Mancini: Fight Fire With Fire!

[Tricky_Trev]

Just like to point out (if nobody else has) that with Kompany at centre half with either Lescott or Toure, we have yet to concede a goal under Mancini - hardly ropey, although obviously 4/5 of those were at home where we're stronger. Kompany and Lescott is his first choice pairing and if we stick with that we'll be much more solid.

Stoke h 2-0
Wolves a 3-0
Portsmouth h 2-0
Bolton h 2-0
Liverpool h 0-0

As for playing Stoke at their own game, Mancini's comments are either deep genius or laughable. The way to beat Stoke is to move it around at pace on the deck and exploit the fact that they are absolute sh*te. If you get drawn into a long ball
battle, you're simply making life easy for their carthorses.

Sorry, but you are incorrect. Kompany played in the 4-1 win over blackburn. He even passed the ball to Pedersen for their goal... I think.

Actually, he's not incorrect. If you read his post, he is talking about Kompany when alongside Lescott or Toure. He partnered Richards v Blackburn.

 

[brian the blue]

Sorry, but you are incorrect. Kompany played in the 4-1 win over blackburn. He even passed the ball to Pedersen for their goal... I think.

Actually, he's not incorrect. If you read his post, he is talking about Kompany when alongside Lescott or Toure. He partnered Richards v Blackburn.

Fair enough!

 

[Tricky_Rici]

Rather attack and play football than resort to lumping the ball 60 yards every time we get it like Stoke do .......The modern day Wimbledon with the exception that Wimbledon actually had some very good players ...........Lets start with leaving at least 3 men forward every time they have a throw in or corner ...........Means they will keep at least 4 players back and the area will be far less crowded .........Mancini insisting on having all players back is playing into their hands ..

Well we have Fuller, Tuncay, Etherington, Shawcross and Huth who i would say are our stand out players.

Name me all of these Wimbledon players who were so much better then as i certainly don't remember them. There are similarities to our style and no honest Stoke fan would disagree with you but we've been here 5 minutes after 23 years away and pissing all over the efforts of The Baggies and Burnley who have taken the other route.

The difference between us and Wimbledon is they were never going to get enough money to move on so they had to keep with the kick and rush style year in year out. We're not like that, we're financially sound and will evolve as Tuncay and Etherington are living proof.

For some reason though, all opposition fans seem to think we should all play the same way and let the big boys with the most revenue keep rolling them over. We've been here for 18 months. If we're playing the same way in 3 or 4 years loads of Stoke fans will be moaning aswell but until then you can all get bent. We love being hated. It fucking brilliant and without doubt the main reason we create such a racket every week :-D

 

[Anonymous]

Rather attack and play football than resort to lumping the ball 60 yards every time we get it like Stoke do .......The modern day Wimbledon with the exception that Wimbledon actually had some very good players ...........Lets start with leaving at least 3 men forward every time they have a throw in or corner ...........Means they will keep at least 4 players back and the area will be far less crowded .........Mancini insisting on having all players back is playing into their hands ..

Well we have Fuller, Tuncay, Etherington, Shawcross and Huth who i would say are our stand out players.

Name me all of these Wimbledon players who were so much better then as i certainly don't remember them. There are similarities to our style and no honest Stoke fan would disagree with you but we've been here 5 minutes after 23 years away and pissing all over the efforts of The Baggies and Burnley who have taken the other route.

The difference between us and Wimbledon is they were never going to get enough money to move on so they had to keep with the kick and rush style year in year out. We're not like that, we're financially sound and will evolve as Tuncay and Etherington are living proof.

For some reason though, all opposition fans seem to think we should all play the same way and let the big boys with the most revenue keep rolling them over. We've been here for 18 months. If we're playing the same way in 3 or 4 years loads of Stoke fans will be moaning aswell but until then you can all get bent. We love being hated. It fucking brilliant and without doubt the main reason we create such a racket every week :-D

As long as you have Tony Pulis you will never ever get the style of football that entertains people.

