Messages

interesting, more details.  Always love hearing how clubs are trying to get an edge

[minor/club/u21 bosses would have been able to tell him]

The rules are there for everyone and I'm sure all top managers would be aware of them. They are there to protect youngsters in the long term. So Donegal/jim didnt know he wasn't available to play this year! I know he has been out of game for long time but surely minor/club/u21 bosses would have been able to tell him. If he was aware but still played him then you have to take the consequences. I'm sure there has been a few other youngsters teams may have liked to play over the years. Particularly the weaker counties . Simple question for journalists to ask Jim - were you aware of rule?

Exactly.  Club bosses throughout the county (including the young lads own club, who i'm sure would love to have been playing him) would know the rules around playing underage players.  The question should be put directly to him alright, he isn't that slow. 

Given the thread is called cost of living you can hardly expect people to forgoe the basic enjoyments in living a life for the basic right to own a home.

I get your point to a degree, people do have silly outgoings, but going for a coffee or watching Netflix shouldn't need to be sacrificed to save for a deposit. When your having to get that granular, something is fundamentally wrong.

I always wondered about teachers persuading kids into returning for their A-Levels for the sole benefit of playing football, knowing fine well they are going to do nothing results wise, and are ultimately wasting years of their lives at school. 

Mcfadden, lacy, murphy, kavanagh, cassidy.  Not sure how well the mcgees were known prior to donegal taking off to be fair but you can't argue these werent top players prior to them getting success.

It's well known they had that bad culture that he rightly corrected, got them well conditioned and setup a system that naturalised better teams. 

The culture may not need corrected this time, all teams are expected to operate at a high standard of fitness and there is little separating them in that regard, so in my view it wil boil down to the quality of players at his disposal.

I'm stumped to think how he could setup the team to play any different than most county teams are playing also, so I don't think he will get an edge on teams there like he did last time

He had top quality players last time also, who knew they were close and that regime was what was needed to get over the line.

I don't believe the players are there this time around and surely he put doubt in the panels heads on their own abilities asking Murphy to come out of retirement.

Another ETH issue I would have would be his reluctance to go for the established Premier league players such as Kane/Rice, instead, opting for Hojlund, untested and too young to carry a team.  A question Scholes and ferdinand brought up last night. 

Perhaps squad wage budgets wouldn't have allowed for Kane to join, but the question certainly needs asked

This is the only saving grace that they are out of Europe completely.

Another two injuries last night, squad going to be massively stretched but no Thursday night games going forward gives them the opportunity to get some rest time.

Why is being out of the Europa league a good thing? Are we not trying to win trophies? What good is struggling into top 4 so we can have another calamitous champions league next year. If that's the height if it then we should just give up. That tool Ole was the king of picking crap sides in semi finals to rest players for the league and what in hell did that achieve?

Ten Hag I'm afraid is another spoofer. Played the hard man and got rid of Ronaldo but then failed to get rid of any of the other shite and worse then brought a whole load more rubbish in.

Ronaldo openly defied him and that  needed addressed, any self respecting manager would have done the same.  His business in the transfer window has left him wide open to criticism so I fully agree question marks arise over that.

Regarding the other muck lingering about, we'll paid long term contracts have hampered him in getting them flogged off, as they won't leave as they won't get lucrative deals elsewhere, so that issue was not of his making. 

Thursday night football is a balls of a thing, the travelling and lack of recovery, chances of picking up injuries etc.  I agreee any competition is worth playing, and given they are not competing for the league, they should have made dame sure they had something else to play for.

EtH will need 3-4 more windows to revamp this team.

These need moved on ASAP

AWB - get rid
Varane - get rid
Lindelof - get rid
Maguire - keep
Dalot -
Malacia -
Evans - sell, too old, otherwise would have kept on
Regulon -

Casemiro - get rid
Eriksen - keep, experienced
McTominay - keep, good squad player
DVB - get rid
Amrabat - get rid

Martial - pay to get rid
Rashford - keep, would be great if he had great players around him. 
Antony - get rid
Sancho - get rid

These have huge question marks over them
Onana - end of season to see if he can sort himself out
Mount - squad player, end of season to see what can be made of him
Fernandes - keep, would be more effective in a good team

Players who you'd want to keep
Martinez
Garnacho
Hojlund

Squad is an absolute f**king mess.

A big thing I think is that the overall squad is piss, and the better players are suffering for it.  We will never get the best of Rashford, Fernandes or Hojlund in an attacking sense, because the overall squad are lacking. 

That's not to say they haven't been underperforming.  For Fernandes and Rashford, they should be willing the team on in every game, but they seem to bend when it gets tough. 

Hojlund should find his feet, but the premier league is unforgiving, so he would need to do it fast.  Again, suffers from the lack of quality around him. 

Whoever at united signed off on mounts contract needs shot. Staggering amount for a squad player, that's all he was ever going to be

[To stop all this you need to cut the head of the snake]

Been a Lurgan man all my life, it has its downsides surely but has some great positives too. It's no different to any other town, it has it's fights and it's anti-social behaviour but the drugs thing is a real problem. this drug thing is not just for Lurgan, the whole country is awash with Cocaine and other substances. I had a conversation last night with one of the top trainers in the GAA circles and he told me you'd be astonished by the people who take Cocaine, County players, club players, professionals, basically all walks of life and he said it's not just weekends either. I have heard all the stories about it and maybe i'm a wee bit green when it comes to things like that. The thing that goes on now is not sectarian as these drug dealers are from both communities and religion would very rarely come into it, it's all about the drugs and money and I've no doubt the source is all coming from Dublin. To stop all this you need to cut the head of the snake and we all know who the snake is...This is the only aspect i miss the Ra for, these Dublin cartels may well have been eliminated many years ago before they got to the "untouchable" stage.

