At some primary schools I am led to believe they have a section on a Monday morning called ‘Show and Tell'. For those of you without a drain on the bank account this basically consists of the little rascals bringing to school something from their weekend to show their erstwhile colleagues and to accompany the said object with a brief explanation of its origin and significance.
The principle as far as I can tell is that rather just talk about something you actually show people, albeit little ones, and they have a better understanding of what you are on about.
I am sure that like me you all had a letter from Steve Bruce telling you how good this season was going to be and that we were going to score seventy five goals. You didn't get the letter? So that was personally sent to just me? Shit, maybe he wanted me to score the goals, I didn't realise. I shall commence training immediately and given a few weeks and I'll leave Dunn and Forssell trailing if no one else.
Ok let's go back to the maths (thumbs allowed, no gags! We've done that one). Forty six games in the league, at least one match in each cup competition (normally only the one as well) gives a grand total of 1.56 goals per game. Strictly speaking therefore we could not expect to score more than one against Leicester as doing so would have been over achieving.
I take it all back. Forget the doom and gloom my comrades the gaffer is actually doing precisely what he said he would. Bruce said he would get us promoted and score all those goals. Presently we sit in second place and have scored at a rate (in the league) of 1.4 goals a game so we have some in reserve. What more do you want?
It's time to party, caramba (?) fiesta forever. All night long.
Welcome to the Steve Bruce ‘Show and Tell'.
Hand goes up in the air.
‘Yes you boy, you at the back with the green candle what's your question?'
‘But Mr Bruce you said it was going to be entertaining as well'
‘Shut up you stupid boy, it's called luring the devoted loyal band of long suffering disciples to part with their hard earned cash in advance.'
All things in consideration we are in a decent position to move up a gear and take the division by storm. Hopefully it's like the Olympic 10,000 metres final and we are the trio of Kenyans sitting on the shoulder of the pasty European who is running like he needs the toilet whilst the black boys in red vests are trotting and chatting safe in the knowledge that they are sharing three medals.
The crux of the whole season is that we are in second place. Come May that will be enough, I don't care if the ovine fornicators are above us. We have once again amassed a fine array of individual talent and have players worthy of a Premiership career, some of them have already had a go at it. We have a very rich board who surely are commercially aware enough to avoid the disasters of the last campaign. We have a young manager who was linked with the Newcastle and England jobs not so long ago. His footballing brain which served him so well during a wonderful career must be informing him of the right things to do and the wrong things to avoid. Being a football manager must be a learning curve. The important thing is progress, learn from the mistakes. Do you think Bruce has learned from his mistakes? We all make them, he never said he was infallible. He's not Captain Scarlet.
I don't speak for any other fan when I say that we have regressed and are only now slowly starting to recover. The early days of the Premiership were frantic hundred miles an hour rollercoaster orgies. The move to the next level worked in that we definitely moved but unfortunately it was down.
The start of this season was all too familiar, poor passing, tactical naivety, no cohesion and once again no gelling amongst the team. Over the last few weeks though there seems to be some advances and perhaps the light at the end of the tunnel is not an oncoming locomotive.
We still have the top half of the table to play as we are not even a quarter through the season and if anyone wants to award us second place now then I am sure we would all take it. I have never called for Brucie's potato head and I'm not going to start now. All I want is him to give us what he promised. Goals, entertainment, free beer and dancing girls.
Luton away. Their ground was modelled on a shoe box and holds as many people. I hate any ground where the away fans have to watch the game at pitch level like meerkats. But hey as long as we can come back up the M1 to the second city with three points then I'll put up with seeing the goals later. Late injury newsflash, Dunn is injured. Who would have thought those three words would ever been seen together? It is disturbing that Bendtner was injured playing for Denmark, why doesn't he play for a decent country? This does provide an opportunity for the wannabes to step up to the mark and show why they deserve a place in front of a loan signing. So come on Cameron and Forssell, ‘Show and Tell'.
Keep right on. I told my girlfriend I got a job in the local bowling alley. ‘Ten pin?' she said, ‘No it's permanent', I said.