I saw something last Saturday against Plymouth that I've never seen before from any of our players .
They surrounded the ref trying to get the Plymouth lad Matete sent off , the lad was on a yellow and he fouled again and Luca and co were trying to play the ref .
As it happened the ref didn't buckle but the Plymouth manager did and he substituted him a couple of minutes later .
Depends where your moral compass is with things like this but I have to say even under Val I never saw that .
No Animal, I find it disappointing and very annoying when players gather round the ref and demand punishment like that.
Ok if your getting kicked off the park by a team of clogger's, and the ref doesn't do anything about it, maybe its understandable.
But its that "win at all costs, and cheat if you have to" mentality that has got worse and worse over the years. Its an old fashioned thing now, where a team tries to win a match by being the better footballing team!.
I wasn't saying that about us especially Jules, I mean every team do it now. But some are better at doing it and somehow they seem to get away with it more.
Diving, faking injuries, time wasting, and complaining to the ref etc, its all part of the so called 'sh*ithousery' thing.
But would any of us really want to see us do more of that, in order to win matches.. every single season!. 👎
Without a doubt. Yes! Liverpool did it to us, years back…… and a few others…. In this day and age, the prize is so high that although I wouldn’t want to CHEAT, I’d do anything, to get the success.
I think we learned a lot from Val as to the dark arts, (SB will be on it in the morning…… I’m sure…) and Mr Duff will be WELL practiced in the “art of sh*tousery” on a “Degree standard” with his Premier League background.
The refs em to turn a blind eye to the Higher league clubs doing it against lower league clubs in Cup games, so Why not?
I’m all for it…..
I find it sad that modern day football is being reduced as a spectator entertainment to who is the best at the dark arts and sh1thousery.
I am not naive enough to think teams were like the Corinthian Casuals in the past--Dirty Ledds come to mind--but to praise this stuff as long as you win, as fans did under Ismael, is where I depart from "modern football".
God forbid sports like cricket, golf and snooker going this way. Imagine a snooker player wheeling away taking his shirt off after sinking a long pot or standing at the table in the way of his opponent as he stood up to take his shot.
You get what you wish for and tolerate.
Football will end up like ice hockey with a few seconds of play between the next full on feyt amongst the players.
The saddest aspect for me is to see these attitudes creep down all the way even to kids football with serious abuse of the referees, even violence, now commonplace from players and fans.
I think in modern day coaching jargon "being involved this weekend" means being on the bench Arbs.
( Concerning the other theme on this thread Collins had no equal under Ismael in the sh1thousery stakes. I found it embarrassing that a club generally renowned in the game as a proper footballing club was reduced to this stuff under ismael. But many loved it as long as we won. So be it. )
He's a bit of a wolf in sheep's clothing is our Michael SB .
Whilst the football we play is far better than under Val there's no doubt in my mind the team are also better shytehouses than 2 years ago .
I'm with Jules on this , seen us on the other side of this many times in the past and done like kippers .
The game itself is responsible for what you see on the pitch today .
Results are way more important than they were in the past because of the finances involved , Viera has just got the sack at Palace because they have dropped near to the relegation area , the loss of potential PL revenue is the reason , take that amount of income out of it and a 12 game winless streak could be ridden .
No wonder managers deploy the shytehouse tactics they do with what is at stake today .