City Fans: Confused

Reading the letters in the T&A sports section yesterday, I spotted a couple that criticised Stuart McCall for not playing a settled team every week. One of the letter writers went on to call on the manager to try using the players currently on the bench or in the reserves. He seemed not to realise that if McCall took his advice on starting with the players currently out of the first eleven he would have to ignore his advice about keeping a settled line-up. The advice McCall gets in the letters pages of the T&A or in online forums is on the whole muddled, contradictory and, frankly, worthless. This is a problem not just with City fans, but with football fans everywhere.

Mullin In. Conlon Out?

According to the Grimsby Telegraph, Barry Conlon is expected to sign for Grimsby Town on loan. Meanwhile, City have signed a lookalike for Conlon from Accrington Stanley until the end of the season (see below for pic). Mullin is Stanley’s record goalscorer, albeit with a scoring rate not dissimilar to Conlon’s (about 1 in 3).

Paul Mullin

Bazinho! – Conlon strikes again, but City blow it (again)

Conlon started up front, Thorne switched between centre-forward and left side of midfield and Boulding was the player alternating with Thorne in a fluid front line. Nicky Law performed well on the right-hand side, the normally reliable Luke O’Brien was caught out for one of the Barnet goals and there was a mix-up between TJ Moncur and Rhys Evans that cost another goal. Lee had a decent game but his distribution let him down, while Tom Clarke made a couple of errors. McLaren was quiet and Furman lively in midfield.

Conlon scored two goals – the first coming from a lovely flowing move that started with Law, who won the ball and brought it out of defence before slipping it to Boulding, who passed wide to TJ Moncur (good going forward today, but less than fantastic defending). Moncur played it inside to Thorne and went on the overlap, Thorne passing a return ball to him. TJ then put in a lovely cross for Bazinho to score with a good header past the keeper. Barnet hit back with an equaliser gifted to them by a mix-up between the keeper and right back. TJ sent an iffy ball back to Evans and Evans looked to misjudge his clearance (or bottle the challenge – hard to tell really). As Lee gave Evans a bollocking, Evans shouted back and pointed to TJ – making clear who he thought was to blame for the goal. I was unimpressed by this buck passing. Thorne then scored from a McLaren free-kick to put City two-one up. O’Brien was done by the Barnet right winger, who put in the cross for their second equaliser before Conlon scored his second of the game after another assist for TJ Moncur. Moncur was involved in the mix-up that led to the first goal, but played his part in getting City in front and Evans pulled off a couple of cracking saves. Maybe just go easy on the back passes, eh lads? We saw good and bad from each player today, but my vote for Man of the Match would probably go to Conlon or Nicky Law. The two midfielders we have on loan make themselves very busy and work well for the team Furman and Law have been assets so far and I hope we can hang on to them for a while longer. Furman, unfortunately, went off injured and Nix came on to deliver a great ball to Thorne at the back post (Nix didn’t do much besides that, but then he wasn’t on for long) but when Thorne picked out Boulding he was too slow to get a shot away.

Tactics – Boulding and Thorne looked a dangerous threat to the Barnet defence breaking from the left hand side, but too often O’Brien was left exposed or a midfielder pulled out of position to cover. We played a 4-4-2 with Boulding starting on the left, Law on the right, the defence as you’d expect with Moncur, Lee, T Clarke, O’Brien. McLaren played the holding midfield role with Furman getting up and down the pitch and Conlon and Thorne started up front. Good use of the players he had enabled Stuart McCall to go in ahead at the break having seen a decent first half (mistakes notwithstanding), but second half Barnet seemed to get control of the game and City never wrestled it back. Without Colbeck or Daley, pace was in short supply and so breaking forward quickly was only really an option when Moncur got forward in space.

Re Conlon in the Luton game – it was only a minority of fans who booed him in the first place. Others clapped him onto the field and others just sat quietly (as per usual). Some even chanteed his name. I think it’s getting boring now to keep talking about City fans booing Conlon – it was only a few that ever did and the rest of the crowd have now shown what they think of Bazinho (AKA Barry the Bastard). He’s a whole-hearted player who deserves our appreciation and has it. Can we now all stop whinging about the twenty or so individuals in the crowd of 12,000-plus that day who were daft enough to boo? Some of the rest of us are starting to feel like we’re being tarred with the same brush as those boo boys. The Telegraph and Argus seemingly have nothing else to write about. Bazinho!

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Ridiculous Booing and Abuse – Barry Conlon, Omar Daley…

It was Daley and Conlon last year, and Conlon again this season. Who’s next? Thorne? McCall? Graeme Lee?

I can’t believe the boos that greeted Barry Conlon as he came off the bench last Saturday. They guy hadn’t even got on the pitch and people were booing him. It won’t help the player and it won’t help the team. If it’s not constructive, why do it? I know people who think Conlon is a “shit player” and who have said that nothing he does will ever change their opinion of him (which is closed-minded, prejudiced and idiotic), but at least they don’t boo the lad. He’s wearing claret-and-amber, that means he’s one of us for now – so stop the booing and either clap our players onto the field or shut the fuck up.

People will claim that they’ve paid their money so can ‘have their say’ – you haven’t paid the ticket price to boo and abuse people, you’ve paid money in order to watch football. I can understand the team being booed off at half-time or the final whistle following a poor performance, but some fans will boo simply because the score is 0-0 – however well we’ve played. Given that booing players rarely (if ever) has any effect in terms of improving performance then why would any fan who wants the best for his club do such a thing? These are people who haven’t thought things through or they simply aren’t true fans, in my opinion. Boo the ref, boo the linesmen and boo the opposition if you must – leave our lads alone, though.

Apart from anything else, Conlon isn’t as bad as these ‘fans’ make out. He is a big strong lad who can hold the ball up, he is good at harrassing defences and he has a decent, if unspectacular, record in football – including in terms of scoring goals. Not that that is his main strength, but 95 goals in 295 starts in the league is a on-in-three ratio. Not as good as top strikers maybe, who might expect one goal per two games started but still it’s not too shabby! Incidentally, Conlon has made more substitute appearances for City than any other club he’s played for – 25 and counting in the league. He only made one appearance as a sub in league football at Darlington and scored 39 in 114 starts, which is one goal every 2.9 games and like I say, that’s not a bad record. Peter Thorne’s career goalscoring record in the league is 2.4 and Conlon’s is 3.1- there is a difference, but not a huge one. Andy Cooke’s career record is 2.9 and Ashley Ward’s is 3.2, to put this in some sort of context. These are players who give more than goals to a team – they hold the ball up for one thing. Hard work is another attribute that was appreciated by City fans when Andy Cooke was at the club, it should be the same for Conlon. [Stats - http://www.soccerbase.com/]

Having said all that, it is only a minority of fans that boo. There wasn’t a single boo in the section I was in last Saturday, so it was probably a small group of gobby and ill-informed youngsters. I did hear one bloke, though, as he shouted “that’s shit McCall! Shit!” when he made the change and brought Big Barry the Bastard on. I looked round a minute later when Conlon scored but couldn’t see anyone looking sheepish enough to have been that bloke. Either he left, or was cheering his new hero. Go on Barry the Bastard – score a fucking hat-trick next time you start a game and shut these clowns up for good.