Time to map out a plan for Villa's future
- Says blogger Matthew Turvey
Ten World Cup finals for Wolves
Friday 12th March 2010, 9:15AM GMT.
Wolves blogger Nathan Lloyd knows that finishing 17th this season will be like winning the World Cup – but wonders if lessons will be learned in the summer.
Is planet Premier League the be all and end all?
I fell into that particular trap last week when I wrote the Albion blog, and no amount of showers will ever wash away that shame!
Whereas my blogging brethren Jarrod Hill so eloquently mused over Wolves’ latest pursuit of Premiership mediocrity, my lack of Championship knowledge meant a trip down memory lane and a retrospective look back at our Black Country rivalry.
I couldn’t really talk about Albion’s season or the Championship with any real conviction and I’m sure I’m not alone amongst Wolves fans.
I get the feeling that most of us are so consumed with finishing in that 17th spot that we haven’t stopped to consider the alternative. And, let’s be honest, our board haven’t learnt a thing since our first venture into top-flight waters back in 2003.
This time around we have bought players with labels such as ‘potential’ or ‘one for the future’ because they were cheap enough to fit into our Championship wage structure.
Kevin Doyle and Marcus Hahnemann apart, a lot of cash has been wasted on players who have as much right to play at this level as John Terry does to run a class on morals.
We have been outbid on players like Scott Dann and countless others and we now have a square pegged 4-5-1 Championship-level team giving everything for a shot a Premier League survival.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the top-flight and all the ridiculous hoopla that goes with it. I know that finishing 17th would be deemed as successful this season, I’m sure that we might even see another pitch invasion if it happened.
Some would say that it’s a crying shame that finishing 17th in the top flight for Wolves can even be deemed as a success and that the Derek Dougans, Stan Cullis’ and Billy Wrights of this world will be spinning in their graves at our lack of ambition.
But because football has sold its soul to the devil or Sky TV to give them their correct appellation, we will probably never again compete on an even keel as we did back in the day of Wolves’ greatest successes.
So perhaps we should see 17th as a success. It would give us a platform to build on for next season. But, and it’s a big but as Sir Mix-a-lot would say, do we have the infrastructure or the ambition to learn from this season’s mistakes if we do stay up?
As I stated at the top, for me the Wolves board and most importantly Jez Moxey doesn’t appear to have learned enough from our last unsuccessful foray into the top-flight.
Financially secure the club may be and Jez should take a lot of credit for that. But if we don’t clear the decks of the deadwood in the summer and bring in quality players that are better than what we have, then it’s sadly going to be more of the same next season.
Surely the powers-that-be will realise that the signings of Stefan Maierhofer, Andrew Surman, Segundo Castillio and Greg Halford have proven to be just as fruitless as Silas, Oleg Luzhny, Issac Okoronkwo and Joey Gudjohnsson were back in 2003?
Big difference is that this time around Mick wasted a large chunk on transfers, whereas back in 2003 Dave Jones’ hands were tied and he had to delve mainly into the free transfer market.
But the league has changed massively since our first visit to become the Brobdingnagian that it is today. For those not familiar with the world of Brobdingnagian, it’s a world populated by giants of which Wolves haven’t been since I was in nappies.
Our manager needs to be ruthless and pragmatic. If we survive this season it will because dross like Burnley and Hull haven’t, but they will be replaced for the next campaign by stronger teams like Newcastle and – although it pains me to say it – Albion.
The money we saved in the winter transfer window, added to the money we can get for selling at least 10 players back to the Championship, should give Mick a nice pot to work with in the summer.
I may not be his biggest fan, but if McCarthy somehow keeps us in this division then I will be the first to buy him a pint, not that he will ever join me at the bar!
The alternative to staying up, which I’m sure, the more astute of you will have probably worked out, is a drop back down to the league of fizzy pop.
Is there a bright side to relegation? Since supporting the club in the 1980′s, the second tier of English football is where I have spent nearly all of my Wolves life watching my beloved team.
To me, the Championship is a bit like a comfort blanket. It’s a happy place where we know Wolves will score goals and will usually be competing for promotion or a play-off place at worst.
Don’t get me wrong, of course I would be gutted if we drop out of the Premiership this season, but perhaps paradoxically I would also be excited about the different challenge the Championship would bring.
