LondonBristolian

Even with the “old boys” recruitment approach though, it is arguably symptomatic of Pearson taking over with a CEO outgoing along with key parts of a recruitment team which was not performing fantastically in any case. I think the signings of Simpson, James and King are as much to do with a need to get players in Pearson could trust quickly due to the club not having the structure in place to cast the net wider. I’d hope Atkinson and Tanner are more reflective of the signings we’re going to be making.

I think the key thing is to keep getting enough points to stay out of trouble until we get players back from injury and/or make changes in January. I’m not going to assess on any 3 game period but we don’t want the gap between us and the relegation zone to get a lot smaller, for sure.

Snap.

I think the answer is simple. Wednesday we had Williams and today we did not. We have an unbalanced squad and our overly reliant on certain players. We don’t have Williams and we don’t have James or King either. Benarous needs experienced heads around him, Bakinson only performs when the midfield has structure and Massengo does not have Williams’ positional discipline. Meaning that - as decent a player as Massengo is - a midfield of Massengo, Bakinson and Benarous works far worse than one of Williams, Bakinson and Benarous.

Ok. My opinion is not my opinion because I have not taken the trouble of memorising everything you have ever posted. Possibly one of the weirder comments I have ever read on here but, hey, each to their own.

It is a forum. You cannot whinge when your opinions are critiqued. Free speech works both ways. You are welcome to express an opinion and I am welcome to express an opinion on your opinion. You may want to stop grousing and deal with the fact that free speech means both the freedom to express an opinion and others’ freedom to respond to it.

You are welcome to state your opinion. I just wonder how annoyed you were against Stoke when you didn’t get an opportunity to state it. You are free to state your opinion and I am free to form my own opinion of fellow City fans who gloat when we lose.

Do we have to start this conversation again every time we lose? I would understand it after three bad performances in a row but two decent performances in the last week seem to fly out the window, along with the fact we are missing our three most experienced central midfielders. Yes - it is worrying how dependent our season appears to be on Williams’ hamstrings but bored by supporters of a team expected to finish lower mid table throwing their toys out the pram because we lost away to a team just out of the premier league when we have injuries and they have a new manager bounce.

Is Palmer injured? If not, it is an utterly damning indictment of where he is at the moment that we have no central midfielders on the bench but are going with two left backs instead of him…

I agree with all that. It just feels novel for a 50/50 to fall our way. I think we deserved a win but, on another day, Fletcher and Campbell could have scored, Scott could have been sent off and the penalty shout could have gone against us. We’ve had Blackpool, Swansea, Luton and Forest that felt like those kinds of games and it is great not to be cursing our luck for a change…

Absolutely but it feels like every other game this season, teams HAVE buried those chances against us. I love a team coming away feeling frustrated and hard done by...

Although we're still 18th, we're now as many points to the play-offs as we are away from the relegation zone...

Absolutely - I'm really not trying to take anything away from the players at all and I think a major difference tonight is the players didn't look like they were waiting for it all to go wrong - which is certainly how it felt against Luton, for example. But today really felt like our day from about the middle of the second half onwards and you could sort of tell our players believed they were getting the result and Stoke didn't believe they were going to score...

This really isn't a criticism of the players tonight. That was a very sold, structured performance where we worked really hard, showed discipline and took our chance when we needed to. The team deserve a lot of credit. BUT the other major difference tonight is it is that - after a season of games where it has felt like our mistakes have almost always been punished with goals - we've had a game where things have fallen our way. Yes, Stoke missed chances, but it really felt like the ball was bouncing in our favour tonight. It was a really nice change. Really hope we can stay lucky for the coming weeks...

Good work from Scott, there.

Really was a dirty tackle then...

It was one of those borderline ones where yellow feels a bit lucky but red would have felt a tad harsh. Fortunate the decision went our way for sure though.

Bit worried about Jacob Brown being off the pitch for an extended period, given the last time we faced ten men...

I don't have an issue with the commentators but I do think it is a reality check as to where we now are. Neutrals expect top six teams to comfortably beat us. I'd like us to prove them wrong and get to a point where people expect us to win games but I'm not going to hold it against the commentators for being honest about where we currently stand.

What I find interesting is that, whereas usually you sacrifice a bit of physicality by playing the kids, Scott and Benarous are as physical as anyone but Baker. Admittedly that‘s partly because we lack physical players but nonetheless…

I really hope we can look as structured second half as we have in the first. Keep our shape and stay focused and we’ve every chance of seeing this through.

To be fair, we did literally the exact thing the commentator had just said we needed to do and made the most of the set piece. I’d call it a bloody good prediction…

I'm not so sure from Pearson's comments that he is on the discard pile. I wondered if he had been but Pearson's comments seem to be far more saying "look, you know you're not in form and you're making mistakes but you've got to push through it. We rate you and want you to succeed here but you've got to do some of the work yourself".

I did some training in Grimsby over the summer and I liked it a bit more than I expected, although my expectations were admittedly low. Having had to stay in both Grimsby and Milton Keynes for work this year, I preferred Grimsby by a country mile...

Damnit. I'm firing my agent!