That Europa cup thingy

Over 33,000 in the ground last night. Not too shabby IMO

Inverness Caledonian Thistle FC / FC Astra Giurgiu next round

Campo wrote:Inverness Caledonian Thistle FC / FC Astra Giurgiu next round

 IF we get through ! Home leg first on July 30th. That is good as there is a proposed Tube strike the week after

Think most fans seem to be wanting another Battle of Britain fixture.

I was a bit disappointed with the amount of changes made on Thursday from the previous round, Slaven picked a team from last seasons first team squad basically and I'm hoping he saw enough there to make him think some of them will not get much game time in the coming season.

I thought a few of the youngsters showed enough in the first round qualifier to get another game on Thursday rather than playing against Chelmsford last night.

As Caledonian thistle lost 1-0 at home I think it's safe to assume it will be the Romanian team we have next

Tony P wrote:Over 33,000 in the ground last night. Not too shabby IMO

Was reading on Facebook earlier about booing from the Chicken Run area Tony ?

yeah... heard it on the comms... we was getting a bit defensive and wound up not only playing loads of balls across the back but also after a spell of possession, ended up playing the ball right back to Adrian...
that's where the boo-boys decided to make their feelings known.

Storm in a tea-cup

Jiggs wrote:

Tony P wrote:Over 33,000 in the ground last night. Not too shabby IMO

Was reading on Facebook earlier about booing from the Chicken Run area Tony ?

There was the usual moronic booing of Kevin Nolan by some sections as he was substituted

I made my feelings known to anyone who cared to listen !

Good man

Agreed

so no one on here cared about today's game at all???????????

couldn't find a sausage anywhere (I'm scared of chinese websites) no radio comms... only twitter...

seems everyone hated the game... hated the performance... thinks Maiga and Nolan should be left in Malta...

I mean...

it didn't sound great...

they're like 280 places beneath us... but they took us on and out played us heaps...

we had one shot on target during the game apart form Maiga's ball in the net that was ruled offside...

we had Tomkins sent off and had to play 75 minutes of regular time with only ten men. Fortunately they had a player sent off in extra time to try to make things fair.

In a nice piece of cosmic irony, we got into this thing via the Fair Play ruling and have had two players sent off already... so we'll have to win it or we ain't getting back in next year.

So we let them score after 15 mins.
Had a player sent off
Resolved to play only one up front and have a midfield of Nolan, noble and Jarvis...

so it was a totally shit game... but we somehow hung on for 90 minutes... then hung on for an extra 30...

then it went to penalties...

and we went first... scored all five of ours...

they missed one, so when young Poyet stepped up to coolly slot home out fifth, there was no need for them to take their final one...

So the game ended 0-1. The tie ended 1-1. and then it ended 5-3 on penalties.

So we made it.

Another European adventure awaits us next week. This time against Romanians.

i've not been to Romania in more than 20 years. I'd love to go back... but it won't happen any time soon.

I hope we win and win well next week. I hope we have some of our new players available to play.

i hope there's a sausage someplace so I can watch the game.

I hope that's the last truly shitty performance we put in this season.

the best part was that we were so shit... they didn't give a Man of the Match award... they gave it to the traveling support.

If Bilic played a midfield of Nolan, Noble and Jarvis then surely he knows now what he needs to get sorted. I don't know what's worse, embarrassing ourselves in pre-season friendlies or embarrassing ourselves in this thing, but at least you can't say these games don't matter so there are no excuses. Anyway, we squeak through to the next round again and hopefully Bilic is realising just what he has let himself in for. I hope and pray he has enough ability to keep us in the PL. Maybe he's just lucky and some of it will rub off on us, that'll do.

Horrible game to watch on the feed
from the first minute they were looking to get players booked or sent off and their plan worked a treat, 3 times in the first 15 minutes one of theirs hit the desk holding his face
They had a game plan for us last night and it very nearly paid off
add the fact we could not pass water we were in trouble all night

Noble taking the piss out of fatty up front did make me laugh but that was the only thing he did in the game
apart from that it was like a training ground session, I would be bloody annoyed if I was one of those that paid money to travel to watch that garbage

I followed it via spy sports app news feed, comments on Facebook and sky bet.

