23/08/07 - It's All Gone Quiet Over Here

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official views of the trust.

After the opening six days of the season brought us an exciting news development almost every day, the last week has been slightly more 'regulation' and we are finally into the serious business. Three games have brought us six points, but what have we learnt?

1. Referees are still stupid. For instance, at Cambridge, how did Mark Albrighton avoid a sending off when he kicked Marvin right in front of the official? Admittedly, kicking Marvin is something I have occasionally thought about doing, but rules are rules and players deserve some protection. The dodgy time-keeping also allowed Cambridge to score a winner, but this sort of thing is all 'swings and roundabouts' so hopefully our slice of luck will come.

2. I watched the Cambridge game on Setanta and they really like to make a song and dance about it. Pre-match walks round the stadium and constant interviews with chairman, journalists, players, managers, tea ladies etc etc. What's the betting (that one is for you Blue Square) that this over-the-top presentation does not last past Christmas? Hopefully all we will be left with is somebody who can actually commentate, and footage of the game. While on the subject of the presentation, who is the presenter? He kept staring down the camera and, despite the fact he kept saying the game was a 'classic encounter', all he could actually find to discuss was that non-event of a penalty decision from the first half!

3. The team selection at Burton saw the very welcome return of Corcoran to the starting line-up. I was puzzled as to why he was left out from the opening two fixtures and personally thought the back line struggled without him. We now seem to have a very sound defence with Day, Quinn, Corcoran and, with Willmott and Gilly to come back, we have a very good chance of keeping a large number of clean sheets this season provided that individual errors can be kept to a minimum.

4. We might be a big club (in terms of attendances) but, as others are far too keen on telling us, getting out of this league is not a foregone conclusion. If it is true that other teams 'up their game' when they play us then, if we are to get out of this league, we have to make sure we up our OWN game all of the time no matter who we are playing. We have allegedly better players and a higher budget than other teams, but our tactics and workrate need to be better too. A top five finish should be easily obtainable but taking that extra step to promotion will mean doing that little bit more.

Well, it's amazing what you can learn in a week but they do say that every day is a school day. Now here's a few things I'm hoping NOT to learn over the next seven days:

1. Stafford can score four goals in one game.

2. Setanta plan to screen all our games from November and move them all to either 14:45 on a Wednesday afternoon or 22:00 on a Sunday night to appease the foreign market.

3. The Kassam Stadium is above a massive oil well and is now worth £130,000,000,000,000.

4. Burger prices at the ground reach a record high of £9.

Thankfully, if these turn out anything like my UE predictions in the Rage Online Hat then we are all quite safe!

Here's hoping that next time I write we have hit 12 points and are firmly ensconced in the play-off battle.

COME ON YOU YELLOWS!