The View From Churchmans

One of the best games I can remember for a long time, despite tricky conditions. Two good footballing sides who play as teams, one under the pressure of being expected to win, the other knowing they were good enough to soak it up. In the end, with 30 goal attempts to 7, Town's relentless onslaught deserved to tell, but Charlton could have stolen at least a draw. And credit to them, they were ... More...

Another Saturday home game, another two points thrown away... except oops! No they weren't; unlike Arsenal and West Ham, this time we got the second goal which our first half-hour's play deserved. And by the time the inevitable second-half lethargy came on, we we'd scored a goal more than a dreadful Middlesbrough side were ever likely to manage in reply. I could cut and paste the comments from the last two home games ... More...

A real two points thrown away, but so long as they're not crucial at the end of the season the main thing we should take away from the match was the memory of the fabulous performance the team put in for the first 35 minutes. People are going to say we "sat back" after that, but that's far from the case: West Ham were more astutely organised and more tactically mature, and put ... More...

You could put a fair case to say this game should have been nil-nil. You can also, with some justification, say it should have been ten-nil. Were we a class above, for absolutely dominating the match? Or did we put on one of our most frustrating, wasteful and tactically inept performances for years? Or both? Let's put things into context. We were playing a team two divisions below us, at home, who had no ... More...

Burley said afterwards "we are not being outplayed by anyone" but I'd beg to differ for the second match in succession. Sure we have a lot of possession, sure we work incredibly hard, but the ease with which the Leicester and Aston Villa defences dealt with everything we threw at them was indicative, in my mind, of being outplayed by better teams. There's still plenty to do. There were no signs of the ... More...

Sorry for the delay in the report, we took the (very) long way home from Leicester and got back at 5pm Thursday. Anyway, hardly the eye opening Great New Experience of the Premiership, was it? More like a visit to a third-world venue. We went with a Leicester-resident friend who, on the way to the ground, said: "I apologise now for the state of the ground, in terms of quality we have one ... More...

Firstly, was it because it was the Premiership back at Portman Road, or was it because it was Man Utd? Either way it was a pretty special atmosphere. GB took some big decisions, dropping Scowie for Jermaine Wright, and Croft for Fab. How much of a part GB played in raising the team to the incredible heights of commitment and enthusiasm they showed, I don't know, but all eleven were up for ... More...