Another stay in the league of the behemoths could begin with a win in arguably our biggest fixture of the season so far, when we make the trip up to Burnley this weekend.
My last visit to Turf Moor was back in 2002. My abiding memories of that day were watching Gazza with a heavy heart as he struggled to cope with the pace of football in his mid-thirties and Wolves subsequently going into the break 3-0 up.
I also remember vividly crouching behind a Wolves travel coach in the middle of Burnley town centre as the pub opposite came out to shower it with gifts of bricks, bottles and pint glasses. Ah, such happy memories.
Beat Burnley, which our performance against United suggests we are more than capable of, then pick up a point or two from our two tricky away games at West Ham and Villa and I think we will be in good shape for survival.
Lastly, as you can see from the picture above, I visited the World Cup trophy tour yesterday as it stopped by in London.
I would have stayed to have listened to the Wayne Rooney question and answer session, but I had to be back in Wolverhampton to see the fantastic Nik Kershaw perform a cracking acoustic gig.
Have a bostin weekend. Up the Wolves!
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Finishing 17th would be like winning the World Cup. I’m not sure which I would rather take to be honest? Just joking, I wouldn’t be able to look back and tell the kids remember the summer of 2010 when Wolves finished 17th!
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Win and we’ve stayed up. Lose and we’re down. Simples.
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You seem to be a man with too much time on your hands and looking for something to do!.
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Any suggestions on ways to fill my time would be most welcome.
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Have you considered practising your headers? You seem to have the same patch fot it like Rooney?
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we had a straw poll in the office as to who we think you look like in your photo.
this is how the voting went:
1 – Nobby Stiles – 56%
2 – Antonio Lombardo – 27%
3 – Chris Marsden (local vote) – 15%
4 – Bob Taylor (Baggies fan having a lauigh i think) – 1%
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Thanks Wilko. I usually get Peter Ebdon or even Jason Statham, but only by the very short sighted.
Lombardo is a great shout. Not sure about Nobby though, I still have nearly all my own teeth!
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my mate – his name is Anthony for reference – wears the original version of that shirt to England games.
Mind you his Wolves shirt is from the stan Cullis era
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I think I hear what you are saying Nathan, having been Wolves since the sixties it aint going to make much difference what league they are in, I will still be Wolves. I also sort of got a much better feeling out of winning the Championship than I do out of losing four games out of five. We have all been conned into believing its the Prem or nothing and it is not. Any Wolves fan who believes we will ever be back at the top of English football is dilluisional at best. We are a medium city club, great history, as do Notts County, but we will never be a 50,000 gate club and we will never be fashionable enough for the Champions League. I have loved every minute of this season and I truly believe my team, including MM, have given their all and as a supporter I can ask no more.
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Some good points but I would say that Zubar will prove to be a good signing and we have got ourselves a good player in Guedioura.
We will need to spend and release players whichever division we are in but two things that have definitely hampered us is injuries and luck. The latter will hopefully change.
It will be nice for a Wolves win on Saturday. Especially when the likes of Laws, Blake and Nugent have been gobbing off. We are capable of it but everything points to a 1-1 draw. Burnley have conceded every game since October and we do not score but do not concede much either!
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We have a financially sound club, blitzed the Championship for promotion and have survival in our own hands in the middle of March.
I don’t see what the problem is.
Of course we will need changes next year – that’s progress.
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Is there a bright side to relegation? Well only a little.
Proper away days to proper grounds which are not over priced and full of plastic fans!
Championship will mean more goals, more wins and enjoyable times. Having said that finishing 17th will beat all that feeling hands down.
Up the Wolves!
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There’s no excuse if we don’t achieve 17th place. morgan needs to show some bottle and sack Moxey and McCarthy if relegation happens.
I’d also be wary of giving Mick and resources in the summer, so eve if we stay up, It’s got to be someone like Hughes in charge.
When you consider we finished above Blues and now they’re 8th and we’re 17th, mistakes have been made and we’ve not had a good season.
There are so many poor team at the bottom, we have to stay up this season. Nothing other than 3 points is good enough tomorrow. Give it your all and lets climb that table. I’d like to see us finish at least 15th!
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Wasn’t it Attilio Lombardo, Wilko?
No vote for Sloth off the Goonies?!
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Hey you guys…. that’s a bit cruel.
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yep you’re right – please excuse my basic error!!
