Esmond Million's Bung

Looks like tikka takka woosh tonight then? I expect huge numbers of shots on target, great crossing and not forgetting our incredible repertoire of highly inventive free kick routines. But will settle for one shot on target, the odd cross that doesn't hit the first defender and a free kick that the goalkeeper actually has to save.

Final score Doncaster 50 Ealing 19.

43 - 14.

40 - 14.

With 15 minutes to go Ealing losing 33 - 14.

Big win tonight at Nottingham 17 - 60, 8 tries, bonus point, Doncaster at home to finish the job off.

And you are mostly correct but sadly to some posters LJ is beyond criticism and today and several other performance over our mainly abject 3 month poor run, he has made some astonishingly poor decisions. Not least our January window, it is a window that should have seen us signing players to help maintain our position and ended up as signing 2 poor players at this level and another who isn't getting a look in and then there Eliasson, I for one would love to know whatever is going on there, he must be watching the performances of Paterson and Kent and thinking WTF am I doing here.

Yes he is, but he is not beyond criticism either and today he got little if anything at all right, January's business was piss poor, Kent and Diony are just hopeless, his constant selection of Paterson is totally bewildering and his habit of chasing games for all 3 points is backfiring on him.

We didn't turn up today, we got very lucky indeed. I think what people are missing is that LJ as a manager has great runs of results followed by poor runs of results and they tend to occur for months at a time. Somebody wisely said in an earlier post that if the poor results were more evenly spread people would not be so concerned and that is possibly true but they are not and it is a worrying trait from the whole of his managerial career.

Well in my humble opinion, we got away with that one, we were mainly abject today in what has mainly been an abject 3 months. LJ who sometimes seems be beyond criticism got pretty much everything wrong today. Team selection, it was always going to be physical game and he played Paterson who is the softest player on the books and in the middle of a shocking run of form, he leaves out Kelly who had looked solid and replaces him with Bryan who has been struggling for form at left back for a while now, when I would have thought that playing Bryan in a midfield would have been a wiser option. Substitutes, having made the decision to play Paterson, he takes him off and then inflicts Kent upon us, whose first 4 actions were to give 2 passes away leaving us chasing breakaways and then 2 more passes straight into touch. Kent has been a shocking and unnecessary signing. Djuric for Pack was simply ridiculous, we had a point and he decides to chase the game for all 3 points and it nearly cost us the game. We got into some very good crossing positions today but our crossing especially when we have time to pick somebody out is aimless. A point is a point and it’s to our credit that as always we kept going but it has to be said we were lucky in so many ways today, with all of the above and Wright lucky not to have been sent off. LJ you need to up your game, you got it wrong today.

Pisano not close enough to cut the cross out and Baker ball watching. LJ has got this totally wrong today.

Don't worry Kent is on.

Honestly if Eliasson is worse than Kent he must be ******* appalling, Liverpool rising star? my arse.

What a save caused by Reid being caught in possession AGAIN. Mcburnie still in the referees face and sweet **** all being done about it.

What a bizarre game of football, we are lumbering between the abject and the odd glimpse of sublime. Wright was lucky he wasn't sent off, but that came from Bryan and Paterson piss arsing around in the Barnsley half and being caught out again. Bryan looks a bag of nerves, Paterson has been largely anonymous. The midfield has struggled to gain any kind of dominance. Now Diedhiou, he scored a wonderful goal but he does frustrate me, for such a big man he is so very easy to move off of the ball and consequently the ball is just not being held up to give us any respite. We are technically better than them but need to start winning more battles in midfield. And how long is the referee going to allow that ***** McBurnie to get into his face FFS.

I would have played Kelly and brought Bryan in place of struggling Paterson in midfield. Eliasson not even on the bench again.

According to my sums 2 normal wins (no bonus points) will be enough to secure promotion.

13 points from 13 games since January 1st, that is appalling form and worse than that we look totally disorganised and lacking in creativity, but most worrying is that the midfield for me which had been a strength up until the turn of the year look as though they have never played together. Don't get me wrong I am genuinely happy with our position in this league for a change, to be honest my biggest disappointment is overwhelmingly our poor transfer business in January, I believe that we missed a chance to significantly improve our squad and have totally failed, we should have been looking at players who were signed to consolidate our lofty position and we failed.

I am quite happy to consign this result into the ‘result more important than performance category’ but anyone who believes that we are contenders on this form is sadly mistaken. This is what I said at half time and it is true, We play nice one touch football up until the halfway line and then totally run out of ideas and then revert to a ‘chuckle brothers’ style of ‘to me, to you, to me, to you, oops it’s been intercepted’, we even tried that tactic on the edge of our own box a couple of times. A classic example of this was on 82 minutes, we had a free kick in a reasonably advanced position and we have a giant to aim at in the box and Pack gives Smith a sideways pass which was behind him, Smith slips and has to take a yellow to stop them breaking away, get into the ******* box FFS, we need some creativity and a leader who can organise better and more practice at crossing and free kicks. No invention, no penetration, poor crossing, poor decision making, we have not created a single chance. Diedhiou was awful and rightly replaced, Kelly by far the MOM and great to see one good cross in a game. As for Paterson yet another master class in mediocrity, I don’t think LJ is doing him any favours by continuing to play him, he is defensively a liability and is offering nothing going forward.

Great goal, Kelly's cross was sublime probably the best cross for 3 months or more.

I think that's called a sitter. But looked like a shitter.

Plan B, woosh. Kelly has our first shot on target, well of sorts.

Wow another in our latest instalment of dull, uninspiring and truly poor performances. We play nice one touch football up until the halfway line and then totally run out of ideas and then revert to a ‘chuckle brothers’ style of ‘to me, to you, to me, to you, oops it’s been intercepted’, we even tried that tactic on the edge of our own box a couple of times. No invention, no penetration, poor crossing, poor decision making, we have not created a single chance. Diedhiou is having a mare, his first touch is awful, his passing is awful and he is simply not holding the ball up and going down far too easily. Kelly looks really comfortable as does Pisano, in fact the defence looks relatively untroubled but so does Ipswich’s. If I had to come up with a phrase to describe this game so far it would be ‘a steaming pile of rancid dog shit’.

Agree with the first part but as for the highlighted part I have been waiting for this to happen for about 6 weeks.

I am wondering exactly how badly Paterson has to play to be dropped?. I always hope that he will prove me wrong in this poor run of form for player and team, but I cannot believe that he keeps his place and made worse for me seeing Kent on the bench and our own wide man Eliasson not. Disappointed.