The little teams can do it

South Korea 2 Greece 0

Spain 0 Switzerland 1

England 0 Algeria 0

Italy 1 New Zealand 1

At the end of the day it's 11 against 11 and size of club whether a national team or a League 1 team is irrelevant.

Don't talk up the likes of Charlton, Southampton, Sheffield Wednesday. talk up what these so called "little teams" did at the biggest football competition. New Zealand's last sub was a bank worker who was on leave to play in the World Cup, at least all our players are professionals and playing at the same standard as the opposition.

It's called belief, and working together as a team...... It's called PRIDE in the shirt....It's not being beat before a ball is kicked.... it's football and "little teams" can do it.

Stop it!! You will be upsetting Jeff Stelling.

i agree. How the fuck did little England manage a point?

Burnley beat Man U last year forst game and still went down. So what, daft arguement becuase over the course of a season the league will end up with the better teams on top, worse teams on bottom, even though Burnley beat Man U, a one off victory for a 'little team' doesnt mean anything in the long term.



although i completely agree with you that we can beat teams last year we classed as better than us if we sort ourselves out.

the proportionate gulf in class between Burnley and Man U is a lot bigger than that between Pools and Leeds, for instance. Pools should be far more capable of winning a game against Leeds than Burnley are of beating Man United on any given confrontation between the respective clubs.
The only side who stood out were Norwich because they had great belief in themselves over the course of the season, and that they could always win from behind - that gave them the edge over the rest of the division.They were solid and did what they had to do week in week out
Leeds were 2nd but they were beaten by many sides either home or away, many of which in turn were beaten by Pools.
eg Walsall, Gillingham.
There's definitely less of a gulf in class between top and bottom teams at our level, regardless of budgets etc. This is because no team will have truly exceptional players in the third division - because if they were that good they simply won't be found in the third division at all!!!!

This is the argument some people are (rightly in my opinion) making

Yes Southampton and Sheff Weds will have bigger fan bases etc, but will their individual players be so superior? If they are that good they'll be signed by a higher division team. Hence the difference in class is NOT so great - it always comes down to the difference in belief and mentality down here. I would rather have a team of nasty bastards who refuse to take defeat lightly (the way a Martin Allen Brentford team would). Nobody liked them, but not many could beat the fu-ckers!! And they had one of the smallest (if not THE smallest) budgets in the league!! Yet they were in the play offs 3 years running before Allen fu-cked off!!!!

Cue people saying I am asking for Allen as manager - I'm not - but someone of his sheer bloody mindedness and determination would go down very well

The bigger teams are more able to attract and retain players who wouldn't normally be playing at this level though Mr Parmo.

Beckford stayed at Leeds longer than he'd have stayed at Pools or Orient because of not only the potential to climb the leagues with them but also their ability to pay him the equivalent of Championship wages.

There will be similar situations with players at the likes of Southampton, Charlton, Sheff Wed etc.

It doesn't make them unbeatable, it's just not quite as straightforward as your argument suggested.

Ian Holloway is the classic example at Blackpool which goes to show that the small clubs can perform better than the Big Boys (M'bro, Sheffield United, Sheffield Wednesday etc) on a limited budget. Holloway adopts a positive approach, instills confidence in his players and when they cross the white line they believe they can win. Turner's approach is to talk up the opposition, say how hard it is going to be so by the time the players cross the white line they are phycologically defeated. It's quite simple really - just a bit of postive thinking can make the difference between promotion and relegation. We've not seen the positive approach since Neale Cooper's days.

as I've said many times before, Turner can't be defended at all, it is down to him that the team has a cap-doffing mentality. I don't want that - I want PMA from a tough optimistic ruthless bastard running my team!! Go get us one Mr Hodcroft!!!

Spot om Kirsty - lets hope Turner has taken the hint and adopts a more positive approach next season.