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Some lessons in simple arithmetic.
60-30=30
8-0=8
30 is much greater than 8.
explanation.
60 is the amount in milllions to be received for staying in the premiership.
30 is the amount we could have spent in buying 2-3 quality players plus their wages to keep us up.
8 million is what we will receive in parachute payments if (heaven forbid) we are demoted.
0 is the amount to be spent on new players.
Can anyone convince me that our owner, Board, chief executive etc do not really understand the above? If they do why have they put us into this awful sliding position?
The manager’s answer that we have plenty games left to rectify the situation (please God let him be right) is said more in hope than planning, we have been hearing this line since we had 39 games left let, now there will only be nine!
Please lads, don’t take it in turn to have lapses, make mistakes or be naive! You are all we’ve got to save us.
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If we have to play 10 World Cup finals,the solution is simple.We just need 10 Russian linesmen.Best of luck to Mick and the lads tomorrow,we are certainly due some.
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Nathan, good blog as always. As a wolves fan since 1970 I can assure you that 17th would be a major triumph. As much as we would all like to see our team winning every week I would rather be playing the top teams in top stadiums against top players, even if it means we struggle.
Lets hope we stay up and then hopefully see some major changes as the current set us is not working.
Good luck on Saturday lads!
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Nathan wrote:
‘Beat Burnley, which our performance against United suggests we are more than capable of, then pick up a point or two from our two tricky away games at West Ham and Villa and I think we will be in good shape for survival’
In a nutshell quite correct. So why bleat on with so many negative assumptions when your last paragraph on our survival chances is the only poignant and obvious conclusion.
We need a new blogger, not a new manager!
Nathan out!!!
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I was just exploring the alternative to 17th. I can’t keep blindly beating the positivity drum week after week.
If we do stay up then the 3Ms need to learn some massive lessons from this season or it’ll be same again next time around. And I’m not sure that will take those learnings on board and change their mentality.
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Who’s the idiot mate? I think you need to perhaps learn how interpret a bit of tongue in cheek humour and take a chill pill at the same time! Or is it time of the month???
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Time to stand up and be counted. We have performed relatively well against top teams and now we must absolutely deliver against fellow strugglers – something we haven’t been able to do consistently so far.
I loved almost every minute of last season though (apart from the Christmas lull maybe), those exhilarating Molinueux wins at the start, with Kightly, Jarvis and SEB running riot and will always remember the game at Pride Park (Harewood going mental at the end).
The Championship is like a comfy cardigan, and if thats our fate I’ll be there shouting on me babbies as always. That said, I’d prefer to wear the scratchy Permiership jumper a while longer. Champions League maybe not but we’ll earn more than 15 seconds at the end of MOTD maybe…
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You are a complete idiot!!
You say “Kevin Doyle and Marcus Hahnemann apart, a lot of cash has been wasted on players” What about Zubar & Millijas!! Millijas is by far our best player but possibly won’t ever put a wolves shirt on again due to our stubborn manager!
You constantly go on about the money wasted during the summer! How about the wasted talent who are NEVER given a chance while we keep losing games & failing to score week after week!!
Castillo 40 international games & good enough last season for Everton but not us why?
Maierhofer never really given any time on the pitch.
But you are happy to continue watching the same results each week.
I agree with the guy who said “You seem to be a man with too much time on your hands and looking for something to do”.
Also I quote the Albion blog, “and no amount of showers will ever wash away that shame”! GROW UP you agreed to do it, if you feel that dirty then WHY DID YOU?
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Reference “We-are-wolves”
Why I appreciate your obvious passion, can I point out that I’m not an idiot? Strange personal attack that….. anyway.
On Castilio, he obviously wasn’t good enough for Everton last season, otherwise he’d still be a Toffee. I’ve spoken to a couple of Everton fans and they thought he was useless.
And Maierhofer? This league is simply too fast and too good for him. I understand what you are saying that he really hasn’t had much time on the pitch, but whenever he has come on I just see a lumbering footballer in the Kevin Kyle mould.
And as for my opening gambit about showering after the Albion blog. Irony? Sarcasm? Humour?
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No 10. John De Wolf, Youv’e said everything for me i agree 100%. so alll there is for me to say is GOOD LUCK TO THE LADS ON SATURDAY. UTW
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Nathan, why keep responding to the brainless??!! never learn!