 

[Tricky_Rici]

Well we have Fuller, Tuncay, Etherington, Shawcross and Huth who i would say are our stand out players.

Name me all of these Wimbledon players who were so much better then as i certainly don't remember them. There are similarities to our style and no honest Stoke fan would disagree with you but we've been here 5 minutes after 23 years away and pissing all over the efforts of The Baggies and Burnley who have taken the other route.

The difference between us and Wimbledon is they were never going to get enough money to move on so they had to keep with the kick and rush style year in year out. We're not like that, we're financially sound and will evolve as Tuncay and Etherington are living proof.

For some reason though, all opposition fans seem to think we should all play the same way and let the big boys with the most revenue keep rolling them over. We've been here for 18 months. If we're playing the same way in 3 or 4 years loads of Stoke fans will be moaning aswell but until then you can all get bent. We love being hated. It fucking brilliant and without doubt the main reason we create such a racket every week :-D

As long as you have Tony Pulis you will never ever get the style of football that entertains people.

By people of course i assume you mean "other teams fans". ;-)

We're all entertained at the moment and your argument is just based on his past history. He's never been at the top level and he's certainly never had the money he now has at his disposal so we shall see. I never expect us to to even attempt to play like Arsenal under Pulis but with a bit of time and money, which he will get both of, i can see us playing very similarly to Everton which is not the end of the world for the neutral is it? At the moment his sole aim is to stop here for 3 years and establish ourselves and then hopefully push on and improve the club off and on the the pitch. Seems like a very sensible plan to me.

Out of interest have you seen much of Birmingham this year? Stick Rory Delap in their team and you'd be hearing all about them every week and we wouldn't get anywhere near the bad press we do, which is ridiculously over the top, and stereotypical comments like yours are the perfect example.

You can laugh all you like at whether you think Tuncay and Etherington are any good compared to your players but don't even try and suggest they are aggressive, six-fingered knuckle draggers who just lump it in the air all day as you'll just look very silly. These are players Pulis has bought.

Rome wasn't built in a day and it wasn't so long ago you had the likes of Shaun Goater plying his trade at your place so let's not get all high and mighty and suggest things NEVER change eh? ;-)

Edit - Not saying Goater was a bad player but a footballing genius he wasn't. ;-)

 

[CHT]

Rather attack and play football than resort to lumping the ball 60 yards every time we get it like Stoke do .......The modern day Wimbledon with the exception that Wimbledon actually had some very good players ...........Lets start with leaving at least 3 men forward every time they have a throw in or corner ...........Means they will keep at least 4 players back and the area will be far less crowded .........Mancini insisting on having all players back is playing into their hands ..

Well we have Fuller, Tuncay, Etherington, Shawcross and Huth who i would say are our stand out players.

Name me all of these Wimbledon players who were so much better then as i certainly don't remember them. There are similarities to our style and no honest Stoke fan would disagree with you but we've been here 5 minutes after 23 years away and pissing all over the efforts of The Baggies and Burnley who have taken the other route.

The difference between us and Wimbledon is they were never going to get enough money to move on so they had to keep with the kick and rush style year in year out. We're not like that, we're financially sound and will evolve as Tuncay and Etherington are living proof.

For some reason though, all opposition fans seem to think we should all play the same way and let the big boys with the most revenue keep rolling them over. We've been here for 18 months. If we're playing the same way in 3 or 4 years loads of Stoke fans will be moaning aswell but until then you can all get bent. We love being hated. It fucking brilliant and without doubt the main reason we create such a racket every week :-D

Wimbledon Players who were better..................Beasant , Scales, Wise,Curle,Phelan , Fashanu,Barton.......6 Players who went on to play for England ( Phelan -Eire) and earn themselves big money transfers ..............Wimbledon also won the FA Cup .............Your over estimating how good you are , You have done well to survive so far But that style of football will get you relegated sooner rather than later

 

[frannyleesbogroll]

say what you like about stoke every player puts a good shift in quality or not...
does bobby mean matching stokes effort I think so which is a fooking disgrace too busy getting pink wheels on the range rover to be bothered about football.
I think this gave will be pivotal if we win tails up for sat and a poss draw, soundly beaten at stoke not good.... we will see
pass the ball around and control the fooker the first touch was awful in the last 2 games ade has to make the ball stick.

