Silvio Dante

Amen. Hes been on the bench for 20 plus games, there’s nothing on this for us. There’s only one way to find out if he sinks or swims and there won’t be a better opportunity

As I said when he got injured, if there is any doubt over him whatsoever - and I mean he could be 80-90% fit - the only sensible move is to leave him out to recover. Today we’ll be mathematically confirmed as not going up or down and risking Dickie would be madness. All I care about is that he’s fit for next season

The obvious move if you want to keep the same shape is to put JKL in instead of Vyner. The only issue there is the lack of experience - who “leads” that back line? If JKL comes in I expect James to start for the added experience ahead of him. Alternate is to put Andy King at centre half. I’d not be up for that as he’s unlikely to be here next year so I think it’s better having players who will be getting a game. Final options are to go 4–4-2 (Tanner comes into CB with Roberts) or to move McCrorie/Pring central in the “5”. That would mean Mehmeti or Medube playing as one of the wide “defenders” Either way, it seems an ideal opportunity with a lack of fit centre backs to put Campbell-Slowey on the bench. Edit: Just seen TGH with the squad so he could conceivably play as the right sided of the 5 as well.

Now been uploaded:

I never had a hatchet out to be fair. There was no “pile on” though. If you take the time to read through the thread later hopefully you’ll just see @Lorenzos Only Goal, @ExiledAjax, @Davefevs, @The Swan and Cemetery amongst others disagreeing with you in a pretty reasoned basis. Thats not a pile on - it’s a forum. Even in this note you’re saying you’ve been taken out of context (you haven’t) and having a dig about “needlessly condescending” posts. If you want to call a halt, then just do so without that. I wish you well.

Yep. I hate lying as well. Alessandro has given a reasonable point here and I note your response …which confirms you would accept it as it’s an accurate and correct statement …and the above shows I stated exactly what Alessandro is suggesting in my first response to you in extrapolating the ppg to a season. The fact that that points total gives you relegation is self evident. ….but you wouldn’t accept it. So, your statement that you’d accept it is wrong. In the words of a wiseman “Which at that point does become dishonest” Facts. They’re bastards.

I’ve already said that a couple of pages back tbh where I pulled the ppg over the last six and last twelve pre Easter and evidenced that that ppg would see you relegated both this season and on the average points haul over the last ten seasons. In fact, my very first response on this to the person getting exercised said that 3 points from 6 games over a season got you relegated so again pretty much exactly what you’re suggesting! Its a bizarre old hill to die on but hey ho. As I’m here, just to clear up a couple of things: - I maintain (on the above metric) we were in relegation form in the six/twelve games pre Easter. I can acknowledge the table pulled from TWTD was flawed and there were three worse teams than us if you equalised the games but it doesn’t change the conclusion - 3 points from 6 games is about 23 points a season if form doesn’t improve and is absolutely, fundamentally, stone cold relegation form. I’m sorry if that upsets people. - Whether you believe it or not, I didn’t “intentionally” and “willingly” manipulate datasets. In the course of the thread I’ve been asked why I was ignoring our current form (because it was pre Easter) and why I hadn’t gone back to when LM took over (and I think the point has been made that such a long way back wouldn’t be “form”). I went back to the start of the year as that just seemed a reasonable date that could be understood (and bizarrely couldn’t be accused of manipulation had I gone back to, say, December 21st). On the ppg thing yesterday I even took out game 13 (a loss) and recalculated, - As someone’s getting exercised over a throwaway “meths” comment I’d just point out that prior to that I’d been called a liar, a coward, that I had no testicles(?) and a “git”. My comment was in response to what looked a massively needless overreaction giving all those comments. In hindsight it would have been better not to say it but when you’re being accused of the above and being called names, you can react. I apologise for doing so. Bottom line is this, and I go back to what I said yesterday (below). I’ve not seen any argument to this made in a coherent way. If anyone wants to find my a championship season where 23 points gives survival, I’m more than willing to back down.

