Dyches to Watch Out For - The Football League and Beyond, 2012-13

rmde at crystal palace altering their colours to resemble barcelona

Bakary Sako looks like a beast. all we need is a back line and maybe a holding mid and by January we are gonna be thrilling

team yesterday very different to the one in the league so far, any idea what the best xi might be yet or still too soon?

mostly the new buys i think, all looking good to impressive. at the moment i'd say

Doyle Sigurdarson
Sako Doumbia Boukari Peszko
Ward Margreitter Johnson Stearman
Ikeme

but central mid is unbalanced there, Boukari is supposed to be a winger tho he looked better inside to me, and Ward, Johnson and Stearman are big question marks. need a left and right back i think, Stears or Johnson probably worth another try at CB, wd like to see Zubar given a run at CB but don't see it happening. Henry seems to be favoured for the holding mid position when he's fit but i hope this is just a hangover from the old regime, there's enough quality in Doumbia to cover him until he can be properly replaced. interesting to see if O'Hara ever gets fit and wants to play again but he looks too similar to Doumbia to put them both in there.

second 11 looks mostly shit to me but as long as we don't lose a lot of key players at once i think we're on the way to an exciting team. loving how Solbakken has paid lip service to continuity but basically admitted thru his signings that we needed a totally new team.

feel like some kind of 4-5-1 or 4-2-3-1 might be in order but not sure Doyler has it in him to be that 1 any more and don't think Solbakken rolls that way. Siggy and Nouble both look like they like to sit v. deep tho

yeah wow seriously what happened to o'hara. forgot he was there

needs a second hernia op, out for at least 8 weeks iirc, not at all sure he's interested in playing in the Champo.

Express and Star says we're chasing Glenn Whelan or Jermaine Jenas today. we'll see. wd prefer somebody a bit more stoppery tbh

was frimpong a loan? is he still crocked and back at arsenal?

got crocked and went back to Arsenal after about 3 games on loan last season, assume he's still there

real football, sporadic talk

BAKARY SAKO YOU MAGNIFICENT MONSTER

sporting of Zoob to give them a penalty in return

ah for fuck's sake i told you to buy a new backline Stale

http://www.expressandstar.com/sport/wolverhampton-wanderers-fc/2012/09/03/wolves-sack-assistant-boss-terry-connor/

wishing him luck for his next step on the managerial ladder

http://i.imgur.com/jsTh6.gif

Flavio Briatore is set for a dramatic return to English football as the co-owner of Birmingham City.

The former Queens Park Rangers chief, along with long-time friend Gianni Paladini, is considering a move to buy the npower Championship outfit. Birmingham owner Carson Yeung is seeking new investment and according to the Daily Mirror, Briatore, 62 is weighing up a bid.

http://i.imgur.com/jsTh6.gif

oh my word what a combination

THE FOUR-YEAR PLAN II: THE BRUMMENING

Briatore? I could afford to buy Birmingham, and I'd run it into receivership for nowt.

Dyche plays golf in his spare time.[citation needed]

"I'm a Birmingham boy myself," Paladini added. "I've always liked Blues and I've got a good relationship with a lot of Zulu Warriors [City's hooligan element], if they're still there I don't know, because I've been at QPR for 11 years.

gianni. gianni. gianni. it was a fucking miracle you escaped from qpr alive what in gods fucking name are you doing

Paladini said: "You need people with experience of business, of course, but also experience of running a football club. You have to know football.

"If we took over, I would probably ask someone like Ron Atkinson to help me. I have known Ron for years, we are good friends. He is local, and his knowledge and expertise is great. He is a personality.

"I have offices in London and business to attend to there, so I wouldn’t be at the club all the time. I would need somebody around to help. What type of role? It would be sporting director, something like that maybe."

Birmingham are understood to be unimpressed with Paladini's public courting of the club, with other rival bids expected from consortiums in the Far East and Asia.

the last time they got a cash injection from the Far East it turned out to be Carson Yeung's overdraft

*long slow hissing out of breath*

always said Bruce was a good manager

aw how lovely to see leroy lita and marlon king getting on so well for brum

fuck me 2 wins on the bounce, forgotten that could happen

Birmingham City

i lolled

so, huddersfield minus rhodes = pretty good, apparently?

They're a very well-organised club, and they've been bubbling under this level for years - Rhodes is clearly quite the goalscorer, but I think they can do alright without him.

Also - Shebby Singh's done that "opening his mouth" thing again.

lol Chelsea 2 up already

make that 3. good night to bet on Chelsea getting double figures i think.

Kean out!

leeds fans up their old tricks last night. this caught my eye in the guardian report:

Many chants were aimed at Jones, relating to child abuse charges of which he was emphatically cleared 12 years ago.

"All the Leeds fans will be tarred with the same brush, and they should be, because from what I could hear it wasn't just one person chanting the vile things, it was quite a lot of them," said Jones. "You talk about racism in the game – what about the chanting?

"That is a form of racism – I've had it for 12 years, so I'll put up with it, but the club needs to clean its house out.

