Bagel-bagel with the club of Keane, van Hooijdonk and O’Neill. “‘oo, Forest?!”

By: Martyn | July 24th, 2009

As ever, I don’t post for a week or so and the club continues to pile up stories like an African warlord stacks up blood money notes. So much for the supposed off-season. They may only be bits n’ bobs, but the Bobs at this club aren’t of the Hoskins variety: See Tekken 6 or Earthworm Jim enemies for the kind of abbreviated Robert’s that we deal in.

Déjà Vu. Are we a club designed to lure schadenfreude from others?

Ross McCormack has handed in a transfer request. Phil (attempts-to-be-)Brown will be rubbing his hands with glee. Once he’s washed the St Tropez off, one would hope. How much do we ask, barter for? This is a beard-scratcher that I pondered almost one year ago! Seeing as we may be dealing with a man who actually paid £5m of the Humberside club’s hard-earned cash for the permanently-crocked-and-absolutely-garbage Jimmy Bullard, let’s try and hold ~~the world~~ /Hull City ransom for… ONE HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS!!

As for the man at the centre of all this, he’s seemingly still in a grump at being shunted onto the wing once or twice last season, and the prospect of said re-locating happening again this campaign clearly led to Woss skulking into his agent’s bedroom, teddy bear draping, and asking the kindly man if he could sleep with him as he was scared. Never again will we witness the chant that makes it seem like the City faithful are asking the no. 44 of yesterseason (”dew-dew dew-dew, ROSS MUG-ORMAG”) whether they should opt to spend the last silver Queen’s heads their pockets have on some Nescafe or a copy of Zoo.

The Glasgow Alba-trotters

Gee whizz, I’ve just looked at what I’ve written so far on the page preview thingy. I’ve gifted you so much in the way of links that a teenage boy at the end-of-year-7 discotheque seems moderately perfumed in comparison: my work looks like an Internazionale shirt!

Right: Wednesday night saw the stadium officially opened. It was anything but romantic, as most things are these days. The asphyxiating corporate nature of football stifles any emotion that perhaps a century ago I would be able to feel at the christening of an erection of such grandeur and a place that is set to become my second home over the next several decades.

Along with Peter Ridsdale gassing on down the mic. in that annoying posh-Yorkshire accent of his, there was a game played on the evening. Cardiff City vs Celtic FC. It finished scoreless and was all by accounts, “shite”. I was at the Cardiff City Stadium that evening, so what did I make of the game? Erm, nothing frankly. I saw not a second of action as I was working at one of the many retail bar outlets the stadium boasts. Mind you, there’s nothing to brag about price-wise. £3 for a bottle of cod-Oz lager!? It’d be cheaper to board a plane bound for Melbourne and share a stubbie with Toadie! From what I have been able to fathom of the proceedings (the usual combo. of match reports/friends verdicts) we more than held our own against a side who’d do very well us in this league.

The line-up was interesting in that it hints at Da-Jo keeping the same formation as last season: the 4-4-2 that has the ability to evolve into a 4-3-3 when on the attack. With the addition of Paul Quinn, this system will function far better than it did last because it now means we have two full-backs capable of offering support to the wingers in front of them. Therefore, we’ll continue to launch the majority of our attacks from the flanks, coupled with the options of a roaming Chopra and Jay The Target Man up-top. The CM will be there to force the agenda, if – judging by the current lack of reinforcements – still continuing to offer us no plan B when it comes to creativity should the flanks be shut-out by one of those omnipresent suffocating Championship tactical systems. The management still have time in the transfer window to render my assumptions void, but I’d be more surprised than the first victim of a Jack-in-the-box should this be the case.

Parry, once again, feels like a pair of tonsils. Club takes action for him.

The wingers starting against Celtic were Paul Parry and Peter Whittingham. Every off-season that he’s been with the club has seen all and sundry deduce that Whitts is on his way, but yet again, we’re all wrong. Either Dave Jones has decided to give him and his lack of defensive nous a fourth chance, or the spells of anonymity we’re so annoyed by (even more grating than when the heel of your sock is off-centre… I swear) and accustomed to are finally going to be overshadowed by greater helpings of the man’s genius. He really is one of those fast then feast players, and I presume that the prospect of the gluttonous, hedonistic lashings of super goals and mazy dribbles is what has convinced Dave Jones that Whittingham is worth having around. As for Parry, well, its seemingly adios. This is neither surprising nor particularly upsetting. L8rz!