More tales on people tweeting without thinking.
Hello and a happy Monday to you all. Again with the apologies for not being here over the weekend, but those that were following my Twitter timeline (@QuentinX) on Friday night will know the reason why. Let`s just say I don`t want to go to that place again in a loooooong time and now my chest is half shaved. It is not as kinky as it sounds.
So, whilst I was doing that, Bolton were drawing with the Barcelona second team, and a very creditable result that is too. The Spanish team had a smattering of players who know what it means to play for the full Barcelona team and, whilst the away side played lovely football and there was more than an inkling of luck to our first equaliser, I think that we can more or less put to bed the loss at Portsmouth. I would still like to see the manager remind each and every player of that game before they run out for league games, but a win at Tranmere and now this result has shown that the players can, at least, pick themselves up. Maybe there is something in OC`s reputation as a motivator after all.
I think we can sum up the pre-season as the good, the bad and the plain ugly. The good being the games we didn`t lose, the bad being the games in Scotland and the ugly being the aforementioned game on the south coast. We have made on good signing in Allhailbenik Afobe and some solid Championship standard signings in Lonergan, Andrews and Mills. I`m still not happy about Zat Knight, who has had an iffy few weeks, but if all that happens is he sits on the bench and twiddles his thumbs whilst Mills and Ream do the business, I`m not going to complain too much. There is obviously some deficiency in the back line, the Morecambe game was the only one where we kept a clean sheet, but going forward now seems to be working. As has been beaten into us for the past month, you cannot gauge anything from pre-season, but you get the feeling that we will be watching through fingers every time the opposition go forward for the first few games at least.
Twittergate rumbles on at the club. Following Phil Gartside`s numerous out of control sayings and Joe Riley having a go at anyone over sixty driving round roundabouts, Josh Vela has been giving us his views on Jack Rodwell`s move from Everton to Citeh. The tweet was deleted as soon as people gave Josh their view that maybe, just maybe, it is a tad unprofessional to say that another player has done “s***e all for Everton and then gets a move to City”, whether or not that view is spot on or not. As we all know only too well, our beloved captain left Twitter because people were being unkind, for want of a better word, about his playing ability, so it should follow that Bolton Wanderers players should have a more acute awareness of what is and what isn`t acceptable football talk.
Surely someone at the club should be doing something about player Twitter accounts. I know that most of them are as bland as bland can be, step forward Joe ‘what I had for dinner` McKee, but they all run the risk of being as foot in mouth as you can possibly get. Media training is one thing, and it is understood that they do get it, but these are young men whose brains, without wanting to stereotype anyone, are usually in their feet. If someone as media savvy as Rio Ferdinand can get caught out, then it follows that teenage players at a Championship club will. Just ban them from Twitter or have their tweets controlled by the communications department. It will give them something to do when they’re not rolling out Zat Knight for another unwanted interview.
Knocking on with some transfer news, and Fulham`s £3million bid for David N`Gog. Unlike the Mark Davies transfer, which in this writer`s opinion should be concluded as soon as we can find him a cheap taxi to Swansea, I have mixed feelings regarding N`Gog. Yes, he didn`t score a lot of goals last season, but that can be levelled at the team as a whole. Anyone who expected him to be the next Daniel Sturridge was barking in the wrong forest never mind up the wrong tree. However, he was brought in to be the up top striker, the player who was supposed to be fed off SKD`s knock downs and his return was poor, despite him not being Sturridge. His hold up play, however, was excellent and in a lower division you would expect him to get into double figures for goals. And the price reported would give us a loss on the outlay when he came down the East Lancs. It would also leave us, coming into the new season, with an on loan untested player, a player who has never really figured in the first team and a player so senior you wouldn`t expect him to play every game this season as a forward line. Bad price. Bad time. I would thank Mr Jol for his interest and advise him to be looking elsewhere.
But then, I`m not Messrs Coyle and Gartside, the pair of whom I will be seeing tomorrow night at the forum. Unfortunately, my new away shirt will still be in the post, so I will just have to go in my luminous green beanie hat, leather jacket and chinos. The new away shirt is nice, if a little too Inter Milanese or Stoke away from last season. Or Middlesbrough away from a few seasons back. Still, all in all, the shirts that we have been given this season are a world away from the last years of the Reebok designs. And that can only be a good thing.
Right, I`m off for a lie down whilst I think of all the barbs I can throw at the chairman tomorrow, but won`t as I don`t like publicity and those security guards they`ve hired look a bit menacing. Don`t forget the fantasy league, the details of which can be found in the article below. There are just five days to go.
Olympics? What Olympics?