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Sorry Dublin, you are right as always. If someone calls me an idiot though, its like when Marty McFly gets called a chicken and I’ll always fire back!
Any thoughts on tomorrow’s game? I’ve gone 2-0 to Wolves with Doyle to score first.
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With Portsmouth’s problems ensuring this is essentially a “two to be relegated season” this is the best chance in years for clubs vying to stay in the PL and I believe we will. Not so much that we deserve to stay up but because I believe we are better than Burnley and Hull. We got lucky this year; however, I think next year will be a different proposition with bigger teams and a stronger division.
What a difference a few months makes; last summer we couldn’t wait for our “young and hungry” squad to take the PL by storm. Who was to know that young and hungry can very quickly turn into disappointment and what could have been. We all expected Blake, Kightly, Foley, etc… to take off; unfortunately there still grounded.
If/when we stay up shrewd investment will be the key. I think MM has learnt a lot from this season; primarily that in the PL proven quality always out shines quantity and potential.
UTW
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sir mix-a-lot and nik kershaw in the same post – surely an internet first?!
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Nathan, in general I agree with your blog.
However, I think MM has been unlucky in respect to Ebanks-Blake and Kightly who he would have been relying on based on last seasons performancies.
Ebanks-Blake has been a huge dissappointment and few if any would have predicted that at the start of the campaign. Kightly did not seem fit enough at the start and then got injured.
In January MM/JM tried to address both positions by signing Robbie Keane and Stephen Hunt. If these two players had signed for Wolves, I’m quite certain that we would be halfway up the table by now.
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Regarding tomorrow.
Burnley have only lost 3 home games this season, so why do we believe we can win tomorrow. I hope so but cannot see it. Draw best hope we have but I will still be there cheering them on.
As for seventeenth place, it would be nice but not the end of the world if we are relegated, (more important things in life to worry about)I will still be there and away trips are more fun in Championship anyway.
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What I particularly like about the article is it is complaining that we bought Championship level players whilst bemoaning the fact that we didn’t buy the likes of Scott Dann. Who was only proven in the Championship prior to this season. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
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Nathan, firstly your not an idiot, your one of the boys in my eyes, so dont tar me with some of the other comments on here, but I do feel that there is an ill informed and knee jerk anti Mick brigade that only hinders the team and makes us all look like a split bunch of finger pointing whingers.
Why explore the alternative? Why discuss negativity’s that havent even happened and may well never at all? Can we not discuss our best formation, or discuss how the other struggling teams around us will fair against upcoming fixtures, their weaknesses etc?
Unlike previous seasons when you and the other ‘nuggets’ were calling for Micks head, until he won the league that is, can we just wait until the end of the season to discuss whether Mick is rubbish, or whether Doyle will leave, or how Moxey hasn’t learnt, or how we will compete in the fizzy pop league, because until we do know our destiny this season, then its just scaremongering irrelevance.
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Oh Nathan Nathan Nathan what are we to do.
The next three teams we play, play in claret and blue now that does not go with gold and black maybe this is an omen and we will win all three lol.
No matter what happens I love the Wolves and will carry on going to see them whichever division we are in but it will be Premiership.
MM did say at the beginning of the season that it was not going to be easy. We are playing really well and our turn will come.
Have faith Nathan I have
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I can’t see much in common between Surman who is a young player with decent potential and some of the no-hopers Dave Jones brought in, presumably having only seen them on video.
Another point, even the most successful teams buy a pretty high proportion of players who don’t make it…if you have 3 or 4 out of 10 signings who are performing you’re not doing badly….in fact, with such huge squads today it’s a dead cert that they won’t all play and, if you’re not playing, you’re not likely to progress…..but that seems to be a systemic problem in the Prem or are all clubs aping Man U and thinking they need to be prepared for competing in about 5 competitions????
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‘Sir mix-a-lot and nik kershaw in the same post’…don’t forget the world of Brobdingnagian. Must admit I had to look that one up!
I dread the Championship. Its like football prison for anything from a 1 to 20 year stretch of just counting down the weeks till we can get out, and hopefully stay out.
