Olé

Let’s just remember that we had the ball in time and space on halfway and with all our players up ahead of us and in the box when this guy goes down. He was down for more than the minute quoted, probably 90 seconds at least, almost 2 minutes, and by the time he had finished the game was more or less over. The referee, who has had a very good game despite being ridiculed by Huddersfield fans from the start (for reasons I think we all know), gives THEM the ball back which is extremely generous even though they won’t remember or mention it - unless the idea was for them to punt it back to us. Which of course they didn’t do, they played up to their striker and kept it. People keep talking about them fighting for their lives, if we had anything to play for Huddersfield would be remembered for years as cheats for that gamesmanship, they gamed the ref and then worse fair play at the restart when it was quite clear the ball should be back with us. They’ve got away with it because we were all largely drifting out and couldn’t care less about our season. The fact the ref is still in a position to give a soft penalty when she does is solely down to their own cheating and it caught up with them. Pure karma. But of course they’ve all organised a social media pile on for the referee who they were abusing from the very start. Pathetic lack of self awareness.

Absolutely nothing to do with the penalties, one of the best refs I've seen in a long time - was so consistent in how he judged things and always tried to let play go and only bring it back if the advantage wasn't there. Was never too fussy, cards were a last resort, and didn't want to be centre of attention. Looked like a normal bloke too rather than a failed footballer with an ego. More refs with this approach please.

Millwall worldie

There are videos every week of all kinds of exuberance in away concourses which let's be honest is absolutely fair game if you treat your customers to concrete and breeze blocks. Why then does a meaningless mid table game at a shit ground suddenly turn Northumbria police into a disgusting press gang that keeps storming into the away end every ten minutes to pick off and bravely haul away yet another fan. When they came for two 14 year old girls it was too much. Jostled and pulled down the stairs not just by WPCs but also fully grown men who decided this is why they wanted to join the police. Besides Wales or Birmingham it's a long time since I've seen the police act like their job is to treat us like dirt. Had a good day chatted to some Sunderland fans no idea why Northumbria Police woke up and chose this today.

Hoovering up the best young players from other clubs across England and Europe doesn't seem to get you very much these days.

Ah fair play I just went for the first Chris I found on Google from Millwall youth. Ping @Davefevs. Randomly Big Kev Nugent is their Under 23s coach.

Chris Parr no? Referred to his Millwall youth team and playing us this season.

Good to see we've embedded a consistent way of getting injured all the way through the age groups.

Thank God the co commentator finally acknowledged he should stop calling one of them City. Main commentator seems more than happy to keep doing so.

POTS = Rob Dickie (by a mile) YPOTS = Tommy Conway (not a lot of choice) Champagne Moment = The complete evisceration of the club's hierarchy and their lack of clarity by @Ron W on Sky Sports* *If everyone could vote for this as Champagne Moment the penny might finally drop

Ahem First 4 were NP but still. After yesterday (this was flashed up by Sky before the game) Manning is W2 L5 vs the top 6, and as a club we’re W2 D1 L8 vs the top 6. Which is where you’d expect mid table to be, nicking the odd result.

My MotM too and said as much after. Was absolutely faultless especially in possession. Also a big fan of how fast we were to second balls. Every. Single. Time. We were first.

Amen. I know we’re all supposed to get over Pearson and move on, but **** me if you want to understand what feeling an engagement with or affinity for the club looks like, it’s being genuinely invested in the thoughts of the manager even when we lose because we knew with NP it came from a place of experience, humility and honesty. Why this club repeatedly wants us to form an interest in and build affinity for extremely inexperienced coaches who waffle on a lot is beyond me. The Lansdown’s want to be the puppet masters who create some sort of footballing alchemy by getting the whole club pulling in the same direction and hanging on the words of complete bluffers. It’s not going to happen, just like the last god knows how many times.

@Davefevs the computers are coming for you. An AI model trained with lots of historical corner kick positional data in partnership with Liverpool. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-45965-x

I honestly expected to get a notification by now from a club tweet to say Manning has gone, to be honest I’m a little surprised he hasn’t. The football is absolutely dire, league position is irrelevant, it’s when the product on the pitch is so visibly awful and regressive that the real alarm bells should all be going off and is when SL normally acts, and Steve is not stupid - bad decision maker yes but he knows an irredeemable shitshow when he sees one, it was the same at the fag end of the Holden experiment and SL admitted as much when he pulled the plug. You’re a sensible and balanced poster and I'd like to hope I try to be too and I am already in the same place as you - not being in the least bit knee jerk but absolutely convinced of the need (with some urgency) for Manning to go and hoping SL is seeing the same things the rest of us can all see - he’s totally out of his depth. It’s actually frightening how fast he has sucked the life out of a promising team and devalued and demotivated so many players. I actually feel a bit sorry for players who are playing within themselves in a laboured and emotionless fashion. The emotion piece is an interesting one. Pearson used to talk about something similar but not eradicating emotions but being able to always have control of them. He knew that emotion is a huge force and extra percentage if channeled correctly and a huge problem if not under control. Asking players to own and manage and use their emotions went hand in hand with his repeated mantra of asking the players to take responsibility for finding solutions. Players tasked with developing personality and leadership that contribute to us playing with pace and passion. Manning, on the other hand, by simply switching off emotion and force feeding the players the same relentless script as ‘process’, has created robots stripped of the instinct and fight to play with a zip and determination and perhaps even to entertain. Which is why the football is so utterly tedious and uninspiring, and which is why in turn you can see visibly so many City fans recently walking out of matches from Hillsborough to the Hawthorns looking like zombies, hollowed out and brain numbed from the suffocating lack of emotion in our football any longer. The great irony where emotion is concerned is while removing their ability to channel and benefit from positive emotion Manning has left his side totally exposed only to negative emotions, of which there are lots: players with confidence shot to pieces, players sulking, players frustrated, and in the case of Tommy Conway, once a key asset of ours, all three. For SL that is the biggest alarm bell of them all. Pearson had it right, there will be emotion so control it and use it. Manning has got this approach, like many other things, badly wrong and we’re far worse off for it. Sadly this is par for the course for Monotone Manning and his monotone brand of football - he is out of his depth and I will say it again, I am genuinely surprised he hasn’t gone already today.