Speed and Glass both out last night with calf injuries! Robson moaning about the loss of key players which obviously hampered our game last night. What will be done about it???

I'd release all the medical staff and the fitness coach. I'm sure they are well qualified and have good experience, but something isn't working and if it isn't sorted out we will be wasting more money than it would cost to replace them.

We have a serious opportunity of qualifying for Europe it is a matter of getting the best players fit and then we can compete. As last night shows we do not have the squad to compete when we have so many out, not many teams have.

Are the club simply going to lie back and say it's bad luck? Well if it is bad luck try to eradicate it at source!!

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2001

Answers

I have to agree with you there DeB. What is going on? All these calf strains, groin strains, hamstrings, little finger dislocations...

questions must be asked, but scapegoats musn't be sought.

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2001

Why does it all seem to be muscle related. The players are asked to perform no more than other teams.

I don't mean scapegoats but sometimes in a situation like this an injection of fresh thinking could help. (pardon the injection pun, Shearer can't have any more of those!)

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2001

no, i know about the scapregoats thing. I just feel that instead of looking outwards and embracing that seige mentality that we need, we're starting to look inwards on ourselves and find blame where maybe it shouldn't be laid.

As i say, questions should be asked and i'm sure they are.

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2001

Min,

Do you mean the players?

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2001

EVERYONE!

What is it about us [the club cosit seems to me it permeates all the way through it at the moment] that we so want to be liked? At the moment it seems like we're the little kid in the corner: scared to talk and afraid of not being liked instead of just getting on with it and fighting back if anyone gets nasty.

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2001

Listening to Steve Coppell on Radio 5 last night on the same subject he was saying that 10 years or so ago if a player went off injured the physio/doctor would take a look and say "Oh you'll be back in for Saturday", but nowadays with the advancement of medical science they can get all these scans (look at the level of tissue damage) and say "you'll be out for 3 months" - same injury, better diagnosis?

Shearer's of the old school isn't he? "Al - your legs bust"....."but I'll be alreet for saraday though boss"

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2001

You've got a point Scratchy - they invent too many illnesses/injuries these days. Nobody had ever heard of cruciate ligaments before Gazza's injury and now everybody is damaging them. :-)

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2001

I don't think it's so much nobody had heard of them, more that if a cruciate was damaged, they couldn't repair it, so the poor bugga was out of the game, which might have got a mention in the local rag at the time, but after that most were never heard of again, unless one of the pubs most of them ended up running was your local.

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2001

I was going to say - Geoff Allen (remember him? I went to school with him), Tony Green and countless others who were put out of the game through serious knee ligament injuries might just diagree with your theory Jonno.
These are the kind of injuries that nowadays put a player out for only 6 months (ie. like Dabz).

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2001

Clarky and PB

It was a joke. I thought the smiley made it a dead giveaway but apparently not so.

START OF JOKE--> Next time I'll put it between START OF JOKE--> <-- END OF JOKE delimiters! <--END OF JOKE :-) (For good measure)

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2001