The Championship raises unrealistic expectations, and lowers everyones tolerance. The fixture list will be the least appealling ever known. Even winning will be uninspiring. A 1-0 win against Barnsley won’t exactly give us the feel good factor like a 1-0 against Spurs. This season we can go 10 games in a row without a win and goalless for weeks and no-one considers not getting behind the team. In the Championship I doubt we could go an hour of mediocre play without the first mutterings of discontent.
The first defeat will inevitably bring back the boo boys, and players will then play nervously trying not to make mistakes. If things are going well, we’ll constantly be haunted by the expectation of how we are going to blow promotion. Even if we do get up we’ll be facing the looming prospect of coming back down!…unless of cause the 3M’s announce they will learn from their mistakes!
Comfort blanket. You mean wet blanket.
Its not my happy place.
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GREAT BLOG AS ALWAYS NATHAN !!!
If we stay up we will have done it ahainst all the odds financially. And Mick would deserve a freaking Medal for that
Though we played so well against Chelski and Manu we seem to have trouble picking our game up against fellow strugglers, and for that reason I think we will lose to Burnley. Though I sincerely hope we somehow avoid that heartbreak and nick a a draw. Perhaps Gedioura can get his first in a 1-1 “goalfest”
Keep up the good work.
LOVE WOLVES
HATE MOXEY
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“as much right to play at this level as John Terry does to run a class on morals”. Cheap shot – shouldn’t judge :-)
Most of us, me included, would have settled for 17th i.e. survival this first season in the Prem. And we still will. It’s the way that management has gone about it that is disturbing and at this rate, we’ll be ulcky to be 17th again next season.
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No worries nathan, just 90% will discuss your blog rather than merely slate it. Just think surely it’s healthier for you to realise that than focus your energy on the 10% who will moan at anything anyway.
I personally think it’s going to have a few goals in it, the chances we have been creating means 1 week we will give someone a good hiding, I think wolves to win 4-2, I even think guerdiora will open his account.
Let’s hope so anyway make it a great game.
Nathan 1 question, what was the world cup like? You’d imagine it to be as shiney as hell but is it? Would of loved to have seen it myself.
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Imv I get the impression that Jez Moxey is the main culprit in which players have or more to the point have not been signed
Moxey and some fans on here have made some nonsense comments about ‘not doing a Leeds’ in one breath and in another made promises about investing into ‘Prem quality’ and in reality not even done half of the job!
Job done spouted Moxey – When exactly???
Have to agree with Nathan and my fears are the same – Promises of investment end in cheap options and a few players brought in that are anywhere near the mark – as for the majority of the rest of players brought in – What a waste of money on players that are no better than Championship standard – Pennywise – Pound Foolish
Is McCarthy good enough to keep us in the Prem – tactically? influential enough to bring in/ attract the better than average Prem players or even the likes of James McCarthy and/ or Cline from Palace – Well in a word a resounding NO
Progress imv is not to be found in MM and TC in the Prem – Imv the club are hanging on to them because if relegated MM is probably the best manager to get us back up without spending any money – a double edged sword
Penny pinching in the Prem isnt the answer to give our squad the quality it obviously lacks – and tactically do we want to see the same tactics week in week out – even against our nearest rivals? Why? Because we dont have full backs and other players playing in their proper positions etc etc etc
We have a real fight on our hands to stay up and for those who dismiss our nearest rivals – dont – we are deep in the pickle and I hope our players give it their all and dont take it for granted that we are ok – It aint over by a long chalk and Nathan is right Cup finals all the way!!!
Up the Wolves!!! Good luck boys!!!
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Dublin Wolves, afternoon.
To be honest you are whisked in and out so quickly that you barely see the World Cup Trophy. The thing I noticed was that it is much bigger in real life than it looks on TV.
And on the idiots front, I often get told by people to stop responding to them, it just feeds their neanderthanlic egos. I don’t mind people telling me that I’m spouting complete clap trap.
Wolves will win 2-0 today, I can feel it in my waters.
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Have to agree with Nathan. I don’t think Moxey and McCarthy are the pair to take us on another Prem adventure if we stay up. No ambition with the sort of dross we signed in the summer. Doyle was expensive for a reason.
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I think you guys know what is going to happen. You lot go down, we go up and Doyle can move to the Baggies and keep living in the area.
Burnley will put 3 past you today and I think that will be the end of that.
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37 (Doyle)
Ha ha. Yeah of course, we got stuffed 3-0 today didn’t we?
Doyle is going no where.
UTW!
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