From everything I read and a few "highlights" we were really cack. I suppose u cant underestimate the heat. I also think a few players out there know there days are numbered which pretty much makes them a real liability and U.S. With only half a player out there.


5 good penalties and a level of resilience is the only thing to take from that game.


Moving on, I think we pretty much need our full strength team against Romania. Time to stop faffing about and go for it

We will get a good idea of who is going to play on Thursday by looking at the team that plays against Norwich on Tuesday.

Kray JR wrote:We will get a good idea of who is going to play on Thursday by looking at the team that plays against Norwich on Tuesday.

 I hope Reid is fit and that he plays Ogbonna as Ginge's lack of pack and poor distributions was evident last Thursday

Kray JR wrote:We will get a good idea of who is going to play on Thursday by looking at the team that plays against Norwich on Tuesday.

 I hope Reid is fit and that he plays Ogbonna as Ginge's lack of pace and poor distribution was evident last Thursday

I reckon... since we're in the reckoning business around here...

that he'll have to play a near full strength team in the first leg against the Romanians on thursday...

for two reasons...

Reason #1
I always want to get a clean sheet defensively in the home leg, which is cool if it happens first because then you always have the advantage of being able to sneak a win with an away goal in the return.

The pressure is on us to win and win convincingly in the first leg because of reason #2

Reason #2
He can't play a full strength first team in the away leg on Aug 6th (thursday) because we have the opening game of the PL on the sunday only three days later.


The big problem will occur if we don't win in the first leg or end up with a score draw where the Romanians have an away goal. If anything happens in that first leg other than us getting a decent win and a pretty solid advantage then the pressure really will be on us...

westhamonkey wrote:

I reckon... since we're in the reckoning business around here...

that he'll have to play a near full strength team in the first leg against the Romanians on thursday...

for two reasons...

Reason #1
I always want to get a clean sheet defensively in the home leg, which is cool if it happens first because then you always have the advantage of being able to sneak a win with an away goal in the return.

The pressure is on us to win and win convincingly in the first leg because of reason #2

Reason #2
He can't play a full strength first team in the away leg on Aug 6th (thursday) because we have the opening game of the PL on the sunday only three days later.


The big problem will occur if we don't win in the first leg or end up with a score draw where the Romanians have an away goal. If anything happens in that first leg other than us getting a decent win and a pretty solid advantage then the pressure really will be on us...

I reckon your 100% right with your reckoning there monkey man.

David Gold stated as much on Twitter. We will be playing our strongest possible side on Thursday

Like Monkey Man said we need to take a comfortable lead to Romania so that we don't have to take any players who are due to play against Arsenal on the Sunday

Tony P wrote:David Gold stated as much on Twitter. We will be playing our strongest possible side on Thursday

Like Monkey Man said we need to take a comfortable lead to Romania so that we don't have to take any players who are due to play against Arsenal on the Sunday

Sorry Mr.P, what is this concept " a comfortable lead" ? I don't seem to recall coming across such a thing while supporting West Ham...... maybe it's something other football teams do

SemiOldIron wrote:

Tony P wrote:David Gold stated as much on Twitter. We will be playing our strongest possible side on Thursday

Like Monkey Man said we need to take a comfortable lead to Romania so that we don't have to take any players who are due to play against Arsenal on the Sunday

Sorry Mr.P, what is this concept " a comfortable lead" ? I don't seem to recall coming across such a thing while supporting West Ham...... maybe it's something other football teams do

I know. What was I thinking ?

Tony P wrote:

SemiOldIron wrote:

Tony P wrote:David Gold stated as much on Twitter. We will be playing our strongest possible side on Thursday

Like Monkey Man said we need to take a comfortable lead to Romania so that we don't have to take any players who are due to play against Arsenal on the Sunday

Sorry Mr.P, what is this concept " a comfortable lead" ? I don't seem to recall coming across such a thing while supporting West Ham...... maybe it's something other football teams do

I know. What was I thinking ?

If I was the Romanian manager I'd be sticking quotes up on the dressing room door of West Ham wanting a comfortable lead and challenging the team to make the game as hard as possible/ dare the team to show they aren't just there to turn up and be turned over.

Just a thought