Excerpt from Aidy Hoofroyd Coaching Manual
A trip to the new Weston Homes Crap Name Community Stadium in Colchester to play against Aidy Hoofroyd’s charges was next up for saints, a mere 48 hours after the last game. I will start off by saying that I hate Aidy Hoofroyd and his methods of playing football – all long ball and niggle. He managed to get Watford promoted to the Premiership once and the following season got found out in spectacular fashion when the Plan A that he always used wasn’t so effective when you didn’t have the ball. I bet he’s got every coaching badge under the sun which is a savage indictment of that particular system. I believe here that I may have repeated what I said in the blog when we played them at home so the charge of ‘lazy journalism’ could be directed at me. All I’m trying to do is increase my chances of getting a job at The Daily Echo..
Pards responded to the opposition with Jaidi replacing Perry at the back and Wayne ’12 points’ Thomas coming in at right back. This meant James moving into midfield at the expense of Connolly who was benched. Antonio was preferred to Waigo which I was a bit disappointed with but maybe Colchester in the fog and cold would be too much of a culture shock for the man from Senegal. At the kick off, news filtered through that Jacob Mellis has returned to Chelsea and his loan is not being extended. Don’t let the door hit your ass.
I heard about the team changes via my car radio on my way to ….. Portsmouth, where once again, my kids had decreed that I take them on a match day. Surely there must be a decent swimming pool with an SO post code. There is one thing that you can always count on when you go to Portsmouth and that is that there will always be a big queue of traffic trying to get out. I’m better organized than before with my phone in a hold-all that is not in a locker. Luckily, my kids can swim well enough to not drown, so I can nip out every so often and keep track of the game.
Twenty minutes gone and nothing has happened. Beep, beep, 1-0 Colchester, sod it. I decided at this point that it was to be a game that would be better viewed every half hour or so – in short, I had a feeling that the curse of Hoofroyd was going to strike again. From the highlights it looks like a piss-poor goal with Trotman 50p-heading a bread and butter punt forward behind him. Half time arrived with it still at 1-0 and not a lot of chances for that to change.
Pards made a change at half time with Connolly replacing Schneiderlin and after 15 minutes of nothing, Waigo replaced the disappointing Antonio. Ten minutes later and Saints and Waigo had the ball in the net but it was disallowed for offside. The main shock of this incident was that the offence was against Lallana and not the goalscorer.
Three minues later and Saints again threaten as a Lambo free-kick is well saved before Colchester sprang upfield and took a two nil lead thanks to some more shambolic defending, lots of bodies about but no one doing anything decisive and ‘have as much space as you like’.
And so it continued and the fog came down and the temperature went down as well. Ninety minutes were up and still we pressed forward and Cap’n Hammond was senselessly hacked down by the keeper when running away from goal. Maybe the keeper thought no one would see it in the fog. Give us a penalty and the usual will happen in that Lambert will smash it in the net. 2-1 and 4 minutes to be added. Could we?
No.
Final whistle and a 2-1 defeat. I hate losing to Hoofroyd teams and we’ve done it again. Pards seems to hate losing to Hoofroyd teams as well as he’s very pointed in his post-match comments, talking of ballboys holding onto the ball, intimidation from the Colchester players, off the ball incidents etc. Like I said at the start, all long ball and niggle. However, you have to rise above all that stuff and I’m sure that Pards knows that. I can’t help but feel that Hoofroyd stole a bit of a march on Pards by not naming Clive Platt (basketball player who usually plays up front) in the side whereas Pards set up to combat Platt and the tactics that invariably follow when he plays. Hoofroyd will continue to do well for Colchester and if he stays they’ll do well in a limited way. If that’s what you take your FIFA Coaching badges for though then you can stick them where the sun don’t shine.
It’s a disappointing result but I think we’re still in a good place and we’ll continue pushing on up the league in the coming months. January is nearly upon us and with it, the opening of the transfer window so many questions will be answered. Will Antonio stay and if he does, will he manage to become a two-trick pony ? Will Trotters be kept on or bought, if not then I’m going to have no one to write about. Will we pinch any more players off of rivals in this league or maybe even players from the Championship. I’d like to see a decent winger signed as our service into Lambert is often shocking and maybe another strong midfield player to compliment Hammond and give Schneiderlin some more competition. Also, it would be nice to see some of the Previous Regime Legacy shite moved on like Molyneux, Pulis and Lancashire. There are a few others I wouldn’t be crying about either if they left, like Lee Holmes and Abysmal Forecast.
Pards responded to the opposition with Jaidi replacing Perry at the back and Wayne ’12 points’ Thomas coming in at right back. This meant James moving into midfield at the expense of Connolly who was benched. Antonio was preferred to Waigo which I was a bit disappointed with but maybe Colchester in the fog and cold would be too much of a culture shock for the man from Senegal. At the kick off, news filtered through that Jacob Mellis has returned to Chelsea and his loan is not being extended. Don’t let the door hit your ass.