I think the issue now is that you are in the minority if you are not taking drugs unfortunately.  There is a casualness to it that is unfathomable to me.  You cut the head off the snake and another will fill the gap, supply and demand and all that. 

I agree in part to your Ra statement.  These cartels have grown to a level that is above policing, a slap on the wrist or a few years in jail is not deterrent to them. 


On Lurgan, I have been many times and it's no rougher than any other big town.  Areas you wouldn't venture into etc. 

I have worked with Lurgan people professionally and within the GAA and I find them very respectful and good natured to be honest.

where would you not venture into in Lurgan other than hardcore loyalist areas if you're Catholic?
I was born here and brought up here. I lived in England for 14 years, mostly in Manchester. As much as I loved Manchester, not London though, I always missed Lurgan. Can it be rough at times? Sure can but no more or less than any other town in the North

I suppose I am making generalizations on where and where you wouldn't go, every big town has areas where trouble is more rife than others, religion not being a factor.

[To stop all this you need to cut the head of the snake]

Been a Lurgan man all my life, it has its downsides surely but has some great positives too. It's no different to any other town, it has it's fights and it's anti-social behaviour but the drugs thing is a real problem. this drug thing is not just for Lurgan, the whole country is awash with Cocaine and other substances. I had a conversation last night with one of the top trainers in the GAA circles and he told me you'd be astonished by the people who take Cocaine, County players, club players, professionals, basically all walks of life and he said it's not just weekends either. I have heard all the stories about it and maybe i'm a wee bit green when it comes to things like that. The thing that goes on now is not sectarian as these drug dealers are from both communities and religion would very rarely come into it, it's all about the drugs and money and I've no doubt the source is all coming from Dublin. To stop all this you need to cut the head of the snake and we all know who the snake is...This is the only aspect i miss the Ra for, these Dublin cartels may well have been eliminated many years ago before they got to the "untouchable" stage.

I think the issue now is that you are in the minority if you are not taking drugs unfortunately.  There is a casualness to it that is unfathomable to me.  You cut the head off the snake and another will fill the gap, supply and demand and all that. 

I agree in part to your Ra statement.  These cartels have grown to a level that is above policing, a slap on the wrist or a few years in jail is not deterrent to them. 


On Lurgan, I have been many times and it's no rougher than any other big town.  Areas you wouldn't venture into etc. 

I have worked with Lurgan people professionally and within the GAA and I find them very respectful and good natured to be honest.

I understand what is being said about Avra, and the league and championship being separate, it just seems a bit abstract that a senior league team is playing the lowest championship tier.  Intermediate wouldn't be as big a shock. 

Regarding Cullyhanna, they had been slowly regressing for a while this past 10 years and wouldn't have been competing consistently for senior honors.  A bad year last year doomed them to intermediate, but it was always a threat of happening. 

I think they will fair grand back in the senior league, but don't be fooled into thinking they are going to be swinging at the top 3/4 teams next year either. 

Watched the highlights there, Jesus the mentality is not there to win at all.  Dalot literally moves out of the way of the ball for the final goal ffs.  Shows how much he wants to win when he is afraid of getting hit by a football. 

Rashford decision harsh also, technically a foul, but not intentional, there was no malice in that, merely trying to shield the ball from his opponent. 

Glad to see Maguire have a run of good form also.  Ironically a player ETH didn't want and made his feelings clear on that over the summer, Maguire is one of the few at the moment keeping ETH afloat. 

Big few weeks ahead for ETH. 

[They won 2 from 12 without county men and finished bottom of the table. Then ambushed a relegation playoff.]

Championship should absolutely be linked to leagues. if you're div 1 league you're playing against better teams and therefore your team are used to playing at a higher standard than those playing in the divisions below, I honestly cant understand how anyone can say a div 1 team are a Junior club

But equally can't see how playing in a League that is set to run without county players etc. means a team who managed to reach Division 1 and barely held on means they'll be good enough for Senior. Especially when their Championship results over last 8 years show they deserved to be a Junior team.

Is it hard to understand that a diluted League with no County men might not be the best judge of a team?

They stayed in Div 1 mainly wihtout their county men so surely they are stronger with them?

They won 2 from 12 without county men and finished bottom of the table. Then ambushed a relegation playoff.

Make no mistake, they are not a Senior level team. I cannot understand how people can think a team that got relegated to Junior in 21 and lost a Junior final in 22 are suddenly fit to be a Senior team. Their Championship results show that. An odd League set-up which is played without county players is not representative of all the teams. Is this really hard to understand?

I really struggle to see your argument. 
I mean, a team that is capable of winning 2 games against other senior teams, and then manage to defeat another senior team to stay in the top division, cannot be that bad that they compete in junior?

No disrespect to any junior teams in Armagh, but if they were playing in the top division in the league, they would be getting tanked every week, there would be no wins for them, no draws,  no close results. 
Senior teams are senior for a reason, and junior are junior for a reason and compete at that level come championship, because the playing field is truly level. 

The other junior teams in Cavan that play junior league, whats their stance on teams plying their trade all year in the senior team playing junior champo, surley they cannot be happy with that?