I am not God, insists Di Canio

he's right. i don't believe in God

BOOM l0u1s jagg3r

god i bet we're haplessly trying to cling onto the goal advantage now

quel ferking surp

as you were, Lewis

ILX derby finishes 1-1 ffs can't buy a win

wonder if this might be the most evenly average champ season ever

malky's a good enough manager to see this through but cardiff are still no great shakes... blackburn ought to yet be able to burn everyone off but all depends on the manager dunnit

no telling as far i can see who might put some form together after that

v happy for palace after dougie's betrayal. huddersfield thumping stands out too (i rate that chris wood on loan at millwall quite highly, kinda baby viduka steez)

the Tigers play some delightful pass and move when they feel like it, never seen a Bruce team keep the ball on the deck so much

DYCHE

So you go to games, and mostly you don't enjoy them, right? I mean, you enjoy the social aspect, you enjoy meeting up with the others you know, you like to have a bit of a sing-song, every now and then your team scores a goal, you enjoy having a jump up and down; you even see them win sometimes and that's nice; but you rarely really enjoy the actual play for any extended period of a game, right? It's usually a mix of frustration and excitement and fear and disappointment, but A Good Game is really rare.

Last night I drove to a rainy Gillingham, was a quarter of an hour late due to a traffic jam on the A2, stood on an uncovered, temporary stand in the cold and wet and watched a game which was just hugely entertaining: not especially high-quality, very affected by the weather, awesome and ridiculous in equal part, totally thrill-a-minute. I say thrill-a-minute, I don't mean a heartstopping moment of quality every minute, I mean a great pass or a ridiculous air-kick or a cover-your-eyes defensive howler or a good chance or a crunching tackle a minute. It's not impossible that my view of the game was changed by veteran goal machine Jamie Cureton heading the winning (3-2) goal in the 87th, a minute or two after missing a penalty.

It doesn't happen very often but today football feels like a love rather than a habit.

Yes!

Great post Tim!

who cd possibly have predicted that Adlene Guedioura wd return to the club that let him go like FUCKING IDIOTS and put Forest 2-1 up?

whats the line on stale these days, new mcghee, new hoddle, or still needs mooooooore tiiiiiiiiime

me, my bruv - got to give the guy more time, things not looking great tho

my old man - BUN HIM

It seems to be for Fulham, though you'd've thought Everton might be a decent fit.

Definitely! I suppose this puts Brighton in direct competition with Wolves for finding a new manager.

like to point out to fellow posters that any approach for Chris Powell is not my fault

nor is it going to result in anything. lol idiot season

more worried about leicester city, tho still pretty comfortable that cp's staying for a while

can't see why he'd come to us, it certainly wouldn't be for money.

journos + betting shop punters = idiots

“Bakary Sako now goes for a few million to Fulham. Not bad for a loser,” said Margreitter, who also discussed his own situation and the possibility of a loan move to the Championship.

“Our problem lay in the dressing room,” said Margreitter, who has played just one League game as a substitute since his £500,000 arrival from Austria Vienna last summer.

“Too many players were satisfied. They earn a great deal of money and drive big cars, and they are content with their lot. The hunger that young players bring to a team was simply not there.

“An attitude like that from a club’s leading players is fatal. You could see this in training – quality on paper is not enough.

“When the players were in the Premier League they got a spanking week after week. Some of them probably didn’t want to go back up, preferring a cushy life in the Championship.

“I have never experienced anything like it. At Austria Vienna everyone was hungry and wanted to win games.”

Margreitter claimed the club were too quick to get rid of the man who signed him, Stale Solbakken, and reverted to a more direct style.

“We had a big and well-balanced squad, and Solbakken got us to play cultured football rather than kick and rush,” he said.

“The club was probably too impatient in just giving him six months.

“Dean Saunders then enforced the traditional English virtues, and they did not work.

“The negative spiral continued dragging us down.”

Sako's a cult hero at the Mol but tbh i've seen no evidence he's got the workrate or the pace for the Prem. and i say that as a fan.

Margreitter never got played and nobody's sure whose fault that is.

Today we let go Seb, Hunt and Berra. Hunty is far from being the first I'd wanna see out the door but i assume we wouldn't pay him what he asked.

mclaren fancies it according to some reports

powell link is bizarro. don't think imago's got anything to worry about from leicester, o'neill return seems nailed on unless the cupboard's bare already (which some say it might be tbf)

Where in the table were Wolves when Solbakken went?

Ah, 18th

just had a look at some addicks mbs for a laugh but they were moribund as usual

did learn that carl leaburn and tony bedeau are security guards at barclays canary wharf though

Have seen mention of Steve Lomas for Millwall, in terms of bookies odds anyway. Done a good job here at Saints on a tight budget, had a few early wobbles but has come on a lot. Will be sad to see him go when he inevitably moves on at some point.

Bradford destroying Northampton. 3-0 at half time.

Hard cheese, Popey

"Wembley Stadium anti-social behaviour reporting scheme. Text your block, row, seat, and 'STAND' to 87474 to report an incidence of standing up"

I've written about four different replies to that but none are necessary, really

Ah well I appreciate the sentiment, I'm sure. At least I'll get to see wolves' implosion continuing right up close.

I mean that your quote presumably sums up your day far better than any match-report or commiseration could

Oh aye, there's nothing else to say. What a season.

Give up Palace, you can't fight historical inevitability. Every 7 years Watford come up and go straight back down. This is their time.

Perhaps not.

Was worried there'd be no London derby next year. South London represent.