Harry Clifton

Quoted from rancido

Love him or hate him, this was the approach David Beckham had as a youth. Always stayed after training finished and continued practicing crossing and accurate passing.

When you see old footage of Beckham some of his freekicks/passing was  quality . Nice to read though what you have said about him in the above . Good from his perspective that  he went onto play for Real Madrid a club with richer European pedigree than Manchester United and one which he said was the only club he would of left Manchester for. Always pleasing to see when effort is rewarded.

Quoted from monkeyboy

Have we town fans got so used to substandard standards?

Surely everyone should be saying lets aim higher, glad sir alan didnt have this attitude

But he hired plenty of substandard players. His own son was well below standard but he insisted on playing him every week lol. With time people tend to remember only the good things and forget the bad but there was always plenty of criticism of Buckley's approach to recruitment. His main requirement seemed to be players no more than 5 inches taller than him. Buckley also destroyed the confidence of one of our more promising youngsters in his third spell in Peter Bore who had a promising start to the season being one of the few bright sparks who got immediately dropped when Buckley took charge because he decided he didn't like him, my source on this is a family member who went to school with and was friends with a lot of youth players coming up to the first team in that era. Apparently the story goes that when Buckley arrived Pete introduced himself as "Peter Bore, striker" and Buckley had a face of thunder saying "we'll see about that won't we". Apparently Buckley took his introduction as ego and decided to knock him down a peg by not playing him and destroying his love of football. Newell even tried reinventing him and bringing him back but the damage was pretty much done by then.

Buckley did many good things but he wasn't a perfect messiah by any stretch of the imagination.  

I know this thread is about Harry but I couldn't help it when I read this.

Quoted from Poojah

That this is a game of unpredictability and opinions is why love it, but I don’t feel like that is that bold a statement. At the start of this season I predicted we would finish 10th before really kicking on and having a proper go at promotion the following year. I think 10th might just be a smidge beyond us, but we’ll be there or thereabouts and I have no reason to doubt the second half of my prediction.

A recent table on Experimental 361 had us 4th on xG - this has been a season where we have lost out in the margins; Saturday being another fine example of this:


Too many times we have created the better chances in games and not taken advantage. It’s something that needs fixing, and I believe we will. A clinical, physical striker and a central midfielder with quality and experience  above this level, coupled with incremental improvements elsewhere will make a massive difference to outcomes in games next season. I have never been so sure of anything.

Top 7 next season. Minimum. You heard it here first.

Completely agree, a sprinkling of quality makes this team a play off contender at the very least.

Same pre season as everyone else. I expect to see some quality forward players in and for us to retain the quality we have at this level.

Quoted from Rick12

Good from his perspective that  he went onto play for Real Madrid a club with richer European pedigree than Manchester United and one which he said was the only club he would of left Manchester for.

It did help that Real offered him vast, enormous, bucket fulls of cash, along with the opportunity to push his profile even more internationally, thereby giving him even more earning power.

Don't get me wrong, he was a really good player, but the whole, "I would only have left MU for 'X' " is just marketing guff. He earned a fortune at LA Galaxy and didn't go there for entirely footballing reasons and his spells in Italy and France were there to keep his profile high as well as keep his career going.

Sheffield Wednesday bound...

Quoted from Maringer

It did help that Real offered him vast, enormous, bucket fulls of cash, along with the opportunity to push his profile even more internationally, thereby giving him even more earning power.

I agree earnt handsomely at Real Madrid but the pressure Beckham was under was  high especially as it was the galactico era (Figo,Ronaldo Luís Nazário de Lima . Raul, Roberto Carlos, Zidane) pushed by the president Florentino Perez and his idea of trying to buy the best players in the world.Scrutiny at that club is immense and probably more so than at Manchester United. They have two daily national football papers out there (Marca and AS)just on Real Madrid where everything about the club is assessed.

Standards at some of the top clubs are very high and they wont stand for some of the antics by some players in the lower leagues here eg heavy drinking culture which we have seen by some players at Grimsby in the past . I note for one Real Madrid were interested in signing Neymar but didnt due to scouting reports indicating he liked the nightlife too much and from a similar angle why Barcelona got rid of Ronaldinho after a initial exemplary two seasons .His love of nightlife and degradation in his attitude to training meant standards weren't kept .

Quoted from Northbank Mariner

Sheffield Wednesday bound...

can i refer you to the ska face transfer thread I've just put up??? are you willing to risk it?

Surely Harry is just the sort of player we do want to move on upwards. Isn't the plan to develop players, sell them for a profit and reinvest the money into the club? If that model is to work then we will have to get used to selling our better players for longer term gain.

If we get a reasonably good offer whilst he is under contract we should take it.

Quoted from lew chaterleys lover

Surely Harry is just the sort of player we do want to move on upwards. Isn't the plan to develop players, sell them for a profit and reinvest the money into the club? If that model is to work then we will have to get used to selling our better players for longer term gain.

If we get a reasonably good offer whilst he is under contract we should take it.

Agreeing with you again Lew!
N after Harry we could have Khouri, Braithwaite etc etc

Quoted from 123614

Interesting.  I have heard that the person we lost out to from Lincoln at the last minute of the January window was Charles Vernam and that he is nailed on to sign for us this summer.

I hope not, need better than Verman next season, if we want to improve next season.