Philtex
Player Valuation: Free Transfer
Greetings from Dallas Texas... as a lifetime Dallas Cowboy fan, I had no previous interest or patience in the sport of football so popular in the rest of the world. Even growing up, I detested soccer. However after watching the last 2 World Cups, I slowly started to enjoy and appreciate this great game. Once this last World Cup ended, I felt a little let down- and ended up heeding the advice of a local sports radio station that suggested its listeners should adopt a Premier league team to follow. After doing a bit of research online, I ended up with the Everton boys. Three months later, I do not regret my choice- I will be a Toffee fan for life! With the time difference I usually cannot watch live, but its been great to record each match and sit down with my son, some cold beer and a nice fire. However, what brought me to this forum today was an attempt to get some fan perspective- the QPR match broadcast seemed very odd to my son and I, and we actually spent more of our time laughing and yelling at the announcers! They went on and on about how lucky each goal was by deflection and seemed to spend the entire broadcast telling us how awful Everton was and how bad they felt for QPR. I have seen every match since October, and what I saw last night seemed about the same. (so I cannot compare to past seasons) Yes its not always aggressive and exciting- I am not sure if that is due to available personnel or the conservative style that Martinez coaches, but for a life long American football fan, this team is very entertaining. Does this years team play a completely different style and technique than previous years? I can certainly understand long time supporters being frustrated if things are not living up to expectations. From a newbie point of view, it does appear that we do not have 2 or 3 offensive scoring threats to strike fear in the hearts of opponents, which would be nice- only Lukaku seems to rise to the occasion sometimes with pure athleticism. Barkley has really shined the last few matches I have seen so hopefully he can continue to develop. I think we have also really missed Naismith during this stretch- he really seems to be a catalyst for setting things up in the middle. However, with that being said, our guys seem technically sound, and from my in-experienced eyes, have really been competitive in the vast majority of every contest. Not sure how hard a climb in the standings it will be from now through the end of the season to get back into contention- but I certainly did not understand some of the boos I heard on the broadcast last night. In American football, the only time we normally hear booing like that is maybe after your quarterback has thrown his 2nd or 3rd interception of the game, or maybe going into half-time and the local team is losing big, but certainly not late in a game where your team is in total control. It was 3-1 at that point in the QPR match. Anyway, that's my two cents- cheers from Texas!