I heard about the team changes via my car radio on my way to ….. Portsmouth, where once again, my kids had decreed that I take them on a match day. Surely there must be a decent swimming pool with an SO post code. There is one thing that you can always count on when you go to Portsmouth and that is that there will always be a big queue of traffic trying to get out. I’m better organized than before with my phone in a hold-all that is not in a locker. Luckily, my kids can swim well enough to not drown, so I can nip out every so often and keep track of the game.
Twenty minutes gone and nothing has happened. Beep, beep, 1-0 Colchester, sod it. I decided at this point that it was to be a game that would be better viewed every half hour or so – in short, I had a feeling that the curse of Hoofroyd was going to strike again. From the highlights it looks like a piss-poor goal with Trotman 50p-heading a bread and butter punt forward behind him. Half time arrived with it still at 1-0 and not a lot of chances for that to change.
Pards made a change at half time with Connolly replacing Schneiderlin and after 15 minutes of nothing, Waigo replaced the disappointing Antonio. Ten minutes later and Saints and Waigo had the ball in the net but it was disallowed for offside. The main shock of this incident was that the offence was against Lallana and not the goalscorer.
Three minues later and Saints again threaten as a Lambo free-kick is well saved before Colchester sprang upfield and took a two nil lead thanks to some more shambolic defending, lots of bodies about but no one doing anything decisive and ‘have as much space as you like’.
And so it continued and the fog came down and the temperature went down as well. Ninety minutes were up and still we pressed forward and Cap’n Hammond was senselessly hacked down by the keeper when running away from goal. Maybe the keeper thought no one would see it in the fog. Give us a penalty and the usual will happen in that Lambert will smash it in the net. 2-1 and 4 minutes to be added. Could we?
No.
Final whistle and a 2-1 defeat. I hate losing to Hoofroyd teams and we’ve done it again. Pards seems to hate losing to Hoofroyd teams as well as he’s very pointed in his post-match comments, talking of ballboys holding onto the ball, intimidation from the Colchester players, off the ball incidents etc. Like I said at the start, all long ball and niggle. However, you have to rise above all that stuff and I’m sure that Pards knows that. I can’t help but feel that Hoofroyd stole a bit of a march on Pards by not naming Clive Platt (basketball player who usually plays up front) in the side whereas Pards set up to combat Platt and the tactics that invariably follow when he plays. Hoofroyd will continue to do well for Colchester and if he stays they’ll do well in a limited way. If that’s what you take your FIFA Coaching badges for though then you can stick them where the sun don’t shine.
It’s a disappointing result but I think we’re still in a good place and we’ll continue pushing on up the league in the coming months. January is nearly upon us and with it, the opening of the transfer window so many questions will be answered. Will Antonio stay and if he does, will he manage to become a two-trick pony ? Will Trotters be kept on or bought, if not then I’m going to have no one to write about. Will we pinch any more players off of rivals in this league or maybe even players from the Championship. I’d like to see a decent winger signed as our service into Lambert is often shocking and maybe another strong midfield player to compliment Hammond and give Schneiderlin some more competition. Also, it would be nice to see some of the Previous Regime Legacy shite moved on like Molyneux, Pulis and Lancashire. There are a few others I wouldn’t be crying about either if they left, like Lee Holmes and Abysmal Forecast.
I had managed to escape Portsmouth though the queue to get out was still massive. We did have our papers checked by tracksuited tattooed chavs before we were allowed on the M27 and we held our breath until Fareham and then we were home free.
Happy New Year everyone and what a tumultuous year it’s been for Saints. At the start of the year we had Jan The Fucking Moron Poortvliet (to give him his full title) as Manager and Rupert Lowe as Chairman. Things as you know got progressively worse (Administration, 10 point deductions, relegation, Lord Mawhinney, nearly ceasing to exist, Pinnacle, Micky Fialka) until on day in August when a certain Swiss man rocked up and took over. It’s been upwards ever since and I think it will continue to be that way. So we lost today – look at the big picture and see that it whilst it matters, it isn’t the end of the world. We won’t have many tougher games than this, this season and as it stands we have a very good chance of a Wembley appearance and a decent shout at getting in the playoffs. I’d have settled for that in June / July time, f’sure. Like it says in those Guinness ads, good things come to those who wait (and to those who are not irrationally impatient)…
Happy New Year !!!
Happy New Year everyone and what a tumultuous year it’s been for Saints. At the start of the year we had Jan The Fucking Moron Poortvliet (to give him his full title) as Manager and Rupert Lowe as Chairman. Things as you know got progressively worse (Administration, 10 point deductions, relegation, Lord Mawhinney, nearly ceasing to exist, Pinnacle, Micky Fialka) until on day in August when a certain Swiss man rocked up and took over. It’s been upwards ever since and I think it will continue to be that way. So we lost today – look at the big picture and see that it whilst it matters, it isn’t the end of the world. We won’t have many tougher games than this, this season and as it stands we have a very good chance of a Wembley appearance and a decent shout at getting in the playoffs. I’d have settled for that in June / July time, f’sure. Like it says in those Guinness ads, good things come to those who wait (and to those who are not irrationally impatient)…
Happy New Year !!!
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