Vardinio'sCat

It's all a bit sad really, he didn't return as a particularly nice man. He was catholic Irish, and those veterans were not celebrated as returning heroes, by any means. What with drinking his healthy army pension away, and leaving his wife short of housekeeping money, he was hard to love. My Gran became a recluse out of the shame, and my Mum is still bitter that she (as the youngest) was sent to the village co-op shop to ask for credit, and she is a penny pincher to this day. My Mum divorced my Dad when I was 15, and their different attitudes to money were part of the reason. It is only the last few years that Mum has come to recognise that her father probably had multiple issues that directly resulted from the war, even his medical records refer to him being a 'difficult' man. The psychology of both my parents families have been deeply affected by war, with my other (fathers side) anti-Nazi Austrian grandad being interred by Churchill during WW2, then deported on a ship (the Arandora Star) that was sunk by a German U-boat off Malin Head. He survived the sinking and being in the water for a long time, but succumbed to TB within a couple of years. When my father was born (in 1944) my widowed grandma (whose English was pretty poor) was regarded as being unable to care for both of her boys, and my uncle was put into care in Leeds, far away from his sole parent, for nearly a year. I dare say all this trauma has echoed down the generations, as it must have done in many families. One only has to look further back up the thread to the posting by the Algerian guy. It might be over 50 years ago, but you can hear the justified rage, and the personal damage, coming through loud and clear.

My grandad was at Passschdaele, he was in the Machine Gun Corps. He got a nasty shrapnel wound to the head, and was never quite the same again. I have also read the book, and can confirm it is an excellent read, letting the participants speak for themselves.

Absolutely, it's at least 2 games away.

Apart from the specific point about Kasper, we have a lot of common ground. I'm no great fan of TB and rickets either, I wouldn't go back to any previous point in time. So I'm with you on the nostalgia bit in general. But your last bit, which I've bolded, is not right historically. It evolved well before Kasper was a twinkle in his fathers eye Even though Yashin’s many trophies speak for themselves, his greatest contribution to the game was the way he changed the goalkeeper position. Many experts agree that Yashin invented the modern goalkeeper we all praise and love today. While most goalkeepers back in Yashin;s days often kicked the ball aimlessly away after a save, Yashin saw an opportunity to play an active role in the build-up, and therefore he started to throw the ball to his teammates or to make accurate kicks that could start counterattacks. Another thing Yashin invented was for the goalkeeper to participate in the passing play outside the penalty area to help out his teammates as a sort of sweeper keeper. Beside all his tactical innovation, Yashin was also an excellent goalkeeper who recorded 270 clean sheets during his career. He was a brilliant shot stopper with great reflexes, but he also had the physical strength to dominate the penalty area (another Yashin invention was to intentionally box the ball away instead of always trying to catch it). In other words: he was the perfect goalkeeper. When the quote says box it means punching the ball instead of catching it. Now that quote is from a Russian football website, so it is a bit gushy, but even Gordon Banks said he was the role model. I'm sure Yashin wouldn't have been the first to do any of these things individually, but he did put it all together to make him (arguably) the first truly modern keeper, and that's why he is the greatest. No one else changed the role of the keeper as much as he did, and it's very difficult to see anyone being able to do that again.

If tielemans, Madders and Barnes can get there heads up, and Vardy keeps his views to himself, we could take them apart. Even more than usual, we need to get the first goal. If we see that and the confidence starts to flow, we might get proper Roy-venge!

I think you are right that Mendy would also benefit from the simpler role and might be superior, especially when we expect to have a lot of the ball. But Wilf did really well, and looked revitalised by the tactical change, so it is a tough call. The pre-match banter will be peachy if Claude picks Papy, but I think both Wilf and Papy are very good DMC's, so I don't really mind which one plays.

Lets get Roy-ed again, help him turn back the hands of time Lets get Roy-ed again one more time

But thats because there is so little decent footage of them, rather than they didn't make outstanding saves. I thought the Banks save (against Sotland I think) where he is back pedalling to get to the attempted lob, was top drawer. The Rashin one from range (an instance when the camera did atually keep up) was also an excellent bit of work in any era. I never said everything was better in the past, because that is clearly not the case. Obviously football has moved on, but it is in many ways an easier game and once you take that into consideration, the greats of yesterday would almost certainly be the greats if they were coming through today. One only has to look at Brazil in the early 70's (of which there is good footage), to see players that would smash it today. And if we can see that the greats of the 70's were bloody great, assuming the greats of the 60's wouldn't be very good is not going to fly.

Enjoy

It does help if your opinion is a based on a good understanding of what you are talking about. Very few of us have seen enough of Banks to really make the comparison, old football footage being pretty rubbish, and I am no exception. But based on the opinion of informed and respected observers, over a period of 5 or 6 years between 66 and his car accident, Banks was regarded as the world's best. Of course Kasper is a great keeper, one of the best in the PL (for me), and capable of world-class performances on his day. But virtually no one refers to him as the best in the world, never mind the best the world has ever seen. This poll at the millenium gives a good idea of how highly regarded Banks was, nearly 30 years after he played. Only the one man goalkeeping revolution that was Lev Yashin, the only keeper to win the Ballon D'or, is ranked in front of him. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IFFHS_World's_Best_Goalkeeper It's a real pity we don't have more quality footage of Banks. Just out of interest, here is a bit of Yashin. "Lev Yashin was first-class, a real super goalkeeper. His positional play was excellent, but everything he did was amazing. He was a model for goalkeeping for the next years, without a doubt" (Gordon Banks about Lev Yashin). https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/yashin

I know what you mean, it is like 'chinese whispers' at points, with everyone (journo's and posters) overplaying whatever scraps of info we have. I'm including myself in that. I wasn't on here during the great escape, but the period just before must have been pretty grim too. I have this theory that being on the internet is a bit like driving a car. When we are protected in a metal box, or protected by distance electronically, we often show our true colours.

The first sentance is reported as fact, and in the following paragraph Tanner literally tells you he doesn't know what has gone on between CP and Vards. So your problem is?

I suppose the bit about it being about Puel showing who is in charge could have come from elsewhere. I'm probably not qualified to say that much about Tanner's output over the long term, maybe that is why I didn't read the last bit in the same way at all.

Surely Puel would have been forced to ask about it? Unless Vardy got on the front foot by initiating a discussion or making an apology. Tbf, I don't know, I'm just trying to work with the limited info we have. I think you are right about which bit Tanner is confident about (ie the first bit). He clearly doesn't have any detail on what they said to each other, or even if they spoke about it. The last bit also rings true, the 'cutting of his nose to spite his face' bit. We could all see it hurt us against Spurs, and I'm sure CP was no exception to that, no matter what he said in public.

I thought there was some rumor busting in there, and some attempt at balance. Wading into the trenches on Puel wasn't really my intention. I saw the piece, was reasonably impressed, and thought it was worth a read.