' 'e wouldn't be up for Brentford away on a wet Tuesday night in January'

[CanaryOnTheWire]

I'm just interested in the fans' perspective on footballers and their mentalities.

Take for example, Leroy Fer or Ricky van Wolfswinkel

do you think they'd be 'up for Brentford away on a wet Tuesday night in January'?

Personally I believe an individual's work ethic has nothing to do with their price tag or whether they have come from abroad. I thought it was abundantly clear that Fer was a very combative and hard working tackler and ball distributor, and van Wolfswinkel was our hardest working striker by a country mile when fit and playing

So why have I just read (admittedly not on this MB, on a far less mature forum) that Fer 'wouldn't be up for Brentford away on a wet Tuesday night'?

How do you honestly know? What is it based on? Is it just the same scapegoat mentality that Nathan Redmond is currently bearing the brunt of?

 

[Andy]

As Russ Martin said in his blog yesterday

"Perception from the outside and reality inside football clubs are often very different and sometimes worlds apart. As is the case sometimes with fans' opinions as they only see what happens for 90 or 180 minutes a week. For the rest of the week all sorts of different things are going on back at the training ground - on the pitch, in the gym, in the physio room - that might affect a result and help or hinder the team in its quest for victory.

I'm inventing these examples, but we might talk about the new kid on the block who the press are touting as the next Messi or Ronaldo, only for one of his colleagues to tell us that in fact he has been very fortunate and will never kick on. Maybe because he's injury prone, or has a fondness for a night out partying, a thirst for an alcoholic beverage, a big ego, or maybe just a lack of ability that will get found out eventually. "

Most of us fans don't know the players personally but some keyboard warriors create a narrative around certain players then form "opinions" based largely on ignorance. Why do some fans believe that Becchio has been treated badly? We have no idea about what he's like behind the scenes. Would Leroy Fer be up for a Tuesday night in Brentford? Who knows?

Colin's book "the Gaffer" deals with this quite well, he makes the point that players are human with frailties, vices, nagging wives, family disputes, injuries, prejudices etc which can affect their attitudes, confidence and preferences. Fans know nothing of these but feel able to express their opinions regardless.

Personally, I prefer to base my opinions on what I see on the pitch and directly from the players.

 

[Yellow Fever]

IMO, Leroy would love it because he and his WAG could have a night out in London afterwards!

Seriously, he's a professional footballer who has spent all but last year in the Netherlands, where it rains a lot as well as getting even colder. Some fans have such a superficial view of players it's sometimes very embarrassing. What really gets me is the 'I know what he's thinking' sort of assertion (often used against Chris Hughton last year). It's one of many weaknesses of the 'messageboard', 'Twitter' and 'Facebook' era.

 

[splutcho]

Basically the people that say these things tend to have some mild xenophobia and automatically assume that those from foreign countries don't have "bottle" or passion, while all English players are lionhearts.

 

[Canaryboy]

The more I think about the £10m we got for Fer the better the deal sounds to me. Whilst I don't subscribe to the notion that Leroy Fer wouldn't have put in the effort if he'd of been forced to stay, I don't have confidence that he will ever manage any more than 25 to 30 games a season due to the need to manage his fitness. 

And 25 to 30 games in a 46 game league season, with likely additional cup fixtures and the possibility of the play offs, is far few games as a proportion than it is in a 38 game league season with two cup by's. In that respect, he may actually be a better player to have in the Premier League than he ever would have been in the Championship. 

It won't be pleasant lining up against him if we go up and QPR stay up though, and maybe we should have inserted a buy back clause to execute in the event of them going down and us going back up this season. 

 

[CanaryOnTheWire]

Pleased to hear you guys seem to see it the sane way as I do.

Unfortunately someone will ring up Canary Call about that 'didgeridoo' (Odjidja-Ofoe) and that he 'int got the grit fer the Chaaaaaampunship'

Fortunately these people are not representative of most of our fans who I largely find are well reasoned in their football opinions (apart from those I sit near at FCR, but you can't win em all!

 

[Killiecanary]

Dare I suggest that our erstwhile captain would be a likely candidate for not fancying it that much?

 

[cityoldboy]

I wonder how many footballers from any club would be prepared to face the 8 hour trip 

on 3 broken down trains on a dry night back from Liverpool Street to Norwich after 

playing Brentford away as us fans endured last time we went to Griffin Park ?

 

[Robert Brompton]

Lets just hope that we have plenty who are up for a Tuesday night at Brentford in September.  I have never seen us win there and I'm anticipating breaking that duck on the 16th!

 

[cityoldboy]

So am I. A great away trip to this area of London. 

 

[It's Character Forming]

I was interested to see this topic, I think it was my comment on the pinkun mb that Fer would probably not be up for a wet Tuesday evening playing Brentford, if I didn't say it, I agree with it.  It was peculiar to see it get a whole thread on here but nice to know people were reading my comments anyway.

Why did I say this? Well, nothing to do with him being foreign or highly paid, as some people have assumed.... I make no comment on why they've made those assumptions.

The main reason I think this way is because Fer has always been the sort of player who drifts in and out of games, and IMO if we as a team were playing well, he'd then come into the game more, whereas when the team were looking poor, he tended to go missing (e.g. Hull away at the start of last season).  Just the wrong sort of player for the scrappy mid-week games in the Championship.

And it's only human nature that when you've played and scored in the World Cup the summer before, it would be hard to motivate yourself for a trip to an unfashionable club that is over-achieving to be in the Championship on a wet winter evening. Not an unreasonable assumption I think.

It brings to mind when we won away at Walsall midweek in L1 on a pitch that was more mud than grass.  We need players who'd be up for that sort of scrap and Fer isn't someone I'd expect put in that category.  So the decision to cash in at £10m was for me the right call, the players we've brought in in midfield look more like the right type for the Champ to me.

I don't know the guy obviously but that's my opinion based on watching him a lot last season.

 

[CanaryOnTheWire]

The thing is ICF whilst I may have used your statement and even Fer in question as an example, the question is more general- fans purport to know far much more about the mentalities of players, often based on a slightly jingoistic mindset, than they actually do.

I don't for a moment believe you think such things and your reasoning on Fer seems to hold water and I would say is fair enough.

Certainly, however (again you did not suggest this) it is not the player's price tag or country of origin that dictates whether he would be 'up for it', more his own mental attributes, as you evidence with the way he has been prone to drift in and out of games.

It was not a personal attack ICF, just something that spawned the idea for a thread.

 

[Graham Paddon's Beard]

I went to Brentford , with my son , when we lost in the third division or whatever it was called. We were terrible. Owain Tudur Tenpole scored a deflected free kick in the 88th minute. Lambert watched from the stands. The chippy ran out of chips. Stood behind the goal wishing I was somewhere else.

That night was the lowest league position I think we have been in, in my whole football supporting lifetime. I first went to see us play St Mirren in a pre season in 1972.

I wouldn't hurry back to be fair...

 

[CanaryOnTheWire]

I was at Brentford, while it was terrible, that OTJ free kick won me £28 on the in coach sweepstake!

 

[cityoldboy]

For me its about the entire day / evening out so definately going back to Brentford on Tuesday.