ashton_fan

There's a D B Smith who played a few games in 62/63

3 hours ago, MC RISK77 said:

Thanks for posting- never seen this episode of the big match previously, which leads to my question, itv 4 seem to just repeat the episodes from only about 3 different seasons, but many years of the big match are never shown.

Is their any YouTube channels which show them all?

On a separate note the bbc have never made all of the match of the day archives available- any particular reason for this?

There are quite a few old games on YouTube but not all in one place so you have to do a bit of searching. Here's one from the same year as that Liverpool game when we played at Palace in the league:

I remember being a bit disappointed at this game, whereas in the previous round against Leeds we gave them lots of problems there was great expectation against Liverpool but they had done their homework on us and we didn't really get a sniff in this one. Nevertheless a great achievement to get to the 6th round.

Memories of 1974 when we beat Leeds (top of Div 1) in the fifth round when we were a struggling second division side!

He was really bright when he started for us but has probably regressed since he's been here,  in France he'll be able to play the type of football he was coached to as a youngster and I'm sure he'll do well. For whatever reason it hasn't worked out for him here, it was always a gamble signing him

I think if Haikin turns out to be OK and we manage to hang onto O'Leary then Bajic will be shipped out

Here's his recent game against Arsenal at the Emirates, not to blame for any of the goals and makes a couple of good saves, surely too good just to be a backup to Max?

6 hours ago, The turtle said:

Point of curiosity: did you really have to pay to see the 2nd game if had ticket for first (as commentator said) even at reduced prices? Seems crazy to me.

 

Or have i misunderstood that ?

I honestly can't remember!

2 minutes ago, Fuber said:

We were if it wasn't for the inflated Webster fees - literally the only reason, we're currently only under it now thanks to NP and Gould.

If LJ/MA had kept wages around the 16/17 margin of £20-21m mark, we would have had a wages to turnover ratio of circa 80% and would have been partially sustainable.

Only reason why it never happened under early LJ and the Cotts era was due to the stadium revamp capping turnover up to £12-14m, which we were allowed allowances for.

If you apply a wage cap of £23m, i e. Up to a 10% increase, between 17-19 would have been sustainable.

Not bloating that to £33mpa - which even the likes of Tomlin and Szmodics etc contribute towards as irrespective of breaking even on the transfer fees we still had to pay their wages.

The sheer turnover of playing staff was stupidity. Irrespective of it being LJ or MAs responsibility. LJ doesn't help himself when he himself coined the clubs in bag tagline.

It was an idiotic strategy that if not for SL would have had us in utter financial peril. Ergo it was never sustainable.

I'm sure SL approved of the transfer policy and you can't ignore the money from the Webster transfer just because it kills your argument!

47 minutes ago, Fuber said:

No we were not. As fees received were never guaranteed.

On a simple turnover versus playing wages comparison, we were over.

 

We weren't over the FFP limit at the time or we'd at least have been threatened with a penalty, your 'simple' figure is meaningless - I don't think our turnover has ever covered wages while we've been in the Championship we've always relied on SL to cover our losses.

22 hours ago, Fuber said:

The spending wasn't the problem - the wage spending exacerbated by the bloated squad was, still is, and remains the issue.

Fact of the matter is we're in the hole now entirely due to LJs clubs in bags approach, for every good deal - Brownhill, Webster; there is countless others that didn't work, Engvall, Djuric, Adelakun, Szmodics, Eisa, Hegeler, Marinovic, Rodri, Kent, Giefer, Palmer among others.

I'm sure the wage levels of the players signed was nothing to do with LJ, Ashton would have negotiated wage levels. Also the players we signed would have been identified by the recruitment team. Although there were more losers than winners some of the winners were extremely big ones. LJ had his faults but can't be blamed for everything, the main reason we're in a financial mess is because of COVID before that we were well within the FFP levels.

The first match at AG is mainly forgotten about but was also a good performance. It had to be played twice as the first match was halted by floodlight failure.

Reminds me of Geoff Merrick, that's a big complement 

9 minutes ago, And Its Smith said:

Good to see we are unchanged. Need to get players used to this system asap 

He might revert to wing backs tonight which has worked ok in away games

Unfortunately a draw is probably the best we can do, they are a real bogey team for us, I think we've only one once in the last 11 fixtures here against them

2 minutes ago, Coin-op said:

Am I the only one who hates us playing 3 at the back? We never seem to have much impact in the midfield. 

I think we should try a back four for home games so we've got more numbers in midfield. I remember in our first season at this level the first thing LJ did when appointed was to change to a back four and we easily climbed away from the relegation positions

8 minutes ago, Rob k said:

I’m not actually sure what your disagreeing with me about - All or LJs best players got sold, including Webster.  I don’t think it’s an excuse, it’s a fact. The club is where it is now due to the horrific recruitment and wages offered from 2018 onwards.
 

The main reason for the financial problems was COVID which killed the transfer market after a long period of massively reduced revenue

I have mixed feelings about Nige, he's obviously had a lot of success earlier in his career but most managers have a 'sell by date' and he hasn't had any great success for a number of years now.

On the other hand I think back to when I first supported the club in 1970 and Alan Dicks was trying to build a side based on youth and the team were inconsistent and usually struggling near the foot of the table with chants of "Dicks must go" from the crowd on a regular basis. Unfortunately we can't easily look into the future but in that case keeping the manager gave the club just about it's most successful period with promotion from Div 2 followed by four seasons in the top flight, although Dicks had been in charge for 6 or 7 seasons before promotion was achieved. 

So the question remains is Nige another AD or an over-the-hill has-been? I really don't know the answer. 

His first touch may not have been brilliant but he was certainly involved in the game more than the other forwards and worried Millwall's defence, also Nige thought he was "a threat". Not at his best but still quite effective 

It seems to be at home is our main problem, Nige has to sort that one out

For the people on here who aren't happy we're in the relegation mix playing away to a team in the top 6, I think we've competed well and defence has been solid, that's positive 

3 minutes ago, Ecko said:

Bentley for Max

Bentley's almost certainly going this window or next so need to give Max the games, he's our future no 1

18 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

The same way it did for Ferguson, Clough, etc.

I'm sure Clough did coaching especially when he was younger, him and Peter Taylor worked very closely in any case. Is anyone on our coaching staff working how to negate the opposition and if they do will NP pick the players to execute the plan, I have to say it doesn't look like it when they're on the pitch? They seem to play the same way every game which makes it easy for opposing coaches.

LJ was correctly known as a "streaky" manager, his losing runs meant we never got in the top six, but equally his winning runs meant we were never in danger of relegation. What worries me about NP is that he doesn't do the coaching yet he does pick the team, how does that work? 

I think Max has been pretty good since his return, would rather have him than Bents, Max commands his area better