THURSDAY NOVEMBER 15th
Amazing day yesterday, someone has put together 12 minutes of Zlatan highlights link, which expain his performance far better than I could.
Gazelec
managed a point despite having two players sent off (!), Northern
Ireland should have scored four, but made us wait 96 minutes for one , still, at least it came !
There
is much to like about Gazelec, they have a real go at teams and a shoot
on sight policy, even hitting the woodwork late with nine men, when
they were still looking for a winner. The playing surface there is
terrible (even worse than the one at the Friends Arena !), goodness
knows what it will be like by February.
LINK Because ot that and the style of play of the hosts, few
visiting teams are going to enjoy trips here and we will definitely be
returning to them later in the season.
No selections or previews today,
but there will be two emails on Friday, no Ligue 2 this week, so the
first at 10.00 UK time, will cover the other Friday matches and also
include a look at the MLS Playoff matches taking place over the weekend,
the second at 16.00 will focus solely on the Saturday J-League games.
There
are some big changes happening over the next six weeks or so, after six
and a half years on blogger, GOWI will be moving to it's own domain and
that will give us a
lot of additional options and will improve the service to
subscribers.There should be a soft launch of the new site in a month or
so and you should all be able to get an early look at it, before it is
officially open. John, who looks after the social media side of things
is overseeing all this, not my clumsy keyboard hands and this will give
me more time to focus solely on email content.
Talking
of emails, next week I am going to be sending two copies of every
email, one in the traditional method and at the same time from an email
manager, content will
be absolutely identical, so you only need to read one, however,
if any of you have time later in the week, I would be keen to know if
there are any differences in delivery times between the two, I will ask
about this towards the end of next week. Again, this should eventually
provide an overall improvement in the product and will tie in with a
couple
of other new and exciting developments which are a little too early to
discuss, but which should all be up and active, by the first week in
January.
Exciting times, but the content is key and everything we are doing is designed to improve the overall quality of the service.
I
know I go on about this, but to get the most from the service you
really have to try and read the emails, there is a lot of useful
information contained in the previews, the bottom line (red type)
is one thing, a couple of dire recent weeks aside, it has been good for
the previous seven months, but you miss out on a lot, by focusing
solely on that. I talked about the black type
"suggestions" last week and then there is the actual content, which, to
my mind, is the most valuable of all. A couple of examples, on October
13th, I wrote the following about Bournemouth ahead of the visit from Leyton Orient ....
Oh My ! They said it couldn't happen but it has, Eddie Howe left
Championship club Burnley to rejoin the Cherries currently in the League
1 drop zone. Howe left his heart in Dorset and the pull was too great,
he is a Dorset lad from a Dorset family , is married to a local girl ,
only ever really played for Bournemouth ( two games for Portsmouth) and
probably spent every month up North regretting his move and now he is
going home. He and assistant Jason Tindall will be greeted like Prodigal
Son(s), or the launch of the iPhone 5 for younger readers at Dean Court
tomorrow and whilst any impact the pair might have will be
minimal, the atmosphere inside the stadium will be incredible and will
surely
lift the team. They have yet to win at home this season, but have
scored in all five and managed a draw in four of them, they went on a
big run at exactly this stage last season, collecting 30 points from 14
matches from October until early February and a very similar run is far
from impossible. They have spent big in 2012, albeit not entirely
wisely, funded by their Russian owner, but Howe should get the best out
of them and they have been creating chances, they currently lie third in
the attempts on goal table and been averaging over three attempts per
game more than Orient, who have recovered after a poor start to their
own campaign, but have ridden their luck at times. How they beat
Brentford last month will remain a mystery and they posted a similarly
fortunate win at Walsall 11 days ago, they work hard but are limited and
their defence troubles me, they have already lost 18 times in 2012 and I
suspect it might be number 19 today. Hosts have had a
tough sequence of matches and entertain league leaders Tranmere Rovers
next week, before another very difficult road trip to Notts County, the
points are easier today and all three would give them and Howe a real
platform to build on.
The
hosts won that 2-0, but if you look at the lines I have left in black
type above , you will see that I was keen on Howe picking his beloved
home town club up by the bootlaces and up the table, since then, they
have played seven matches, won six, drew the other on the road at Notts
County ( who have lost just 1 in 8) and posted a 19-7 goal difference.
I wrote in glowing terms about the offensive options Tony Mowbray had at his disposal at Middlesbrough in
late September and they have gone unbeaten through nine matches in
October/November , knocking a PL side out of the cup and scoring two or
more in six of their eight league starts, moving up from 12th to second
in the Championship.
I watched Crystal Palace
play Sheffield Wednesday on September 1st and told you that I was
"impressed with them" and felt that "they would kick on from there",
with "Bolasie and Zaha both running at teams" and Murray back scoring
goals.They were in the bottom three then, but are now top of the
Championship and unbeaten (9-3-0) since that day.
At
times, I get plenty wrong, but it is normally just the timing that is
off and I might opt to follow a team a week or two too early, but the
basic reasoning is good and
there are a LOT of potential winners in the previews between the
headline and the red type, the notes are definitely worth reading,
especially with the lesser known teams and it is this which separates
GOWI from any other service.
Good Luck.
Contact: gowi8@btinternet.com
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