Fevs would be better placed than me here stats wise, but I think you’d have to look at the positions we’ve been winning/playing the ball in, the possession, the lower number of passes to get a shot in. All of those have shown a dial shift from the naked eye, and that can’t really be anything other than a change in intent. I’m not sure Hogg would say that they’ve changed the plan specifically, but I don’t think you’ll see many who would suggest we havent played differently in the last three wins as opposed to the pre Easter period. It feels less “shackled”. The one thing I would say is that one of the thematics LM has said is about being “brave”. I think we’re being braver - we’re being prepared to lose (the game and possession) in order to win (the game and possession). Thats a massive sea change from a few weeks ago.

It’s the knock on impact tbh. Base level game we make more money - but there will be lost revenue as less people attend each game. On the ST thread a few people made the point they’d see how the new deal impacted the number of games they could attend and that may impact their decision in 25/26. I don’t think therefore we’ll see the net impact until the season after next as that’ll show how many attendees we’re losing (and subsequent ticket/match day income) - noting that’s not binary and a promotion challenge next year would drive renewals even if ST holders could attend less games. The counterbalance here is that Saturday workers and “Downs League” players may be able to attend more games. I’d hope the club are looking at innovative ticket ideas to tap into that.

In terms of the side we’ll be putting out I’d be amazed if there was much variation from Wednesday. If you take the subs bench from then it’s really only Mehmeti, Wells or James you can see coming in. The only squad addition will be TGH potentially. Although there is little to play for Liam remains under enough scrutiny that I don’t think he’ll be experimenting too much. As for Blackburn vs Manningball, let’s call it intent pre international break vs intent post break. It’d be madness bearing in mind results with the increased “intent” if we didn’t play that way (and that doesn’t mean annihilating Huddersfield, it does mean being more positive), and a reversion in approach would raise a lot of questions. I’d guess unchanged side and hope for similar approach.

The article says that existing overseas video and audio streaming services will continue, as will audio for domestic services. In practical terms most RTV income comes from VPN or overseas so I can’t see much changing Yep, for video. It only could (non VPN) for non Saturday games anyway so it’s the midweek games being lost. Kind of, yeah. Example here is Plymouth on Easter Monday - that was available domestically on RTV as it fell outside the blackout period. It’ll now be available via a Sky Stream instead (or on VPN instead should you so wish). —— Effectively the extra games streamed here are the additional ones moved to non 3pm Saturday (and ones such as Swansea home this year that weren’t streamed domestically) - scale and frequency will be the big deal here. For 3pm kickoffs they still won’t be streamed but VPN and Robins TV remains your friend.

My guess is that it was: ”It’s the club that we love, there’s nothing above, city are we” as that’s recent. But @BristolGit some more clues would be appreciated!

To be fair, I thought it was just me. But when you’re involved in spats with four different people - all of whom are decent, longstanding posters - over the course of one thread, then it’s probably better to take some tIme for self reflection. I’ve stopped engaging as it’s plain not worth it. But if your concept is so out there that everyone disagrees, it might be worth considering, y’know, that as opposed to others being obtuse, lying, lacking integrity etc the problem may lay a bit closer to home. Hopefully he can get the support he needs.

Correct. More succinctly put than I did but the same point. Everything else is just noise.

Ed Balls.

Dont blame me Dave, all I said was that 3 points from 6 games was relegation form, I didn’t expect to get into an episode of 3-2-1!

