The Fish

Are you angry because it's going to be a pain to clean your hoverboard?

Experiences at college, Uni, employment. Where there was an opportunity to flex my mind a bit, or catch the eye with a piece of work, an essay, or a project, I’d procrastinate until there was only sufficient time to put in the bare minimum and thus go under the RADAR. Had opportunities to start/join start up businesses and I’d err on the side of comfortable mediocrity, rather than put myself out there, even when the risk isn’t that great. Even in the Podcast, I’ve been invited onto talkSport a couple of times (to fill in for another no-mark guest) and I’ve shied away from it. Despite being pretty comfortable talking to large groups of people at social functions or in an office environment. So it’s not a fear of attention. So here’s an opportunity to do what I love doing (talking about football) with little or no risk, and I’ve bolted for the door instead.

ENFP-T fwiw.

Dunno to be honest. There isn't a specific event that leaps out where I've tried and failed with calamitous results. I think expectations from my parents/teachers were quite high for me from an early age, certainly seeing my 5yr old nephew getting the same kind of praise I got and with the benefit of hindsight and objectivity thinking it a little OTT. Everything academic came easily to me, didn't really need to try hard until A-levels. That may have impacted it too, I dunno.

You get that from the Departed?

Puts pay to the nonsense about the top 4/5 being a closed shop as well. Good manager, good players, that are well drilled and committed. They've gone from a middling Premier League team to genuine contenders in the past, what, 6 or so years? Sure it helps that they're financially sound, but they don't have an oil state bankrolling them.

I've a pretty unhealthy fear of failure, which leads me to not trying very hard at things, or giving up if I don't receive an almost impossible amount of praise/encouragement. Being aware of it doesn't seem to help, and ways to manage it better escape me, despite my having coping strategies for my depression. I have a need for attention which means I often put myself out there, needing to have an opinion on pretty much everything, over sharing, or telling anecdotes where I'm the butt of the joke or I become it. Not particularly healthy given the other two things above. Wolfy's sister really owes it to the rest of us to work through Wolfy's obvious issues, by the way.

Strong and Stable.

Big lump of a centre half that is tailor made for a career outside the top flight.

Big lump of a centre half that is tailor made for a career outside the top flight.

Aye, I'm mainly joking about them being cunts, they're not interesting enough to actually get wound up about them. That said, a sub-Derby season would be lovely, just because it'd be funny for any club to suffer that kind of season.

Part of the reason I was mentioning inexperience in the other thread. Kevin Nolan would focus the lads to put the muggy little cunts from Croydon away, will Lascelles get the same focus from Atsu, Murphy, Hayden, Shelvey, Yedlin et al? Not saying he won't but complacency might be an issue for less experienced players.

Aye, Shaqiri spent most his time over that side as well.

I'm probably just overly cautious, but I can't help think we'd benefit from a Daryl Murphy/Kevin Nolan/Old Head type.

I'm torn between hoping they get mullered every game before ours, and hoping they get a plucky point against a Manchester club. Even better have an unlikely victory snatched from their hands in the 95th minute when they entertain Chelsea. Whatever happens, we'll be the side they 'expect' to get something from, but the way we're set up should make that more difficult than they'd like. Think they'd have a better chance of points from Brighton or Huddersfield, than us. After us and West Ham, they've got Spurs, Everton and Stoke.

Absolutely. One swallow and all that. I'm not criticising the team at all, just mentioning the fact we've one of the youngest squads in the league and the youngest captain, and wondering if that youthfulness will struggle when the pressure piles on.

They've got players with the ability to win games on their own, so if Hodgson sorts them out defensively the likes of Benteke, Cabaye, Townsend and Zaha could well propel them up the league. Trouble is, none of those are particularly consistent and they've only got 33 games to get 40+ points. Roy's record in the Premier League. Matches W D L Goals Pts PPG 219 75 56 88 261:283 281 1,28

Cool cool cool, but I wasn't meaning that experience wins out every time, just that we've a young side and when shit gets real I wonder if they'll have the resilience, the mental fortitude to cope with the pressure.

Aye, that should be enough to deal with most of the league and will only really come unstuck against the top sides, but we would have struggled against them anyway. You think our young team will struggle where more experienced heads might deal with pressure better? I mean, Lascelles seems a good captain and players like Hayden and Clark seem to have their heads screwed on right, but could their youthful exuberance see us come undone in the future?

And us after that nightmare run. It's entirely conceivable that they'll come to St James' with 0 points from 8 games and a hefty negative goal difference. The Manchester clubs are each averaging 3.3 goals a game and I can't see Palace shutting out the likes of Aguero and Lukaku in their current form.

Yeah, I'm not opening that at work.

I have no idea.

Thought he might have been picked ahead of Gamez/Manquillo because of his height and experience in the Premier League? I thought Stoke looked like they were targeting the left back position with their attacks, maybe?

The three stooges are pretty fucking famous like. Want me to just talk about Justin Bieber and One Direction like? had a few times where its posted multiple times. Probably something to do with work internet access.