Midlands Robin

Absolutely ******* stupid. This is sucn bullshit. Nige came in at a time when we were sinking both on the pitch and financially. He dug the club out of a huge hole left by the CEO, a stubborn owner and his clueless son chairman. We were heading in the right direction. Bullshit, total and utter bullshit

God there are some horrible names on that list of managers.

Apart from some totally needless faffing around from our defence we haven't looked too bad at times. We certainly seem to have a bit more pace in our side. The problem is we're offering nothing down the right. Every attack has come from the left and I think Sam Bell has looked a little light weight here. He doesn't seem to be able to weight a cross decently and some of his first touches have been a bit too heavy. Plenty of hope for the second half but we need to use our pace and get a bit more direct.

Shit

There's been a big change in rail use. Industry figures show that rail journeys are back to pre-covid levels but leasure and weekend travel is much higher while peak, working week travel is down. So the amount of revenue being made per journey still remains below pre-covid levels. I guess any new business case would attempt to evaluate the line usage. The problem with that is that there will almost certainly be a new pricing model being introduced in the next few years but no one knows what that will be yet. Any business case at the moment is likely to be little more than a wet finger in the air.

I live in Walsall which, apart from a core loyal band who support the Saddlers, seems to mostly be a mixture of Wolves or Villa fans. I don't actually know any Blues fans but I will see what the local news has to say.

Rooney now appointed https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/67055334 This is all going to blow up in their faces.

Completely ignoring the fact we had an entire new ground blocked because a handful of people convinced a high court judge that a waste disposal tip was a beautiful, scenic, countryside village green.

That was a great night. I've still got the red A4 card that we had to hold up in the Atyeo. Also the last time we played the sags at the gate in the league.

Yeah, a mate at work is a massive Gills fan and he sent me a message with the story and just said "WTF!!". I know they've had a slight wobble over the last few games after starting well. They also had some team issues with a story in the news showing a few first teamers crashing their car on the way out of training. It was the first match after that incident when they started their bad run so I'm wondering if it had an effect on the dressing room? I know from my mate, they've had a decent ammount of investment (well for them anyway) since they almost hit rock bottom last season so the new board do have pretty high expecations this year. Good luck to Keith, the Gills are a decent club and I hope it works out for him

What's a grauniad?

Now that the transfer window has closed, let’s just have a quick review of how the summer went up there in Horfield. 1) Joey Barton received a 3 match touchline ban and a fine for abusing match officials. The sags had an appeal rejected. 2) They sign a player who had been released by Exeter after pleading guilty to assaulting a woman and after signing went on to be found guilty of a second charge of assaulting a woman. 3) They take down their temporary stand and start constructing a replacement without having applied for planning permission. Work on the stand is ordered to be halted while a review takes place. As a result of the delay, they no longer have a capacity that is compliant with EFL rules and have no provision for disabled away supporters. 4) The work on the south stand takes out the "championship ready" pitch sprinkler system, a fact that their manager goes on to blame for another home defeat. 5) On a positive note, a Kuwaiti businessman buys a controlling stake in the club and the sags debt to Duane sports is capitalised in shares however, no one knows who this businessman is and his wealth, financial ability to back the club and plans for the future remain obscure. 6) Their new home shirt features a sleeve sponsor in the form of a hotel company located in the middle of Bristol. Now for the whole season they will run out at home with the name of their beloved rivals on their shirts. Each home shirt is adorned with the words "Bristol City" Centre. 7) Their manager refuses to talk to the Bristol Evening Post claiming they have an anti Rovers bias but it just so happens that a few weeks earlier he created a subscription area on his Twitter account and urged fans to sign up to receive exclusive Rovers news and content. 8. In order to try and fix some of the problems caused by point 3 they put up yet another temporary stand to enable at least a few hundred away fans to have a seat under some sort of cover. 9). On transfer deadline day they agree a club record fee for Jonson Clarke-Harris only to see the entire deal collapse due to their inability to file the required paperwork on time. To be honest, most clubs wouldn't see that much shit in a decade, but this happened over a period of 3 months.

From the EFL Website: What is a quick application? If a club is in a ‘Full Application’ at 22:30:00, they will receive a warning that states the system will open a ‘Quick Application’ at 22:45:00, where only certain fields need to be completed. In those last 15 minutes of the Transfer Window, EFL systems allow Clubs to submit the necessary registration form without completing the full application process. Where they do this, the Clubs then have a further 15 minutes to then complete the full application process. This avoids Clubs missing the deadline in circumstances where they have agreed and signed all necessary documents with another Club and the player before 11pm, but still need time to complete the full application.