 

[blueH1969]

Totally agree, dont lower your standards! (besides who the f*ck do we have who takes Delap like throws? most cant cross it past the first man!)

Our whole game plan at home revolves around sucking teams into playing the game on our terms, because were going to be better at it than the opposition. The best hope you have of getting a result is to get the ball wide to players with pace (SWP, Bellamy) and run at our full backs. Lumping long balls into the box against us will end it tears, without a shadow of a doubt.

i totally agree sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

 

[Tricky_Rici]

Well we have Fuller, Tuncay, Etherington, Shawcross and Huth who i would say are our stand out players.

Name me all of these Wimbledon players who were so much better then as i certainly don't remember them. There are similarities to our style and no honest Stoke fan would disagree with you but we've been here 5 minutes after 23 years away and pissing all over the efforts of The Baggies and Burnley who have taken the other route.

The difference between us and Wimbledon is they were never going to get enough money to move on so they had to keep with the kick and rush style year in year out. We're not like that, we're financially sound and will evolve as Tuncay and Etherington are living proof.

For some reason though, all opposition fans seem to think we should all play the same way and let the big boys with the most revenue keep rolling them over. We've been here for 18 months. If we're playing the same way in 3 or 4 years loads of Stoke fans will be moaning aswell but until then you can all get bent. We love being hated. It fucking brilliant and without doubt the main reason we create such a racket every week :-D

Wimbledon Players who were better..................Beasant , Scales, Wise,Curle,Phelan , Fashanu,Barton.......6 Players who went on to play for England ( Phelan -Eire) and earn themselves big money transfers ..............Wimbledon also won the FA Cup .............Your over estimating how good you are , You have done well to survive so far But that style of football will get you relegated sooner rather than later

Tuncay has loads of caps for Turkey.
Sorenson has loads for Denmark.
Huth will get loads for Germany
Fuller has loads for Jamaica
Etherington has an outside chance of making the England squad and is in the form of his life.
Shawcross is only young, has massive potential and his current market value is 10 million at the very least.

I'll give you that Wise was a very good player (if a nasty little turd) but all the others certainly don't piss over the players in my list in footballing quality.

Plus as i've said before we will evolve as we have the funds to do so. Wimbledon didn't and with their fan base were never going to. I don't think i'm over-estimating anything, i was just challenging the argument that Wimbledon had a team full of quality compared to ours as somebody suggested above. Passionate, hard working and aggressive yes but if you think the likes of Scales, Fashanu, Phelan, Curle and Barton are footballing gods compared to ours then you're stretching the truth massively. They were here a good few years to develop that team aswell while we've been here for only 18 months. It's hardly comparing like for like is it. Give it 2 or 3 more seasons and let's have the same conversation. Here's a list of players we tried to buy in January:

Kenwynne Jones
Scott Parker
Ruud Van Horse-Face
Jermaine Jenas
David Bentley
Jermaine Pennant
David James

Ambitious? Very much so, and in my opinion a waste of time chasing half of them at the moment, but still a strong indication of where we are trying to get to and how we don't expect to "keep playing the same style until we inevitably go down".

 

[Mr Rich]

We're all entertained at the moment

I take it you've discovered the wheel then!



Well I chuckled to myself. Anyway on more serious note of course you have to stand up to Stoke, but we'll never beat them playing lump it but we've lost the edge and confidence to out play them.

However on the plus side Stoke are poo, couldn't score at a family wedding and Pulis wears a baseball cap to manage a football team. Can somone please tell him we're playing proper football and not the American version, as he seems to have made Delap his quarter-back.