bearded_red

Winnable game against a club I despise. Good draw in my opinion.

Can't wait for Bobby's inevitable Ballon d'Or victory.

Just came off the bench according to Tinman on Twitter.

I ******* hate Reading. The club and the away day. Really looking forward to next Saturday..

Perhaps he should call ahead.

Named him as a possible loan signing when we were talking at the end of last season about clubs possibly being interested in sending their young players here after Tammy's success. Could go either way of course, but in my opinion an exciting signing and adds some much needed pace into our squad in forward areas.

Can someone come and pick Robbored up please? He's shat himself for attention again.

You won't find me arguing with that! Absolutely loved the bloke.

I must say I don't see this view that we've been particularly unstable compared to other clubs and this desire to stick with a largely under performing manager should be celebrated because it is bringing much needed stability. Have we had any more managers than the average over the last ten years? We have had the same owner and fairly cosy boardroom now for a lot longer than most. Due to our seemingly inherent desire to do little more than spend our entire existence bobbing between the top half of the third tier and and the bottom half of the second tier it could be argued we are a lot more stable than most. Anyway I can't help but feel that in football although stability may be something you ideally achieve it isn't the ultimate aim above everything else. On the last day of the 2007/08 season Leicester played away at Stoke. That match signalled Stoke's promotion to the Premier League and Leicester's relegation to the third tier. Since that day Leicester have sacked Ian Holloway (well played), appointed Nigel Pearson, won League 1, lost Nigel Pearson to Hull, appointed Paulo Sousa, sacked him after less than three months, appointed Sven, sacked Sven, re-appointed Nigel Pearson, won the Championship, sacked Nigel Pearson, appointed Claudio Ranieri, won the Premier League, sacked Ranieri, appointed Craig Shakespeare, reached a Champions League quarter-final. By contrast Stoke have gone 12th, 11th, 13th, 14th, 13th, 9th, 9th, 9th and 13th. At some point in the middle swapping Pulis for Hughes. I'm not saying Stoke's achievement in establishing themselves as a Premier League club isn't a good one, but I don't think Leicester fans would swap.. At the very top level, and it isn't overly relevant to us, but compare Chelsea's success to Arsenal's over the last 13 seasons.. I must say as well that I thought we had actually move with the times and the Head Coach was a role that could be changed (maybe even having some success and seeing him poached by another club!) and the change to bring in a new one doesn't lead to mass changes. He doesn't bring a load of his own staff in that then go with him. The way the club operates isn't a one man vision who runs the entire affair. I absolutely agree with someone higher up than the guy that picks the team deciding on the 'philosophy' of a club. The characteristics you want from the team. The way you operate in the transfer market. The Head Coach has to buy into this of course, but he is ultimately dispensible when the team is failing on the pitch. Swansea when going up through the league to establish themselves in the Premier League had a certain way of playing. That didn't end when a manager got sacked or left for better things, the next manager appreciated that playing like that was part of his job. The famous database Southampton have of prospective players when they lose their star names didn't vanish when Pochettino goes, he and the managers after him work under that system. Les Reed's role at Southampton may have been slightly different to Ashton's here, but essentially the coaches there were working under the framework Reed puts in place. The stability comes from higher up than the head coach. Sacking a manager and replacing him doesn't involve ripping it up and starting again. You replace him with someone that understands and appreciates how the club operates, but hopefully produces more points on a Saturday afternoon. Appreciating all this, why is it that our two assistant coaches have in one case worked with Johnson previously and in the other played with him and is a close friend? Are these two going to stay when Johnson gets sacked? Are they really the two best men for the jobs they do? Now whether your opinion on Steve Cotterill and Gary Johnson is the highest or lowest you read on here, I think we would all agree that both are fairly autocratric. You can imagine that both could be incredibly difficult. Yet both of them, when it comes to their assistant, worked with someone that was already at the club and then stayed on after they left. Now we call form an opinion, based on little, about how good a coach John Pemberton and Keith Millen were, but they were employed by the club to do the roles they did and both managers worked with them, they didn't have to replace them with people they were more friendly with. Bearing in mind again that the way the club should operate now Lee Johnson is a Head Coach. Why has he quite clearly been allowed such input on which coaches he works with. Is that aspiring to be the absolute best we can be, or is it just a all a bit cosy. Now fine, I get the argument that some managers wouldn't buy into someone above them having a say in how they want their team to play or not allowing them complete control in the transfer market. But in the modern game, most fully accept it as it happens at pretty much every club and some actually much prefer concentrating on coaching the players anyway. For example when we sold Baldock to Brighton they had just employed Sami Hyypia as manager who had been sacked as Bayer Leverkusen manager. Do you think that transfer happened because Hyypia as Leverkusen manager had been really impressed with Baldock's goals in the third tier of English Football? Of course not. The Head Coach says what types of player he wants and the the scouting and analysis team produce a list of players. Again, sacking the head coach doesn't produce mass instability. They are another cog in the wheel. Huddersfield and Reading had very similar seasons to us 2 years ago. One team employed a USA international who was coaching at Borussia Dortmund, the other a Dutch international who was coaching at Ajax. We went for someone that just happened to play for us, be the son of of a previous manager and family friend of the owner. Now I'm not actually saying he should be ruled out because of those facts, but to the outsider which clubs have shown more ambition? Which clubs have looked as far as they possibly can for the best candidate? Should either of them be poached by another club at some stage, or even sacked, they will bring in a replacement that works under the same model. The club won't just be out on it's feet because the Head Coach has had to change. I think we all know what it is about Lee Johnson that got him the job and kept him his job last season. You can hardly be surprised when some people think it stinks. The manager is a friend of the owner, the coaches are friends of the manager. Not exactly ruthless ambition is it.

Likewise I very much doubt Ipswich will be anything like up there as with their squad I'm pretty sure they'll be a lot nearer being 'down there'. As you say though 12 points from the same teams we have 5. A much better start before they, like us, start playing teams with stronger squads and, frankly, better players. This won't be popular, but you give Lee Johnson the squad that Ipswich have and have had the last couple of seasons and I'm pretty sure they get relegated. Not so with Mick..

His team also managed to keep a clean sheet against Brentford yesterday while an injury crisis meant his entire back four were fullbacks.

Awful game. Two awful teams. But Millwall slightly better purely because they have a game plan (however ugly) that takes into account they're not very good. Heard Twentyman read out an hilarious tweet asking if 12th was the limit of our ambition..Try those two numbers the other way round. Awful.

Fantastic. I've tried to be accurate and failed. Back in my box.

Just for accuracy, and I'm possibly being a bit pernickity, but those players were convicted of affray rather than GBH.