Gullscorer wrote:I agree to some extent. It's got no collar, no breast pocket, and it's a size too small. And the sleeves, and the shorts, are too short. And the colours should be simple blue and a golden shade of yellow.
Otherwise, the new kit is great, and indeed a refreshing change from previous kit.
You forgot to mention that it is not suitable to wear at black tie dinners!
Fonda, Pokey may be fit in the sense that he's recovered from his injury, but that doesn't mean he's ready to play. The signs to date are that he's not ready. Of course, come tomorrow, if Knill decides Poke is sufficiently ready, that's fair enough. But from what I gathered, as things stand at present I can't see how he could be ready. And if that's the case, Rice should play.
Gullscorer, there seemed to be a feeling that Rice should play 'because of his form in pre-season'. In my opinion this is irrelevant. If Poke is considered fit enough, he should play because he's our best keeper. If Poke isn't fir enough, obviously Rice should play.
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something."
Nick wrote:Poke is fit again, so I'd expect him to start Saturday. Fancy Rice to play at Swindon though to allow Pokey to further continue his return to speed.
Depends how you deem fit, he hasn't trained since Tuesday despite what Knill's said. He's trained 2 days in the entire pre season and hasn't played a second of any of the matches.
Rivo_7 wrote:Unfortunately cant make Saturday due to having a game myself but couldnt be more excited to finally be able to finish my game and catch all the scores coming in....im predicting a 3-1 win (would say 3-0 but Midson always scores against us).
One point I want to raise tho is what on earth does Martin Rice have to do in order for people to see him as worthy of starting a game? He filled in towards the end of last season and played well and has played all of pre-season without conceding a goal. In the past season or 2 whenever he has been called upon he has performed well. If that were a striker filling in for an injured counterpart who had scored in every game people would not be calling for him to be dropped so why the same with Ricey?
People are acting as if its a disaster if he plays, give the guy some credit!!!
Even if he played the first 20 matches of the season and was on course for player of the year, the moment the first goal goes in against him that is remotely his fault he'll get slaughtered and the masses will scream for him to be replaced.
I've never played in goal, so probably don't have a feel for the technicalities involved. But based purely on what I see when Ricey is between the sticks, is that he looks small, and whilst his shot-stopping is adequate (though not exceptional), he doesn't seem to have any kind of command of his area. He never looks in control, and frequently seems to be reacting to a problem of his own making.
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something."
I don't see it as that easy and its back to reality.
This is a gritty division and the teams who do well out of the pack with our size of budget are the sides with the best mind set.
We won't know how we are equipped from that viewpoint for a while.
I am going for a draw tomorrow, possibly 2-2. Both teams are stuffed with new players so the game will partly be about the commencement of an understanding between these players. Because United are at home, this advantage could possibly alter my suggested result to 2-1.
The attendance? As always, difficult to assess, but somewhere between the fevered imaginings of contributors to this site and the somewhat down-at -heel apathy of locals, I'll go for 2,867.
Who will make the greatest impression? It's 50 years almost to the day since the greatest of all United forwards made his debut ( was there) [1-1 vs Tranmere] so it may well be one of our new forwards. If Hawley gets a decent run-out he could very well impress. But, to th' event.
Luckily Rice will never play twenty games so we will never know. The result tomorrow could very much determine who wins the match. Personally I would prefer Poke playing on one leg to Rice.
Thats pretty much the line I was expecting, Bodin and Benyon were allways going to start, was not sure wether it would be Chappel or Cameron to be honest, and as already said there is a difference from being recovered from an injury to being fit to play in a match, Pokey may yet be 2-3 weeks away from that.
And the moment AK signed both Hawley and Ball giving us 4 main line strikers was the clearest indication yet he AK was going to play 2 upfront.
