Red-Robbo

That's for Sanatogen Tonic Wine drinkers.

90% of people I know with garages just have them full of junk 'which might come in useful one day'.

My mate's daughter's band My First Time. Spot the Bristol locations in this (terrible) homemade video!

Well, it wasn't bad, but if you remember 11 days before meeting Saints we had Leeds, who made us look like a League 2 side.

Already made more, without a doubt. I guess we can't write someone off as a young player after so little time here, but Mebude is clearly not ready yet for any time out there in the Championship.

I think he has a useful future and a bit of men's football, rather than languishing in U23, would help bring him on.

As a regular, yes, I agree. I think he would've made a better occasional impact sub than Mebude however. He carried the ball forward and provided he got the close support to do that, we would at least be going in the right direction. The lad isn't afraid of making a tackle either.

Quite. At his best when he was given the freedom to move about without holding a defined position. Popped up everywhere and gave defenders headaches. Played in an over-rigid formation though and he often just faded out of games and you could forget he was there.

The prospect haunts me....

There is an issue generally these days with cars getting considerably bigger than they were only a decade or two ago. We're buying more biggies. I drive a Mini (well, you know what they say about blokes with big cars, the reverse is obviously true ) and it makes things much harder to reverse out of parking space when you've got an X-Trail parked on one side and a Toureg the other. Even worse if it's a Hilux or something, driven by someone who is obviously neither a farmer or builder. I can't berate unnecessary 4x4 owners as Mrs R has a Qashqai, but that's teeny compared to a lot of the monsters you see on the roads of Somerset.

Averages, schmaverages. It varies massively player to player. JET was a forward who ambled at a distinctly non-"High Intensity" level for most of the match, but he'd always pull out one or two sprints per game that totally outpaced defenders. I was an (amateur level) defender who stayed firmly in my half - too clumsy to be much use in attack other than at set pieces - and rarely ran around. However I'd sprint frequently to intercept. I'd been Somerset Junior AAA 90m hurdle champion, which helped. My sprinting speed was the only reason a klutz like me was in the side.

Mind did, but only in the context of - unless there's a time machine invented - we have to move on and focus on the here and now. How do we stay up?

I think the vast majority of us agree that sacking Pearson was unnecessary and short-sighted and yet another reason why the Lansdown family need to be away from this club as soon as possible. However, we can't turn the clock back, that's old history and in the short-term I'm interested in how we can make the team more competitive now. Sacking Manning with 10 games to go would be a big roll of the dice. Unless the new guy hits the ground running it'll take a while for him to know the players and work out where they best perform. LJ pulled off a rescue package when he came in, SOD did the opposite. Both had more than 10 games however. For me, rather than take that particular gamble now, removing the malign influence of our unofficial DOF might be a quick fix to allow this coach more flexibility in how he sets up. The entire logic of putting a bloke in as DOF whose management career amounts to failing at one club is crazy. "Brian is in overall charge of all football matters" was the most chilling thing I've read on the OS. You might as well ring up Liz Truss to get her advice on balancing your household budget. We might have a shot at bringing in a genuine wise advisor before the season end or perhaps it's just time for the club to realise that the Tinnion as DOF experiment isn't working and just let Manning stand or fall on his own merits.

He's part-Scottish. Whattya gonna do?

I remember people saying the same about Brett Pitman. Like Tom, he just has one of those grim-looking faces on pitch. Didn't stop Pitman scoring some important goals from us and doing well elsewhere before the ill-advised move to the Fewers saw him never work in League football again! Scored seven in one game at Wessex League level mind you, in December.

Which'll be the irony of ironies and further proof that the owner & directors haven't a clue what they are doing.

I doubt Dave invented that, so I imagine it's based on their opinion of his general demeanour and how he presents himself, rather than on the success of Ipswich this term.

Neither we, nor most other teams in this tier of English football to be fair, are good enough to score many from slow, 80-pass build-ups. Football like fencing - probing for an opening. When it's slow, you are up against 10 bodies behind the ball - 11 if your opponents are defending the lead or playing for a draw. Inevitably in the ultra-slow approach someone will eventually under- or over-hit a pass, we'll concede possession and with the team in a forward attacking posture, there will then be a desperate scramble to get back to defend our box. Pace - and having the confidence to run at your opponents - is our friend. You cause panic. You catch folk out of position. Even if you don't get a shooting chance, they may need to foul you to stop the break. Agree with you 100%.

I think you can take last night as "much improved" while still despairing of where we are. That isn’t celebrating a defeat, it's acknowledging that we put in a reasonable performance in an away match against an in-form promotion contender. We weren't thumped 7-0 as one Otiber suggested we might be. It's at this stage if the season that the bottom clubs that might escape the drop (Rotherham have already given up the ghost) are at their most dangerous. Players are desperate to retain their Championship status (and wages) and minds are focused like never before. Every season we lose to at least one club you look at before the match and think "that should be 3 points in the bag". So, losing to hitherto poor clubs is not just a Liam Manning phenomenon. What was concerning about the past three losses was the manner of defeat. We looked like we could hardly be arsed. Out of ideas, not as fit, poorly set-up and coached. If the performance at Portman Road can instill some self-belief in the side and get it back on track to record the not many more points we need for safety, that'd be good. It's a big IF however.

Removing Manning wouldn't remove the problem that brought Manning to the club. After we lost to Swansea 7-1 I just happened to be meeting up for a drink (pre-arranged) with the only Swansea fan I know. He was naturally jubilant and tried taunting me, but the sting of our defeat was slightly tempered for me by the removal earlier that day of Brian Tinnion. If we lose heavily tonight, I don't feel just a managerial change would resolve our problems.

The question is can Manning face down a pack of Transylvanian wolves?

Yup. He won't be sacked if he loses tomorrow. He will be sacked if we went down. It's unlikely - IMO - he'll be sacked even if we finished 21st, for the reasons you explain,

Even he can see that something doesn't add up.

At the same time, Johnson wasn't sacked when he lost eight in a row in 2017. In fact, he had another three seasons. I'm unconvinced just a new face, working with demoralised players he might be unfamiliar with and players coached a particular way, would instantly turn things around at this stage of the season. Certainly didn't with SOD and he had 19 games to save us, not 8.

Call me naive if you like, but the fact we have produced some good performances under him, makes me feel the situation isn't definitely unfixable. I should preface this by saying I've only watched one of the past three defeats, but even that game - plus how outclassed we were by a Leeds side that were on the back foot against 10-man Huddersfield on Saturday - does show me there are huge, huge problems. We have 8 games and if we're going to plunge into trouble, I'm not sure a new man would have long enough to prevent that. Personally, I'd hope there are enough mediocre teams below us all swirling around and occasionally playing each other, which will keep us safe, providing we bank a few more points. If it remains as shit. If we finish in the lower reaches, he should depart in the summer and give a new man a chance to work with the players, identify problem areas and recruit accordingly.