was regular for their suddenly to be a push in the crowd as everyone tried to get out of the way of some bloke urinating. Of course, that wasn’t the worst. What was worse was when nobody realised a bloke was urinating and so somebody or somebodies would get wet feet or trousers.
You’ve reminded me. I sat in the old people’s stand one Tuesday night, when someone actually said something similar of Elijah, prefaced with the words, ‘I’m not racist, but…’
Half decent point against top of the league. Thought defensively we were good, Daniels had a brilliant game, just poor in the midfield as has been said. Matt and Stevens looked a bit better together than the Salford game but again, never really got any service.
Hope Wilkinsons injury isn’t as bad as expected, got to feel for him if it is!
Slightly surprised (although I really shouldn’t be) about some of the negativity on this thread about Saturdays game. Thought it was a really good tussle between two really good sides at this level and overall a draw was a fair result, I’d certainly put it down as a point gained rather than two points lost despite the fact we were in front for a decent proportion of the game.
We all agreed that it was the proverbial game of two halves. We were the better in the first half and deservedly were in front at the break despite some of our football at times being somewhat agricultural in its nature. In the second half Orient showed why they are top of the league and the best side in the division and I don’t think even the most one eyed Saddlers fan could begrudge them their equaliser. At that point they had all the momentum and we did well to hold on for the point with some quite superb defending. I think we showed our shortcomings particularly in the 2nd half where we needed someone in the middle of the park to take the game by the scruff of the neck and for us to keep the ball better. We also lacked an outlet up top with a bit of pace and mobility to stretch the game and be a genuine threat on the break, oh how we missed Doug Taylor as an option off the bench.
No one consensus on POTM but Daniels was for me an absolute rock at the heart of a defence which performed excellently on the day.
If we played Songo’o, Daniels could certainly push forward more. I personally think that Daniels is more mobile than Sango’o and we haven’t had a big bruiser of a midfielder since Dwayne Mattis (I expected Labadie to be immense but he was just a walking yellow card who whined constantly at the referee)…
