PaddockLad

or if we were stil shit

Sooooo…has Gemmill been on today?….wonder if he’s away?

oh dear

You’re absolutely right I think, the best player in the school played that position for us

You’re probably right, but because he was out wide often with more defensive duties than he’d like he did tuck in a lot alongside Batty and Watson would gallop up or Lee would swap etc

Half backs were a function of the 2-3-5 system that was commonplace in English football up to the 50s/60s (and we won our primary school league with it in 1981 so I have a bit of insight here ) 1: gk 2 right back 3 left back 4 right half back 5 Centre half back 6 left half back 7 right wing 8 right inside forward 9 centre forward 10 left inside forward 11 left wing Your 8 & 10s were basically attacking midfielders, especially so In time when the defence gained 5 & 6 as new ideas for tactics and formations became commonplace. Stones, and this is a purely personal POV, is doing what Beckenbauer did, nominally a defender but more often than not in midfield dictating play. So although Pep has rightly been lauded in the press in the last few days for his current and former teams, it’s all variations on a theme. If your other centre backs are good enough to play as a three (and that’s what we’ve done last season, the difference is Tripps is the playmaker) they can take care of teams with one only main attacker who play on the counter against decent teams like us. Whether any of that applies to Maguire I have absolutely no idea (as an aside, it looked to me as Inter’s main tactic on Saturday was to leave two up front more often than not, meaning Stones was a bit restricted to defensive duties more often than he’s been used to lately, probably why Inter gave them a hard time for over an hour….until Lukaku came in, obvs )

Keegan played Pedro fairly regularly in centre mid, especially after after we signed Tino. But yeah. No. 10 plays “between the lines” and dinks the ball into the box, scores a fair few themselves . An 8 is a “midfielder” , there to create and defend, weigh in with a few goals. 6 was definitely 4 a la Davey Mac, Roeder was 6 I think?…Alan Hansen definitely was… all goes back to old fashioned “half backs” which were 4,5 & 6 ….

Probably more than me…..but seemingly not by much Dave will be along in a bit with his muckle fitba brain to explain all 🤗

Yeah that was pretty much my point . He’s an attacking midfielder. This number shit is a bit wanky tbh

If it was I may have introduced this esteemed forum to her “sparkling personality” before now 😆 they’re on honeymoon in Japan at the moment …

Am sure you’d give the best answer Andrew so please go ahead ☺️

Not every team plays with what you’re calling a 10 though, we don’t and there’s no actual evidence that we’re going to. Our two main attacking midfield targets appear to me to be attacking midfielders who can do an extensive range of things on the pitch. Which is why the absence of a what you kids are calling a 6 is bugging me a bit as I was informed that getting one in was key to releasing Bruno . Which makes me think who’s on the bench out of these 3? It’s just not adding up for me at the moment but am sure all will become clear 👍

Tbf, my brothers new wife is actually from Bari. We’ve been discussing the possibility of winter weekends where we could do Bari v Milan/Juve etc then possibly squeeze in one of Puglia’s lesser lights like Lecce or Foggia so my sudden interest is purely self interest

FYI, there’s a coup afoot, brace yourself Davide 😑

For my own future reference what, dare I fuckin well ask, is the difference between an “8” and a “10” in modern parlance?

Ignoring those who plainly enjoy celebrity culture more than actual competitive football, the Caligari boss is very familiar

The heavens opened in the 89th minute and Caligari have just scored in the 94th 🤪 60 seconds of the season left..

😅 nowts each at the moment about 30 mins left…Caligari on top for most of the game, Bari keeper has kept them in it. Record crowd for Bari tonight, 58k. A draw is good enough for them, looks like a club really going places…but Caligari look like they’re bound to score and Bari look like they’d have trouble hitting a fuckin barn door

BREAKING: JOURNO DENIES EXISTENCE OF SPORTSWASHING Simon Kuper, FT https://www.ft.com/content/7b673df9-86a9-4ffa-a0eb-3cca10be5c03?accessToken=zwAF_d0bhe24kc97Zz35hqlP-tOg6zzKEL5cAw.MEYCIQC3ZwDvdVS8x5GxbDmiPtF2BTJBmbejKOfhaVqE1xgzKAIhALTjrAd2jlM_qnI5AQvB-KkVWBHA1fAVm4ob3VXCx6ZH&sharetype=gift&token=14e95516-90ea-4157-99d6-1e6a94b146c4

Had city 1-0 in the sweep though £50 😃

Good article by Barney Roanay on Pep, in which he doesn’t mention NUFC at all https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/jun/09/football-pep-guardiola-champions-league-final-greatness-manchester-city?CMP=share_btn_tw