Looking at the statement above, if we imagine that JCH left Portsmouth to travel up to Bristol at around 6pm, he would have got there for around 8 to 8:30. It's roughly a 2 hour journey. That fits nicely with the time line. The Posh send over the paperwork at 8:30 and the Sags agree to the deal at 9pm. According to a statement from the circus, there were some changes to the paperwork that held things up. This clearly can't be the case if Ferguson is telling the truth as the Sags agreed the paperwork at 9pm. The only changes after that point must have come from JCH or his agent if there were any. Either way, 2 hours should have been more than enought time to sort all of that out and send the registration paperwork in to the FA. As Ferguson said, it is possible to send in an agreement form and get a short extension to enable the paperwork to be finalised after 11pm. This cearly wasn't done. So, there are a few questions that need asking: 1) Why, if he wanted the move, didn't JCH press the Sags to get the deal done after the two clubs had agreed terms at 9pm? 2) If Ferguson is correct and the agreement between the clubs took place at 9pm then who was responsible for the paperwork changes after that point? 3) Why didn't the Sags send in the relevant paperwork to extend the deadline?

Darren Ferguson's comments for those who haven't or can't be arsed to, listen to the interview: “It was a very hectic last day but up until 10 to 11, it was quite smooth. Jonno travelled with the team in the morning, we had the team meeting about Portsmouth and he would have been in the team, he played very well last week. “At about five o’clock the chairman told me there might be a chance that he’ll get permission to talk to Bristol and at quarter to six, I went down to see him and we agreed it was the right time for him to move on. He was getting a three-year deal at 29, which is very good, and a large part of his family is down there. “He got in the car, Liz (Elsom, Head of Football Operations) sent over the agreement at 8:30, which they agreed with and told us so at nine o’clock. At ten to 11, we were told he was still not registered. You can put a request in to get another 15 minutes and they didn’t do that until 20 past 11. Unbelievable, we were just like ‘what?’ “They just failed to get him registerd, nothing else can be done. That’s the danger if you leave it until the last minute to try and sign someone rather than doing it three or four days previous. That’s the risk they run and they’ve made a mistake. We did everything we could.”

Twice as many shots 10 vs 5 and twice as many on target 2 vs 1 and yet we are a goal down. Ever get the feeling we've broken a few mirrors and while walking under a few ladders. If it wasn't for bad luck we'd have no luck at all. Thank **** it's only half time COYR

Basically, a Sag poster claiming to be in the know states that JCH has been confirmed as returning to the Mem. The post claims it's for a knock down fee because the club are still owned transfer money from the Posh. It also states thst JCH has turned down better offers, including championship clubs, to return to the sags.

You have to read the full thread to get the context of that but fair play to the Posh chairman. That's putting someone straight.

It's exactly this. I made this point in a different thread. We simply don't generate a high enough revenue to balance the FFP books. The occasional times we make an annual profit is down to transfer income. I get there are no easy answers to how we do it and most of the time it involves fans shelling out more of their hard earned cash but it's the crux of our problem. It's why just one season in the Premier League can completely change a clubs fortunes if its managed carefully.

I was surprised to see the dip in quality from England especially in the final 3rd. There were a few times where England players failed to overlap and made it easy for Spain to snuff out attacks. Quality crosses were almost non existent and you could see the confidence ebb out of the team as the game progressed. Still, European champions though. It will now be interesting to see how they move on from today.

The right team won that in the end.

Too much farting around at the back by England in that half. We don't like teams running directly at us. Half time would have come as a relief.

The simple fact of the matter is that we don't generate enough revenue. We avoided a FFP points deduction by the skin of our teeth; If you look at the Deloitte annual review of football finance in 2021 (listed in their 2022 report) we had the 10th highest net debt in the Championship. In their 2023 report by 2022 we had the 9th highest net debt in the Championship. Obviously, parachute payments help clubs to sustain operations at a higher level of debt and make it more likely for them to return to the PL when relegated. That much is clear. I've looked at the last 6 years and only a handful of teams have made the play offs without without having recently dropped out of the Premier League. If we want to compete we have to get everything in place and add that sprinkle of luck. We need the right manager, with the right squad and we need momentum. Brentford are a model that would be great to match but they really are an outlier when it comes to gaining promotion to the top flight. It's as easy to put yourself massively in debt trying to reach the promised land (Reading) as it is to get you there (Bournemouth).

We've still got Kalas kicking around having failed to find a new club and with that 1 year extension still on the table. That would certainly fix that issue.

Another card overturned and an apology letter on its way. FFS. Utter bullshit.