Indeed. Basic facts here: - Over the six games pre Easter we were on 0.5 ppg - Over the five games pre Easter we were on 0.6 ppg - From the period Jan 1st - Easter we were on 0.85 ppg - But acknowledge that’s 13 games. So taking it forward one (losing Millwall) it’s 0.92 ppg from 12 games - Based on our form throughout this year, or even in accepted “6 game blocks” the maximum points we’d get based on our ppg was 43 - Therefore, our form, if replicated over a season, would have seen us in the relegation zone this year even on the best case scenario - Arguing otherwise relies on a flawed assumption - that if we didn’t improve, no other teams would also improve. Thats not how relegation form works. Relegation form works on if you extrapolated your current run (pick 6, 12 games whatever) over the course of the season is it likely you would go down - The average points needed for survival in the championship over the last 10 years is 43.9. Dip below that for a sustained period (which 6 games/12 games is), you’re in relegation form - If you want to look glass half full, once in those 10 years (and the lowest total) to stay up would be 38 points. We’d hit that in the 12/13 game block pre Easter. - However that season was an anomaly (as was the high points relegation in the 50s). And as we know teams in the relegation zone already have 43 with 4 to play, the survival target will be above average (And for avoidance of doubt, no, we wouldn’t have been in relegation form if you extrapolated over the whole of Liams reign - but form is by definition a sample of a current period - and as shown earlier based on the blocks of six we were regressing) Thats all that’s being said here. It doesn’t matter that other clubs were in worse form at that time - if we had replicated that 6/12 game form over the course of the season (both based on 10 year average and this season) its relegation. Ipso Facto - we were in relegation form The final point is this. There is a lot of stating give Liam 10-12 games next season, so by definition a lot of the forum think it’s a reasonable sample. If we have a best case of 0.92 ppg, after those 12 games, I’d bet that people would be worrying about relegation. No agenda. No massaging of figures. No selective data. Those are just the numbers.

Possibly my favourite post of the year, and a lot of truth. The truth be told, I think we all want to be in the “in x we trust” camp but being so requires a lot of blind faith. I think I’ve referenced a bit in Fever Pitch before where Nick Hornby details the scales falling from his eyes as he realised the players who played for England weren’t necessarily the best, just those the manager preferred. Thats kind of where I see the latter “camp” - how and why would the club not make the right decisions? They know more than all of us (in both “camps”) about football so how could they get it wrong. (And there’s nothing wrong with that and I’d imagine you stress less!) One thing I would be really interested to see is where people in each camp sit on a matchday because I think you do get a far different view of things dependant on your seat. In Dolman centre for example I can see shapes, patterns of play etc far better than behind the goal - because I see more, I can probably articulate more (both good and bad) and that can lead to more of a “moaning” accusation. As you say though, in the words of Belinda “We want the same thing”

I think we’ve done the LJ thing to death, but there is near universal agreement that he was better with less players. That 17/18 season started going south when he had more options, so to me not the “same players” but the “players asked to play differently” Re hitting on the formula, as I said earlier (before the thread got derailed over semantics - apologies) I think we may lose games playing as we have post Easter but I also think the “reward” is better. So I don’t think the 10 from 4 is the shape of things to come (ie we won’t storm it) but I’m more confident of getting points playing this way than how we were before the break. Case in point - goal one yesterday. It’s a percentage channel ball - a 60/40 in the defenders favour. We weren’t playing those balls a few weeks ago, it had to be 80/20 in our favour. We’ll lost the ball more but I’d wager when we do have it it will be in better positions.

If you’ve got any rewards points there are some in the prize draws…

Without wanting to trigger my learned reading friend, it was at the point where this thread started. Taking the form from November would have been bizarre and we were on 5 defeats from 6, hence the groundswell (not just me) of saying time was up. With form generally pick your poison. Too short a sample is misleading, going too far back has no relevance. It’s why the dates are often arbitrary - i.e. since start of Feb, since turn of year etc. What is true is that up until Easter we had regressed. If you take it in blocks of six then we were looking at: - Six pre Easter 3 points - Six prior 8 points - Six prior 10 points Before that LM had 5 games which we’ll call the bedding in - W1 D2 L2 Something had to change

Cheers, that’s an interesting angle. Is the GW19 ending around the WBA game? That was really the nadir of Niges reign and - can I say it - relegation form? I think what it probably shows is that these players (much like a lot of teams in the division) can go on hot streaks. Realistically man for man and squad for squad there’s not a lot between 4th and 18th, it’s about getting them to hit that form regularly (or conversely not hitting the opposite of that form regularly) - that’s the challenge

Hmmm. So we’ve moved from me making a relatively uncontroversial statement of us being in relegation form pre Easter (in a post where I said things had got better!) to yourself accusing me of lying, lacking integrity, having no testicles and being a coward. I’d lay off the meths tbh.

You haven’t answered sweetheart - I’ve got five. I’m more than happy to explain the offside rule if you’re free?

Cool man, cool. Can I explain offside now then?