TDarwall

Can I be the 1st to lay claim to John Useless if he turns out to be rubbish?

A few years ago they sacked Rowett, who was over performing & appointed Zola. It was a disaster. What is it they say about doing the same thing & expecting different results.

Towards the end of his time here, Basso seemed to want to go off every game. I'm sure there were occasions GJ tried to persuade him to stay on. I loved Basso. I don't have a religious bone in my body but he was the epitome of a talisman & he almost made me a believer!

Many years ago, I was working for Sun Alliance & we dealt with the Lloyd's bank mortgage centre in Scunthorpe. We had this issue that none of their emails would ever get to us. When we investigated, their Scunny address was in their email footer & our swear/spam filter wouldn't let it through!

It was also nice to see Bobby Reid was captain for Fulham at the weekend. It does demonstrate that the development of a player is rarely linear. Not sure many would have suggested Bobby was a future captain of a Prem team.

I bet Liam is on Steve's watch list. Very much a Lansdown type of manager.

Fwiw (not a lot!), I didn't think he came across as tetchy. Maybe not the jolliest he's been (low bar) but not the most terse either. I do think unleas we have a really good season (top 10?) then there will be a conscious decoupling next summer.

Definitely a "big name" signing! Whilst there may well be some angst between Nige & the club, I genuinely think he is anti the sort of "clubs in a bag" player collecting mentality of previous regimes. At £2M McCrorie is obvs 1st choice right back, Tanner is back up & Zak &/or Sykes could fill in. On that basis a loan does seem to make sense. Re Ross Mc, we do seem to have repeated the Joe Williams trick of losing our big summer singing before they've really kicked a ball in anger for us.

I'm totally anti VAR & would love to see it binned. The only possible justification for keeping it is to spot terrible errors. Things like the Maradona hand ball. For me, if VAR needs to spend 5 mins looking at it from 47 different angles, & different speeds then it's not a foul/offside etc. It ruins the flow of the game. Football is a sport that's needs to flow, VAR ruins this. Even allowing for the fact we'd surely get more penalties with VAR I hope it never comes to the Championship.

I'd thought that with McCrorie out & Tanner not having a great start, Sykes at right back is a possibility.

Was surprised to see Cornick go off (unless injured) as thought he had a decent 1st half. Generally I'm not a fan of h/t substitutions unless someone is having the mother of mares or a big tactical change is needed. Cam doesn't really seem to have going this season, can't really any rampaging runs. I think Roberts will get a start sooner than later. He did over hit some balls today but I think for now we may be better forfeiting Cams raw pace for Roberts technical ability. I know it was only v Oxford, but he linked up really well with Mehmeti & so far this season that's the only real success we've seen from a full back/winger combo.

Inflation is hitting the cost of repairs very hard I'd imagine. Firms can no longer offer better new business prices then they can at renewal, but its still worth shopping around. There is a phenomenon called "brand stacking" - LV for instance have more than 1 brand on the price comparison websites & as they are set up as separate entities some have better prices than others.

Stress test or stress ?? ?

I'm sure there is something in MCOBs about prohibiting two footed lunges. *apologies, niche material for nerds!

Being tight at the back makes a huge difference. Only conceding twice in the 1st 3 games is a brilliant achievement & gives the defence a lot of confidence. Depth on the bench is so much better than 12 months ago too.

The question is, what constitutes a "big" club? Is it fan base, ground, history or is it where they are in the pyramid? In many ways we're bigger than Bournemouth & smaller than Derby however the former nicked our best player & we nicked one of the latter's best players. From a players perspective their motives are going to be a combo of a) the most dosh & b) playing at the highest level. Unless they have offers which are comparable in those regards I don't think whether it's a "big" club or not comes into it.

Away to Oxford in the cup is 1 of my all time fave games. Can't recall if it was late 80's/early 90's. Packed away end, Andy Leaning inspired on his debut & a wordlie from Ralph Milne in a 4-2 win.

I'd like to think we would see more of Memehti before spending a wedge on a player like Chair. Equally I suspect Chair would have better options than us.

Tanner was poor going forward on Sat, but in the past he's been very effective. For whatever reason neither Tanner/Cornick nor Cam/Bell worked as partnerships on Sat. The good news is that we have competition I'm most positions so if things don't improve we have other options.

Not for a while yet, he's much too young.

I thought Zak was MOM. Thought Cam was very poor in possession but in truth all over the pitch, our passing was off. However you have to give some credit to PNE, strong, resolute & organised & they were not easy to play against.

The depth for the front 3 is amazing & surpasses anything we've had for quite some time. The fact you could swap the entire front 3 with no discernible drop in quality is amazing.

Hope it's not serious.?

Even if they were, I don't think it changes anything. If you're on the cusp of getting £20m +, why take the risk that the player injures himself? If we were about to play someone who were on thr verge of signing Scott, common sense says we don't play him but delay the deal a day or so, so he can't play for them either. I'd be amazed if he's starting tomorrow, but if he does, I think it's a sign nothing is imminent. I could be wrong mind! ?

I'm pretty sure they aren't!