Loads of stuff:
Bloody hell, more new players linked, firstly Trond Andersen from Molde, who is a central defender and Alexander Aas (great surname), from Odd (yes, Odd). The facts and figures: Anderson is worth about £2.5m apparently (or some ridiculous figure), however as he’s from R&G’s club, this shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Andersen is reportedly very good, as is Aas, who is an U21 midfielder (I think). However, it’s felt that Aas (worth between £0.5m-£1m) is probably not ready for the Premiership as yet, although Drillo is said to be very impressed.
Good comments from Tore Pedersen : he really likes it at WFC (likening us to IFK Gothenburg), reckons we’re as good as Frankfurt and unlike the rest of our squad has adapted to the zonal system like Graham Rix to childcare. Now, couple this with the above story and you have a very interesting situation. Drillo is (probably) getting a little concerned that the defenders aren’t really picking up the zonal system quite as quick as he would like. Now, true, it’s early days, and he conceeds this, but if by say October the defence is STILL JK like, then expect people like Andersen and Aas to take over from people like Blackwell. Personally, I think that we need our defence sorted ASAP, and we’ve got the right man to do it.
Speaking of which, Dean Blackwell is fit and will start with TP on Saturday. So at least we’ve got someone to blame for us losing now.
Waleed “you’ll never take the West Bank” Badeer is playing for Israel vs Fulham tonight (Israel lost 2-0 BTW), and yet confusion STILL reins over his work permit. WB reckons he’s got it, and is indeed training with us. One of our directors reckons that though he’ll get it, it still hasn’t come through yet, and couple this with the fact that WB hasn’t featured in any of the pre-seasons may well give credence to the latter opinion. I reckon that he has actually got the permit – why would he need to lie? – and it’s mainly down to the fact that he only had a 5 day trial and is now getting “Premiership Ready”
Bad news: Celsi player Celestine Bayayoko or whatever the fuck his surname is has been cleared of rape. No doubt Ken Bates bribed the judge – probably threatened to burn his house down, after all, he’s never burned anything down before has he………..?
Drillo is considering playing Marcus Gayle up front on Saturday, which is surprising because he didn’t play upfront during the close season games. Unless this is wishful thinking by the Hartson haters that is…. Still, looks like the bible-basher won’t be too concerned, after all, who was it who expressed his fears that he may not get in the first team earlier on?
Speaking of players not in the team, Neil “I run like this cos it’s normal, honest” Ardley may not be featuring much in first team plans. That’s what he reckons anyway. Personally, I think that it’s because JK has gone, and Ardley realises that Drillo probably thinks he’s crap. You can dump the photos of JK with that barmaid now, Neil, JK’s not the manager anymore and if I was Drillo I would be mad to cheat on his wife
As for our ex-manager who kept us free from relegation for the past 16 seasons, he’s reportedly gone in for the West Bromwich Albion job, he’ll be competing against Brian Little. Yeah, massive club that. A bit of a comedown, that, well unless it’s a total non-story (par example, JK was reportedly one of the top choices for the Forest job, except that he never actually applied for it). Frankly, I don’t think WBA would risk his dodgy ticker.
Effin may miss the start of the season because he’s “not fully fit”. Well, obviously because he put himself out 100% for every game he played means such a committed player like him is bound to miss a few because of injury…..
You may have read that Drillo is considering dropping JH because (according to the News Of The Screws) he missed three chances yesterday and was substituted. Like wow. If that situation was to be applied at different clubs then Andy Cole would never play for Man U again. The thing was with JH, yes he missed 3 opportunities yesterday, but they were not “bad”misses, and on any other day they probably would have gone in for him. And as for the substitution, it was fucking hot yesterday, and during the pre-seasons, Drillo has taken off people like Ainsworth and JH just to give the others like Sir Carlos and Elvis a go. File under “Shit Stirring”. Oh, and at least JH was skillful enough to get into those positions in the first place.
Thumbs up to Bournemouth, who let in OAPs/U16/UB40/NUS holders in for nowt on Saturday- both home and away – I knew I went to University for some reason 🙂 When you consider that Watford are stinging us for £24 and West Ham/Yids are charging us something like £27 this year, it makes a helluva lot of difference. Personally, with those prices and the Anelka/Hasselbank sagas going on at the moment, I would not be surprised to see football’s bubble finally burst within the next 12 months. It cannot continue like this….
SW19’s favourite, Terry Venables, has tipped us to finish 11th, the Sun Telegraph predicts something like 17th, and the Sunday Times tips 17th as well. Yep, it’s all because we got rid of Joe Kinnear. Nothing else. Honest.
Drillo still ain’t happy with our defence, he reckons we need two more weeks for our players to comprehend the concept of not letting in many goals. Drillo reckons that the players are so used to playing in Kinnear’s method of defending it’s proving very difficult for them to change. Hmm, says a lot. Interesting that Drillo has in the past been critical of his teams even when they’ve won, probably in order to keep their feet on the ground. So maybe we shouldn’t really read too much into this…….
Speaking of Drillo, the Norse Connection reckons that Drillo has been “well received by the club, players and fans”. This last bit certainly intrigues me – see, judging from the Fans Day, Drillo is genuinely well liked by WFC fans, none of it whatsoever is media-led. If you compared this to Kinnear, who I agree was popular but totally lost most people’s respect after the Barnsley 4-1 victory, it does make you wonder.