Pre-season Friendlies

[genome]

Careful Nameless, people get run over in the middle of the road.

[John Smith]

The whole point of friendlies is to experiment. I'd much rather he played a few youngsters, mixed it up a little and lost rather than put the full strength side out for a routine 2-0 win. A little disconcerting to see Al Habsi making similar mistakes to what he's done in the past though.

Anyone know how well Orlando Sa played?

[Esteban]

Sa looked like a player who is just starting his pre-season, but was OK. He played quite deep, tried to link the play and did a decent enough job.

Ferdinand was alright.

That's about it for our highlights.

[Ian Royal]

Agreed Nameless, the season is only just round the corner and we've not seen a lot of what could be our first choice side. Admittedly that's been hampered with Hector and McLeary away on their Jamaica jolly, but it's still a bit of a concern that we've not seen McShane yet and the forwards don't seem to be playing much either.

I doubt the squad will really be complete until, at best, a few games into the season.

This is the worry. A disrupted pre-season and no one you'd expect to start regularly getting in scoring form.

We all remember how well it went last time our pre-season extended 5 games in to the regular season. Or what happened last time we had a disrupted pre-season full of injuries.

It's not exactly telltale ng us much... but it's certainly not suggesting much good.

[Maguire]

All pre-seasons are "disrupted" for all sorts of reasons. It happens are every single club in the land with the transfer window being open for another five weeks, injuries, experimentation, giving youngsters a run out.

Panicking that RFC aren't scoring enough goals (5 in 4 friendlies) is mindboggling to me. It's like people haven't ever lived through a pre-season before.

We were within a minute of beating Chelsea just before the start of the 09/10 season yet we sacked our manager 21 games later. Chelsea won the double.

[Nameless]

The whole point of friendlies is to experiment. ?

I can think of 5 other reasons for preseason friendlies, so you are wrong.

As for Al -Habsi, we have been lucky that our previous keeper never made crucial errors.....

[Hoop Blah]

Not when back four when goal was conceded consisted of Obita Hyam Long Griffin.

You can hardly blame the back four for the goal, anyway.

It sounds like they had too much time and space to get the shot off, so you can blame them to an extent.

I've not seen it, but it sounds like he shouldn't have let it in whatever happened in front of him though.

[John Smith]

The whole point of friendlies is to experiment. ?

I can think of 5 other reasons for preseason friendlies, so you are wrong.

As for Al -Habsi, we have been lucky that our previous keeper never made crucial errors.....

Can you give me 6 please. And list them alphabetically.

[Nameless]

1. To generate income (see overseas tours by large Premiership sides)
2. To improve fitness levels
3. To build team understanding
4. To mark special occasions (opening of a new stadium, club anniversary)
5. To develop connections / relationships between clubs (Man City v New York City)
6. To raise awareness of clubs in new market places (rfc in Thailand and Korea)

In addition to your 'experiment'

I have side stepped the alphabetical requirement by starting each one with 'to' and assuming alphabetization to 2 significant places is adequate.

[Barney]

1985-86 season:

Three home pre-season friendlies. Lost to Norwich. Lost to Coventry. Lost to Norwich. Didn't score a goal.

Then won our first 13 league games of the season.

[Nameless]

Didn't we lose to Farnborough preseason just before we went on to get 106 points ?

[Big Foot]

Didn't we lose to Farnborough preseason just before we went on to get 106 points ?

Yup - I think we're gonna win the league this year

[Barney]

1985-86 season:

Three home pre-season friendlies. Lost to Norwich. Lost to Coventry. Lost to Norwich. Didn't score a goal.

Then won our first 13 league games of the season.

I mean: Lost to Norwich. Lost to Coventry. Lost to Arsenal.

[John Smith]

1. To generate income (see overseas tours by large Premiership sides)
2. To improve fitness levels
3. To build team understanding
4. To mark special occasions (opening of a new stadium, club anniversary)
5. To develop connections / relationships between clubs (Man City v New York City)
6. To raise awareness of clubs in new market places (rfc in Thailand and Korea)

In addition to your 'experiment'

I have side stepped the alphabetical requirement by starting each one with 'to' and assuming alphabetization to 2 significant places is adequate.

I meant from an on the pitch perspective the point is to experiment, which is all I care about. Are you telling me you really give a shit about how many people in Thailand are wearing our shirts? Probably. You seem like a total anorak from the fact that you bit to my question. In addition to your 'assumption'.

[Ian Royal]

No the point is to experiment a bit whilst building fitness and prepping the team you'll end up playing the league by building their understanding between them and with what they'll need to do.

I don't think anyone is panicking or saying our preseason means we'll be shit Mags. But we ended last season in a bad place with a lot of work to do. Plenty has been done, but not having given many minutes to half the likely first 11 let alone built their play together is a negative. As is having Blackman being the only player to be scoring more than the odd goal.

No one's saying a particular result is dire. But our preseason so far isn't really matching its purpose for me. that's no ones fault.

Obviously the test is the first 10 games.

*When i say no one, i mean no one saying anything worth reading.

[No Fixed Abode]

Why was the Swansea friendly played at Adams Park?

Because the Thais are going to demolish the Mad Stad and we will need somewhere else to play that is a more appropriate size.

TBF - Adams park is a nice little ground but it's as annoying as the Mad Stad. There's just nothing near it. And it's a pain in the arse to get out.

[Nameless]

1. To generate income (see overseas tours by large Premiership sides)
2. To improve fitness levels
3. To build team understanding
4. To mark special occasions (opening of a new stadium, club anniversary)
5. To develop connections / relationships between clubs (Man City v New York City)
6. To raise awareness of clubs in new market places (rfc in Thailand and Korea)

In addition to your 'experiment'

I have side stepped the alphabetical requirement by starting each one with 'to' and assuming alphabetization to 2 significant places is adequate.

I meant from an on the pitch perspective the point is to experiment, which is all I care about. Are you telling me you really give a shit about how many people in Thailand are wearing our shirts? Probably. You seem like a total anorak from the fact that you bit to my question. In addition to your 'assumption'.

You obviously take this all a little bit too seriously my friend

[blythspartan]

I have only been to one friendly, Bristol Rovers away, and to be honest I would just take them all with a pinch of salt.

I still believe we will struggle this season and and I am still not convinced by SC.

My moans are we don't seem to sign many players that are fit, or can play straight away.

There never seems to be the vision that if we sign a player for £2 to £3 million pounds, we might be able to sell them on for a tidy profit a couple of years later e.g. Callum Wilson.

We desperately need a striker with pace who can create room for the other strikers/midfielders.

That aside I am very pleased with the signing of Mr Quinn.

[RoyallyFcuked]

Friendlies mean NOTHING.

Analysing them is almost as ridiculous as paying to watch them, chill out.

Very true.

I'm not going to make any judgements at least until I see us in Birmingham on 8th August.

[Royal Rother]

I paid £5 to watch Windsor in a friendly last week!