Let the games begin!
Ah! The deluge has begun…this isn’t a bit of spleen about the weather, it doesn’t make it any better to have somebody moaning about it, it’s just a case of getting wet!
No, the deluge I’m now focusing on is the pre-season friendlies. For some the prelude to a season of hope and expectation, for others, the harbinger of doom and gloom.
For me, it’s always a bit of a surprise when the R’s get their season rolling, yes, the official site will have mentioned fixtures in exotic locations, usually Aylesbury or Penge! But by the time the players have returned from their two-week caravan holidays in Norfolk, I’m generally heading off somewhere myself, or at least thinking about it.
These fixtures do tend to be fairly familiar, some non-league or lower division fixtures and a couple of home money spinners against a big European Club (Celtic?) and a premiership game, which we usually do ok in and bowl into the season with crazed optimism…wholly misplaced.
These old friends have recently been supplemented by adventures in Europe, our finest hour (recent times) the glorious Ibiza cup triumph, a victory which came at the cost of a number of disruptive injuries and the shambles of the Italian job on the Amalfi coast, which, though we didn’t know it at the time, proved to be a very accurate indicator of the season to come.
Much has been made of the disappointing pre-season we waded through last year and we’re all keen for this season to get off to a flyer. There’s been a lot talk about the performance of our suspiciously dark haired leader so far, but as far as I’m concerned, he’s judged from July the First. So far he seems to have had an ok time in the market and (frantically searches for wood to touch) we’ve had no real media disasters in the first two weeks of this season.
Celtic is out of the way. There’s no real way of judging the result, we’re likely to react just as pessimistically as we might have been wildly optimistic when beating Chelsea 3-1…wither Leroy Griffiths? What we do know is that we desperately need the next three games and frankly at least one more until Wycombe.
Ideally you’d want any new faces to be in and playing before we hit Bristol, but a club like ours, living off scraps, will perhaps have to wait until well into August before we know who’ll be joining us and, indeed, leaving. The squad feels a bit more manageable, although one would hope that we can get some success in the loan market, otherwise we look a bit light on quality.
Obviously a goalkeeper is due at some point and you’d like to think that we’re looking at a raft of young wide players…if anybody at the club expresses shock, surprise or a lack of preparation for the sale of our one asset then heads should roll.
As I type, footballing genius Lawrie Sanchez in looking to tempt Cookie into the Premiership wonderland that he hopes to infest with his ‘little Irelander’ mentality. Having committed wild figures to West Brom for the admittedly effective Koumas and perpetually disappointing Kamara, he’s clearly attempting to save a little with his bid for the left wing wizard. This shows more insight that you’d expect of Sanchez, our reputation of lying down and having our bellies tickled as potentially millions of pounds are knocked off transfer fee’s has not escaped his attention. Paladini’s potential 10 million bonanza will most likely end up as just under Two Million and a pitiful sell on clause.
The only way to squeeze the fee is to hold out until the end of August or January, football’s vultures are well aware that we can’t afford to do that.
With or without Cook, the friendlies will rumble on and we’ll be non-the wiser as to where we are come August 11. It would be interesting to know what Gregory expects of friendlies. Are they mere fitness exercises, or as he constantly moaned last year, this is his chance to mould the team into his own shape and pattern. No excuses for our denim clad maestro now, the team that steps out at Ashton Gate will be playing Gregory-ball…my mind is boggling!
Without wanting to necessarily raise the Rowlands in the middle flag again, if we assume a keeper and hopefully wide cover are coming, wouldn’t be nice to see a passer in central midfield? How much of Cook’s fee would secure Idiakez?
Roll on Wycombe…
Rogue Male
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