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The Opposition View - Preston

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  • Very nice of them to be more polite than a simple "Ha ha ha ha ha ha haaaaaa"

  • @Vital said:
    A few comments from the victors...

    http://www.wycombe.vitalfootball.co.uk/article.asp?a=517243

    As at 13.00 hours 7 January, the MoM votes include 15% for Bean, 23% for Freeman, and 38% for O’Nien. If Bean’s votes were transferred to Freeman, that’d be nearer the truth, perhaps. But 33% each to Brown and the other two, nearest of all. Extraordinary minutiae from me on a quiet news day.

  • To be fair Bean’s throw-in when the ref blew up for half time was probably the highlight of the game for me so he deserves some votes!

    On the subject of throw-ins, I was thoroughly impressed by PNEs ability to mark up and give virtually no options to the throw-in taker. They kept this up all game and probably contributed greatly to the first half farce.

    Not something we’ve experienced for a while.

    Regarding Scarr, it should be remembered he’s very much learning his craft so far too early to judge the rest of his career. In the league games he’s doing okay. Yesterday he did look lost but it can’t have helped playing against very good players alongside a right back he’d never played with before and had no understanding with. Remember how awful the whole of the defence looked at the start of the season until they’d had a few games together and started to gel.

  • The Bean votes are surely ironic? I'm a big Bean fan, and I think he was given an unenviable task yesterday, but 'MoM'? No way. Freeman for me (the man DevC wouldn't give another contract to, let's not forget.)

  • @LeedsBlue said:
    The Bean votes are surely ironic? I'm a big Bean fan, and I think he was given an unenviable task yesterday, but 'MoM'? No way. Freeman for me (the man DevC wouldn't give another contract to, let's not forget.)

    Good job Dev hasn't got Ainsworth's ear like Richie has!

  • If Richie had one ear and DevC the other that would really hurt in the morning ..

  • In the name of accuracy, not to mention fairness, @devc made no comment about the quality of Freeman as a player but merely expressed the view that a player of his profile who had played the number of games he had in the time he was at the club was unlikely to be offered a new contract in the summer. A very different observation to the one alleged above.

  • On the criterion of games played per month at the club, Kashket is most unlikely to get a contract extension.

  • The two cases, because of injuries, are rather clearly different.

  • Qualities consistently displayed (strength, pace, crossing and shooting ability, and composure, for example) should surely weigh as heavily as number of games played by a particular player as a percentage of the total number of games played by the club during the period to date of that player’s contract.

    Age and experience should also be taken into account in assessing the extent of a player’s development/all round improvement. Nick Freeman was 20 years old when he made his professional debut less than 18 months ago. On those criteria at least, he seems to fully justify a contract extension.

    Important factors that not even those of us who see him play on a regular basis can realistically assess include temperament, character and personality.

  • We are slightly at cross purposes here, as were those being critical of Dev. No-one has suggested Freeman should not be offered a contract. Dev's proposition was that mostly-fit players like Freeman who are available for selection but are not selected all that often tend, in the absence of other factors such as a change of manager, not to be offered new contracts when their old ones expire. It seems a reasonable proposition, though one could argue that it is too early to predict he will not be offered a contract in the summer given the amount of time between now and then.

  • That's not quite what happened, he said Freeman probably wouldn't be offered a new contract.

    Everyone else said he definitely would

  • Yes, @eric_plant. He went on to give his reasons as to why he thought he would not get another contract. I hope I have not misrepresented them above.

    The essential point, of course, is that he did not suggest Freeman SHOULD not be given another contract, as was suggested earlier.

  • You've become quite a niggly arguer @HCblue . You started off so huggy and fluffy on here.

  • I'm sorry to have conveyed a niggly impression. I'm on the side of reason and fairness. If Dev doesn't say Freeman should not be given a new contract, I think it right to say so when someone suggests otherwise and seeks to imply criticism by doing so. I hope standing up for the truth and to protect the reputation of a fellow poster is sufficiently huggy and fluffy as to protect my own reputation.

  • Fair does @HCblue.
    You've been around long enough to know the Dev routine by now though, and why if he leaves an opening he'll be pounced on by a few.

  • edited January 2018

    I recognise Dev as someone who likes to write in the abstract and the hypothetical. I've no special problem with that: none of us are curing cancer here and he rarely if ever writes anything objectionable unless one wishes to take exception to someone because they live a long way away and seem to tend to prefer empirical evidence over perception. Either way, he certainly left no opening here to anyone willing to take his words as they were written!

  • I agree that @DevC made no comment about the quality of Freeman as a player (and how could he when he’d not seen him play); the point I was making was that his qualities as a player were rather important when it comes to making a decision about his future. I also mentioned other considerations but, on the strength of what we regular followers have seen, particularly over the last three months, I think it would be a mistake not to offer him an extension to his contract.

  • I tend to agree, @micra, though there's quite a bit of season still to go and I look forward to seeing more of Freeman after which I expect I'll have a clearer view of whether he's a keeper. As I say, I was simply referring back to an earlier suggestion that Dev had said Freeman should not get another contract, which he did not.

  • @HCblue From what I've seen, Freeman is definitely not a keeper but would say he's a very useful winger! :-)

  • "In the interests of accuracy", @HCBlue, no-one said that DevC suggested Freeman "shouldn't" be given a contract.

    As I'm the one who brought it up (in parentheses, I might add, as a slightly mischievous but malice-free 'dig' at a topical DevC pronouncement that I and others were struggling with last week, based on the fact that we've actually seen him play), I accept that I suggested that Freeman was a man who 'DevC "wouldn't" give a contract extension to'. A tad presumptuous, maybe.

    It is common these days for people to hide all manner of distasteful behaviour under the umbrella of "banter", but on this occasion, "banter" is the best description of my comment - I wasn't seeking to imply criticism. I would be very surprised if DevC would himself have taken such umbrage as you've done on his behalf (although he's free to correct me, when he's read through all this stuff). I'm neither in a pro or anti Dev camp (some things he says I agree with, some I don't), and I can confirm there was no personal criticism intended from me.

    This place gets more and more like a courtroom every week.

  • edited January 2018

    Hi, LeedsBlue. Thanks for the detailed message! Appreciate the clarification and I apologise for my misinterpretation of your earlier one. You're quite right: I wouldn't have thought to comment if I'd understood you to be writing tongue-in-cheek. It's seemed to me that there is a number, small perhaps but non-zero, of people who have it in for Dev and it seemed this might have been another dig. Dev can take care of himself, of course, but I didn't want him to cop it for something he hadn't said! Thanks again for the clarification.

  • Where is Dev? Not like him to miss a chance to defend himself and bore us to death with his reasoning.

  • @Blue_since_1990 said:
    Where is Dev? Not like him to miss a chance to defend himself and bore us to death with his reasoning.

    Probably spending a lot of time on the train!

  • And I assume richie decided to stay over in Newcastle rather than rush back...

  • Perhaps an attempt to the hasten their demise?

  • Just realised I put that last comment on the wrong thread. Was supposed to be in response to @Wendoverman telling us about the old boys in Wycombe General watching WW games at Loakes Park from the window.

  • Could work in both though @Jonny_King

  • Yeah, it worked perfectly in the context here.

  • Good point!

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