Fair play.

[ivoralljack]

The following article from WOL tells me something that I've been carping about since God was a boy - that we need more steel in the team because we are being seen by more committed opponents as a soft touch. @Yankee_Jack we would describe it as needing a bit more "Ducks" about us.

The article won't download for me but essentially we top the fair play table by a massive 62 points. We have 144 with Hull next on 206. Interestingly, the more successful teams in the Division all feature in the bottom half of the table including Leeds, WBA, Boro, Norwich, and Sheffield United with Derby the 'dirtiest' team last with 312 points.

Playing pretty football is all well and good (which I love) but you have to mix a bit of grunt in there as well otherwise you often get bullied out of games you should otherwise win.

 

[Yankee_Jack]

@ivoralljack .... if we had one Ducks then these days we'd need 10 excellent others .... we'd be down to 10 men after 5 minutes or so. But, it would be great to watch. This reminds me of a real "Ducks" we had playing for us once upon a time in Tommy Smith and is infamous love tap with Ossie Ardiles in 1978. Tommy had a way with tackles ... he was a master artist of the old school, where fierce but precise was recognized as such by the referees of the day and respected by every player on the field.

I once had the auspicious task of playing in goal in a pre-season match for Haverfordwest against Clydach ... Vic Gomersall was my left back ... watching him from close quarters scared the shit out of me and he was on my side. He demonstrated superbly on their young right wing the true meaning of fierce (two footed slide tackle at a sprint) and precise (played the ball into touch not the player) with the young winger nonetheless going up in the air, doing a somersault, and landing flat on his back 5 yards down the way. There ended his attempts at being clever with our Vic. Ref gave a throw-in .

If you're going to play pretty football then it has to be at a high tempo and you have to MOVE sharp .... the best way to avoid a tackle is not to be there when it arrives. We play pretty but we don't or rarely move sharp enough and this is our problem and the great difference between say the teams of Martinez, Sousa and Rogers in this league and us. It would be interesting to compare stats with those teams and our current team.