AlanGrovesFanClub

Have I missed an announcement? MM said that he was confident of getting an assistant in this week, but we don't seem to have them in place yet.

I don’t think there’s much choice at present. Hopefully Lundstram and Ward playing soon.

Is Freeman injured or has he been dropped for Sutton?

Yes, that’s exactly the way I remember it!

Agreed. He's a bit of a job hopper even by football standards, so it seems unlikely that we'd get something to build on longer term.

Commentary from BBC Oxford..."Oldham are on the crest of a wave after David Unsworth's sacking."

I agree, was just looking at the first half of that particular video and found the playing around at the back rather scary. Perhaps they only do it when they can get away with it, e.g. against Kidderminster.

Very nice to watch, and I do like the approach, however I feel that anyone significantly better than Kidderminster would have scored about 3 in the first 30 seconds.

Hi Monty, thank you, I'm definitely old but hopefully not bitter! It's not Saturday yet, but if I can remember I'll remind you on the day...

We're going to Wemberley...

Food for thought...

No need to worry Monty, I'm very often wrong and happy to admit that!

I don't think so Monty but, as has already been established by others, my far far away detail memory is not what it used to be. From what I recall, I went to all the London matches by train, bus and underground, although it's certainly true that the weather was very changeable some days!

Thank you for that Pete! I'm always happy to be corrected where necessary, which is quite often. I think that I was mixing up your actual facts with the actual facts that Dave Og added below to come up with my own created memory. So I was more or less right, in principle, within the confines of my own mind, whilst getting pretty much every detail wrong. My wife is used to this and always treats me kindly when it happens.

Oh I don't remember that Dave. I do remember one year in the old Div 2 that Ian Wright scored a really freak goal against us for Palace at Selhurst Park where he accidentally hit it with a massive amount of topspin and it looped over Goram's head in an astonishing arc. I should think you were there for that one too!

Darren Beckford is the one I remember as doing a great job, but I’m sure there were others more recently, however…who was the last goalkeeper to come off the bench and play as an outfield player? I think Jon Hallworth was probably the only one to do it for us, for Joe Royle’s team in the second leg of the League Cup match v West Ham many years ago? We were 6-0 up from the first leg (St Valentine’s Day massacre) and were allowed 2 subs, so Joe chose a goalkeeper to guard against the risk of losing the keeper early on. We had 2 injuries and JH ended up playing in midfield. I think, that’s the way I remember it. Perhaps McFluffy thinks JR was a shit manager.

Works for me too.

Remember when you were at school, and the other children wouldn’t play with you? Why do you think that was?

It would be hard to cut deep into someone as shallow as you.

I think you’re handling this admirably. It’s hard to imagine how you’ve become a figure of ridicule on this board.

I’m sorry, you’re right. I’m wrong. I had no right to say those things. At all. I invite you to forgive me, which you can do whilst you’re having the last word on this subject. Please.

Allow me to explain. 5 subs, 3 can be used. We chose 4 strikers and no goalkeeping cover, although our other goalkeeper is (I think) fit. I find this to be a strange set of options to give himself going into the game. Losing your goalkeeper and having no replacement would be a big thing. You can only add 3 more strikers during the game, and you probably wouldn't want to add 4 anyway. So overall, it doesn't seem to be a well balanced way of (a) covering off potential risks and (b) giving yourself room for tactical changes, which is what subs are for. Compound that with not even using them all on a day when it was so hot that they had to stop for drinks breaks like it was a cricket match.

Perfect summary.

and 4 of those strikers on the bench, but no goalkeeping cover

This is a great chance to settle on a really good expletive infixation and roll it out at scale. I'd say that we've all had e-fucking-nough.