Dreamkiller

Ryan Woods. Our improved results coincided with his arrival. He allows Allen to be the headless chicken he wants to be.

This is all well and good, but what happened to those brilliant emojis you used to have on here a year ago. Have they gone, or is my phone just not up to the job?

I remember a Bristol City fan coming onto the Oatcake to warn us about Pulis when we first appointed him. It was the scariest foretelling of the future outside of Nostradamus when he'd got a downer on him. It was largely accurate too. It wasn't all bad of course, but 10 years of watching that kind of thing can make your eyes bleed.

Hate to say it, but Butland's been ordinary at best since he came back from a lengthy injury a couple of years ago. It's been a heck of a long time since he actually made a real difference in a match.

Been listening to it on Radio Stoke. They're raving about him. Definitely the difference from what I can gather.

It's really difficult to explain 'briefly'. I could probably write a book about the man and his 'football style'. Basically though the matches (in general) were deadly dull to an extreme. He was always happy with a 0-0 and if we sneaked a goal, so be it. There are plenty of managers who adopt a safety first policy, but again, Pulis just took it to an extreme. We once went on a run of 21 consecutive league games where the result was either 0-0, 0-1 or 1-0. It was excrutiating. There's loads more I could say with examples to back up the craziness behind the negativity, but I honestly don't want to bore people or end up repeating what I've said previously. Let's just say I'd rather be in the Championship with just about any other manager than be existing in the Premier League with him back in charge. Hope that give a bit of an insight. Sorry it's not a lot.

In some ways I think Leicester made it worse. We had three 9th place finishes on the trot and supporters were generally pleased with that. Then we looked at Leicester and started thinking that 9th place was a bit feeble really. It changed expectations far beyond what was realistic. We didn't really struggle too much over the 10 years. We just went from comfortably 9th to relegation in two years. None of us really know how we deteriorated so quickly.

My favourite time as a supporter was watching Macari's team in the third tier. The Premier League is all about biased refs, one-eyed media, diving fairies and a closed shop as far as winning anything is concerned. As a Championship side, all there is to look forward to is getting back up there. Some dream! Social media where anyone can have their say but only the over-the-top comments get really noticed doesn't help. Add this to the 'I want it now generation' and you get people walking out at 1-0 down - if that really happened.

It ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it. I like my football to incorporate a smidgeon of erm...football.

Oh I can. I won't bore you with the details now, but I gave a full explanation when I first joined this forum, so feel free to check out my previous posts. Like I said though, you can be top of the league with Pulis as Boro are at the moment and still be hating it. I totally get where they're coming from.

It's the new way in football. Exactly the same on Stoke and West Brom (where I also post) forums. Boro fans totally brassed off despite being top (though they have one massively valid reason for hating life). Seems to me that very few football supporters are happy or satisfied with what they're watching anymore.

Hello my OTIB chums. Not been on for a while, probably around the time you were giving Man U a footballing lesson. Not heard anyone mention a gulf in class on the plus side for us for a few years now. It's been a one way street downhill for quite some time. Hopefully we can hang on to the lead, but it's not something we're good at doing else we'd still be in the Premier League. We've got the softest underbelly inaginable. You'll get chances, just a question of how good you are at taking them. If we're still a goal up with 20 minutes to go, we'll get nervous and fall further and further back, inviting pressure. We'll need at least another goal, maybe two to finish this game off.