Anthony O’Connor .. & any other 'Off Topic' Issues!

Said a few times for me he has been our best defender this season.

 

Reckon hes the best defender in the league my POTY so far, massive change to last season!

 

Paudie will be watching BRE's great heading and tackles with awe but he'll be learning how to organise the back 4, keep a cool head and manage forwards out of the game from AoC. He's my player of the year so far. Nobody has been as consistently good. If you make defending a bit dull, you are doing it really well.

 

I'll never forgive him for wiping his arse with the captain's armband last season, can't believe this has been forgotten already.

 

I thought yesterday was the best performance I've seen from him in a city shirt. I'd still though like to play Paudie at the back and AOC in midfield for Akpan at the moment whilst we have injuries.

 

Did he actually do that though?

 

If you were demoted at work and your replacement fell ill on his first day in your job, would you go and meekly fill in for him when asked or would you kick off first? And there's no telling what else went off around that time and shortly before. Allegedly, when confronted by a fan about it, he said the fans had no idea what was going on behind the scenes. (Non-disclosure agreements would not necessarily end just when Edin departed.) He played okay when Bowyer came in after that, though. AoC said at the end of last season that he wanted to stay and put things right. He's doing just that. I remember after the last game of the season and him walking slowly right around the edge of the pitch saying thank you to fans and giving some small kid in the Sunwin his kit, when the team was being booed and several players scarpered. He did not hide. I was impressed. I thought it took balls to do that. I bet that kid loves his kit now and isn't the slightest bit bothered about an old spat between AoC and Drury.

 

Goes to show "lost causes" can come good.
Credit to AOC,his attitude has been different
class from last season but he is now playing
in a proper "team"!

 

The armband thing I can't forgive him for but unlike @JonButterfield i am willing to understand that last season Edin and others were effecting the club. Having Hopkin as manager wouldn't have helped matters.

AOC has been decent this season but let's not go extra he still needs to go to the next level that I am sure he's capable of.

 

Say what you like, but you've railroaded several of our current players as woeful and nowhere near good enough - you've said the manager hasn't got a clue - now your overview seems to be that those players who were awful last season are now doing okay because they're doing what Bowyer wants?

Surely bad players under a bad manager does not equal acceptable performances?

Unless you're willing to retract your nonsense about Bowyer being a bad manager, I'm afraid you can't really call other people out on their opinions of players.

Regardless, I'm nowhere near ready to forgive AOC, and I couldn't care less if he leaves. Paudie and BRE will be more than sufficient.

 

A OConnor has been our player of the season and along with others like Our keeper have improved immeasurable from last season.
As for the arm band so called incident it must be one of the biggest storm in a teacup happenings in history

 

That's funny, on 909 today they discussed at length the Granit Xhaka incident.

Pretty much all of the professionals said there are two things that you absolutely cannot do, ever - disrespect the shirt, or disrespect the armband.

I guess we have low standards as a lower league side, but frankly, mine aren't that low.

 

Fully agree with you on this..

You can't disrespect the clubs armband.. unforgivable!

 

Exactly.

It's one thing to say that playing for a club is not an honour and you're not really bothered, it's quite another to say that CAPTAINING the team means absolutely zilch and you really could not care less.

O'Connor chose to prioritise his animosity towards the club/situation over being a professional and wearing our armband with pride. I guarantee he didn't think he would still be here now at that point, so I'm not interested in hearing him waffling out about how everything is for the team.

EDIT: to clarify that point, there isn't a single thing he can say that will erase his actions last year. That's partly because I don't want to hear him say anything.

I'm not going to hassle the guy out on the pitch, but I'm not going to respect him as a character either.

 

I don’t really understand why people are so fixated on captains and “the armband”. It’s just a piece of elasticated material, nothing more. Some people will motivate and lead the players vocally, some will quietly lead by example and some will need to be led. Wearing an armband doesn’t change that. I can’t understand why you and some others on here are so upset about what he did/didn’t do with the armband.

The performances were my issue with him and he’s rectified his performances and that’s all that matters.

 

If he or any other is putting in the effort and performance for the Club, then imo, they are respecting the shirt.

 

The next level should apply to all not just O'connor

 

The guy is doing his best to put things right by playing the best he can for the shirt and putting his body on the line for the club week after week, Give the guy a break

 

You could break anything down to meaningless materialism, but it doesn't make any sense.

It's like burning all your money and saying 'I don't see what the problem is, it's just a material', or demolishing your own house and wondering why the missus is going nuts and saying 'its just bricks and timber, who cares', or more aptly, destroying your marriage certificate and saying 'its just some paper, less value than an elasticated piece of cloth'.

The argument doesn't fly, at all.