And Its Smith

Very good interview with Dele Alli on MNF. He seems in a much better place now, mentally. Talking about wanting it again and being hungry. Only 28.  Will be interesting to see where he goes next.  Wants to go to the World Cup in 2026.  His priority needs to be going to somewhere where he will play. 

26 minutes ago, Lrrr said:

I think the annoyance partly comes from it being a round where every game was a draw, we had a game that could have seen a win but because both teams don't want to lose we miss out on what could have been an exciting finish.

I don’t think it was neither team wanted to lose.  It was neither team thought they could win from where the game was.  

7 minutes ago, Malago said:

Nay, nay and thrice nay, Foden is wasted playing wide.  He has to start at No 10 with Bellingham and Rice deeper.

If you start Foden, Palmer and Saka then one needs to play out of their ideal position 

If Poch had anything about him he’d bring Madueke and Jackson off immediately 

Everton effort levels are a disgrace 

37 minutes ago, Lrrr said:

Should they be allowed to though? Teams can’t shake hands in football after 89 minutes because they’re happy with a point, there was game time left, should the whole time be played and whatever result come what may, would be annoyed as a spectator in the ground at that point 

Personally I’ve got no issue with it.  It’s not football so don’t think the comparison is there really.  I’m a traditionalist though!

3 minutes ago, Lrrr said:

Genuine question, should teams be allowed to shake hands for the draw when Somerset and Surrey did? Chance of a result was much higher then the start of Surrey’s innings, should the umpire have the power to say it’s still light and we can see the game out? 

If both teams are happy with the draw then there’s no issue is there ?  The start of Surrey’s innings, Surrey wouldn’t have shook 

Surely it’s two draws for glos and som from here

1 hour ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

You said you trusted the judgement of Liam Manning over Nigel Pearson.

This is despite Liam Manning having no body of evidence behind him if developing youth as a manager. 

Just bizarre that you trust his judgement over someone who did have a massive body of evidence of developing youth as a manager. 

Where did he say he trusted Manning over Pearson?

15 minutes ago, Clutton Caveman said:

We need strikers, nothing should remove that focus

We don’t JUST need strikers. We need people to get the ball to those strikers in advanced positions as well

8 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

FWIW I’ve not looked at any stats for Twine, what I’ve seen with my eyes is enough.  I think suggesting Twine is behind our results, and him being out behind the losses is a big reach (my opinion).  Against Leicester he wasn’t on the pitch when we scored for example.  I’m not convinced his inability to retain the ball under challenge is much to do with a makeshift defence.  I’m not sure what the reason was for his other peripheral performances have been.

Who knows, maybe he has a storming final 3 games, but I’ve been hugely underwhelmed so far.  

Sorry to be so down on this one.  I was really excited to see him in a City shirt having thought we missed out on him previously.

I agree to a very small extent….But It cost us to find out.  I don’t expect recruitment to nail it every time, but I’d hope it wouldn’t always take a loan (with loan fee and wages) to find out.  Ditto Mebude.

I still think we will try to get him too.  I bloody hope not though.

They’d have to give us some £millions too imho!

I’d rather spend a bit to find out if we should spend a lot

19 minutes ago, Lanterne Rouge said:

61 lead with six down at stumps. Just need to dig in tomorrow morning. I still think it will be over by tea though.

Ah shit thought it was day four! Yeah we’ve lost that then 

30 minutes ago, Lanterne Rouge said:

Not going well at the Oval. A lead of 24 with four wickets left.

Should be fine I think. The Somerset tail has some balls about it most days 

2 hours ago, Lrrr said:

Seb's problem will be the intensity of the Championship vs League Two and bringing himself up to the level physically, his physical data vs Wells & Conway is still some way short in most areas except the distance they all cover when sprinting per 90 minutes played, things like total distance & running at say 70% to 80% he's still some way short of the level. Could open him up as an option off the bench if deemed good enough but then its a balance of is his development best served doing that or on loan in say League One or the SPL as a bridge loan for him to get closer. 

Seb is working privately with his own coaching team and has been for over 2 years now. He is getting bigger for next season but they are very careful not to go too far and impact his sharpness. He’s pretty strong already to be fair 

There was a lot of opposition to this loan but I think it has worked well as it has shown that he isn’t exactly what we need and we now know that the £4m that Burnley allegedly want is too much 

What a night that was. One of the best away games I’ve been too. I think we sung for the entirety of the second half 

4 minutes ago, FNQ said:

We support the same club and ultimately want the same thing… however  the Sunderland game a few days before the extraordinary Blackburn game and yesterday a few days later were frankly very, very poor performances . Beating Swansea in another low quality game and Plymouth may have assisted putting us top of a form table.. but you can’t unsee the performances, people are entitled to be offside. We all want to see the green shoots that you mention, and I know I’m going over it again, but ironically that was exactly what a lot of the us were beginning to see at the start of this season and then for reasons most of us will never understand it all changed.

Everyone will get over that at different points, I get that.  In this league nobody plays well every game and we are poor and draw then it’s not all bad is it.  Everyone needs next season to start well to help people move on and make this forum less of a shit show than it is at the moment 

1 minute ago, FNQ said:

Thing is there’s nothing much different being dished up on the pitch week on week, we’re watching the same dross over and over and over again.. there’s nothing being offered by the club performance wise to change the narrative. And if the changes to the squad over the summer are modest as we are being led to believe and not wholesale, why should we remotely believe LM will be able to deliver anything different next term? It’s friggin depressing, I can’t get why you don’t see that?

The last 5 games we are top of the form table. That is remarkably different to the previous 5 games. We’ve just won 5-0 which wasn’t dross and nor was the Leicester game.  It’s up to you how you want to view it all.  Is it ideal? No. But I prefer to see the glimmers of hope than wallow and keep repeating the same stuff about top 6 squad etc. I work hard all week so prefer to try to find the positives in a football match, a string of results, a good 45 mins etc. 

The same stuff being posted over and over and over again! 

If we were bottom of the form league this would get more comments!

7 minutes ago, Shauntaylor85 said:

Real progress! Top six squad we were told! Progressive appointment….sorry a couple of scrappy results isn’t convincing me (and I include a 5.0 win in that which for me was almost as bad a performance as some of the others…gifted 5 goals and created little ourselves). Worried for next season, he will get the summer and first 10 games for me but I’m not convinced he is any better than LJ. 

Last season was written off around the same time 

At this today. Some familiar names. Amazing coaches

23 minutes ago, Glen hump said:

What part of Mallorca our you going too ?

Alcudia. Did Cala D’Or last year.  Would like to be able to afford Tenerife as loved the north of that island a few years ago.  Have you done Mallorca ?

1 hour ago, Glen hump said:

That’s incredible’ it’s usually far more expensive flying from exeter.

Yeah I must admit that is one I don’t always check but glad I did this time!