Pre-season 23/24

Yes, much like the Fulham game the other week.

 

Damn these managers who don't want the fans at pre-season friendlies, so weird that we've had two of them in a row...

 

Helena Costa has posted a pic from the Vic before the friendly. No idea who the opposition are.

 

I’ve been practising since last season ended, and I’m not even going next week.

 

We all know they are beating us 3-0 now.

 

So a 3-0 win over a Peterborough eleven behind closed doors today.

Two for Bayo, Martins with the other

 

Bayo scoring 2 goals? Who da fooq does he think he is?!

Get rid!!!

 

Just read the match report. We smashed them. We’re going up.

 

Not the under 21's, they played on Friday.
Not their 1st team, they played today.
Not their under 18's, they played today.

It was a Peterborough XI, as the official site says. Could be a mixture of fringe players, trialists and heaven knows who else. Who knows and frankly, who cares.

Actually I care because I was wondering why there was no line-up given with the report.

If we have players from overseas, ie., those needing international clearance to play but it hasn't been granted yet, would we be allowed to play them in front of paying customers or would they only be able to play, like today, behind closed doors?

 

Well if a run out against a League 1 team's reserve squad doesn't set us for the new season I don't know what will.

 

I remember reading about the famous Serghei Cleșcenco, he didn't have a work permit so his trial game (against the scum iirc) couldn't take place in front of paying spectators, so I guess that could be the case if someone like Chakvetadze (or indeed Nicolaescu who is managed by Cleșcenco for Moldova!) is involved, but it does seem to be the way these days that friendlies get played behind closed doors. I remember we played Scunthorpe a few seasons ago, they had their social media team there, but we were being very secretive, the Scunny media very humorously took the shortest look at our lot before panning back to their lads

 

Ha! I remember that Scunny game now and the oddness of it all.

I thought the behind closed doors thing may just have been a cost cutting exercise, no fans no stewards etc., but with Peterborough also being very limited with information about todays game I guess it has to be something else. The international clearance thing is the best I can come up with.

Ahh, who cares. It's a pre-season friendly and ultimately means nothing to supporters.

Enjoy the season everyone, see you all in June/July next year!

 

Just read the report, obviously can't glean much from it, but if anything, at least Jamal Lewis has got some time on the pitch with his new teammates ahead of the weekend

 

I was at the Luton reserve match and saw Clescenco play. It was at Northwood and someone nearly had a punch up with John Harston who was in the crowd.

 

It doesn't seem clear from the report that Lewis actually played at all. Morris just says that he's slotted in well with the group, but that could be referring to at a personal level in his initial training sessions, as opposed to on the pitch.

 

That’s fine, if when the big reveal sees an amazing team full of players we had no idea we had even signed, playing a system no one had ever seen. But we know it won’t be that.

The secrecy around this club is baffling, but to me it shows a lack of confidence from the leaders. They don’t want to lift the lid or else we’ll see how clueless they actually are. I think that’s the main reason why there is so much cloak and dagger stuff surrounding the club.

 

Yep. They know they have made a complete mess of it the last few years. They know their model is failing. They know they are taking the mickey with their premier league salaries overseeing 50k transfer budgets.

Any opportunity to minimise scrutiny of their disgraceful actions as custodians will be taken.

 

The reason seems pretty obvious to me - to deny our early opponents the ability to scout our team selection and tactics, surely. It’s as simple as that.

 

We're hardly preparing for a Champions League final, we play QPR next week. And guess what, once we play QPR then every other team in the league will know how we set up.

 

Well, that’s what they would like you to think, but that’s only an advantage for the first game. No, for me the secrecy is a default mechanism to hide incompetence. I think the last 4 years is testament to that.

 

We looked good in the pre-season game they showed vs Palace. I don't know what incompetence they could have somehow been trying to hide.

 

I assumed it's all behind closed doors because the fans were disgruntled last season and booing every week so the Pozzos want to exclude us as much a possible.

 

https://twitter.com/TBBodell/status/1685607616242700288?t=Apa9pKuMVGi5ZzClU0nMCg&s=19

Apparently if you want to see your club play a game before the season starts it's burning entitlement.

 

Who's this latest bedwetter to have popped out the woodwork?

 

I don't know if you're talking about me or Tom but you sound like an absolute delight.

 

Yes it's all an elaborate conspiracy spearheaded by mastermind Gino Pozzo to stop us watching a routine win against Peterborough reserves. Presumably to shield us from the sheer incompetence that riddles our club, and to suppress the passionate protests that would inevitably take place if the doors to Vicarage Road were to be opened for a couple of hours.

Have a beer, enjoy your summer, and try not to care so much about such inconsequential things. Christ alive.

 

That bloke is one of the sanctimonious poderatti types who think any negativity beyond a ‘sensible centrist’ balanced assessment is beyond the pale. ‘Rookery Mike’ is another in the same mould

I know many of us give the likes of Wendover a hard time but at least his defence of the club is clearly the product of genuine, passionate optimism. These other types seem to disingenuously portray anything more than tentative questioning of the ownership as some sort of character flaw or sign of low intelligence

 

I'm hearing we are actually already 4 games into the season. Our position in the league table has been redacted.

 

I assumed it’s because we are so broke, it was done to avoid paying any wages for stewarding and the like. That said, you’d think it would be useful to test our match day infrastructure ahead of next Saturday, to make sure both mechanics and humans are working smoothly.

Disappointing we’ve not had a chance to see us in the flesh this July (I have many happy memories of trips to places such as Dawlish, Torpoint and Newquay) but come 3pm next Saturday it will all be irrelevant.