The Swan and Cemetery

8 minutes ago, marcofisher said:

Pay-as-you-play deal has been mentioned already, that’s a thread bingo!

Gary Madine on a pay-as-you-head-it (/stay out of the justice system) deal. 

Just now, Fordy62 said:

Just one slight altercation for accuracy. 

Surely there’s no need to fall out about it? 

Think whatever anyone thinks of Max it’s difficult to argue that he lacks competition. A Ruddy-esque late in career, solid but unspectacular, keeper would hopefully be affordable. 

Think Scott can only be replaced by the team as whole and how that improves, as too unique to find anyone plausibly like for like. His combination of talent and consistency was amazing, maybe either a talented but unproven youngster or someone solid/experienced, but less exciting. 

Striker - don’t see it as realistic to significantly improve things until we improve our final ball. We’d need Rush/Fowler in their pomp to convert chances at a high enough rate and we can’t afford that. Again, maybe a lower league player might be worth a gamble, but if spending, think it needs to be on chance creation first and foremost. Mehmeti coming good or Benarous returning to fitness maybe our best chances. 

Not sure loans are financially much better than buying given fees/wages these days. 

Overall we need to suss how to play at home, but as NP said, more concentration/precision in general would make a big difference. Often very sloppy today and think we could have pushed them much harder with more care. 

4 minutes ago, Shauntaylor85 said:

We have been awful in every league game, let’s be honest. Millwall would have been a 0.0 bore draw  

If you genuinely think we were awful against Millwall, you’ve lost the plot. 

1 minute ago, Magger1 said:

All I can say to a few of you dopey ***** on here , how the **** are you happy with that shit 

It’s not a choice between “that was amazing” and “that was the worst performance in history”. It’s possible to see options in between. 

1 minute ago, Northern Red said:

Cornick's fault.

And Vyner’s. 

Dickie carded for his inability to disappear into thin air. Another afternoon with world class officials. 

5 minutes ago, luke_bristol said:

Didn’t you see how they won the corner? Completely avoidable.

Pretty sure it still involved the skill of an opponent. 

Just now, petehinton said:

Has it? They’ve done nothing all game tbh. Thought we’ve looked really comfortable. 

Yep, thought it was a pretty open game and didn’t think we were as awful as some are saying. Vyner good again, same with James. Birmingham look like they’ve got something going forward, but not particularly secure defensively. 

Just now, collier said:

Oh well, good finish tbh.

It’s not allowed to be the skill of an opponent, it can only be our awfulness on the match day thread. 

8 minutes ago, mozo said:

Just because Mark Ashton's name has come up a lot on this thread I'll post this controversial and undoubtedly unpopular question here...

Are Ashton and Rolls doing a good job at Ipswich Town?

They joined the club when it was mid table league 1, and now they're in a 100% record in the Championship and won in the League Cup too (albeit against some lower league dog dirt club).

I appreciate that the financial investment fuelled the success, but Ashton was in part responsible for brokering the investment, and then oversaw the spend. Did he also recruit a new manager? And Rolls has had to keep the squad fit. Has he done so?

The pair were treated with derision and contempt when they left, but a lot of snide comments about how Ipswich will regret these appointments seem to have been misplaced. Ipswich look in a pretty good place right now?

Just playing devil's advocate!!!

Time will tell, but just as I’ll be surprised if Middlesbrough finish bottom, I’ll be surprised if Ipswich finish top (or close to top). Not sure the comments were snide, they were reflective of where that regime left us? 

31 minutes ago, ChrisBW said:

2 games against 2 powderpuff front lines. Greater challenges ahead.

Possibly Vyner/Dickie helped make them look powder puff? 

1 minute ago, Monkeh said:

Only 4 points clear of the bottom 4, worrying times

Only 6 points from 1st to 24th this season, it’s incredibly tight. 

2 minutes ago, ExiledAjax said:

It's the only reasonable extrapolation from where we are right now.

And close to certain to come to fruition. Would be lucky to get 1/33 at the bookies. 

Just now, ExiledAjax said:

If we can concede at just 0.66 goals per game for the rest of the season then we likely only need to score 45 or so to get top 6.

I predict we end on 92 points, 23 wins, 23 draws, 46 goals for, 23 goals against. 

1 minute ago, Northern Red said:

It's almost as if he's a decent player at this level...

Surely not? Need to ship him out with Yeboah (hasn’t taken his many chances) and James (legs have gone). TBH not many I’d keep as looking quite a lot like a team and that can’t be a good thing? 

Vyner/Dickie looking like a very promising partnership, nice contrast. 

Sure Zak won that. In fairness Stroud was at least 5 yards away, so difficult to spot. 

Just now, tin said:

He was harshly dropped IMO. I’d have started him and Mehmeti today.

Don’t think Pring was dropped for the Oxford game, NP rested a few. 

2 minutes ago, BasSavage88 said:

We are ******* boring to watch and teams know how to play against us and we don't seem to know how to change it. 

2 shots on target in 135 mins of championship football 

Do you think Millwall supporters are spending half time chatting about how well/thrillingly their team have played in their utter dominance of boring BCFC? 

Just now, IAmNick said:

Zak has been playing some great forward passes through the middle and on the floor so far this season.

Think he’s key against teams who set up this way, someone who can bring it out and play an ambitious pass. 

Two teams better without the ball than with it so far. Not thrilling, but doubt Millwall supporters thinking “Blimey, we’re smashing it” any more than we are. 

10 minutes ago, George Rs said:

Probs thinks pringy has a more physical presence at the back 

Also one of our best players last season, who didn’t have his best game against a very decent Championship side, when lots of others also below average. Roberts has no Championship experience and played very well against a poor League One team. Would be disappointed if NP saw that combination of factors as reason to drop Pring. 

5 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

I do fear for Nige / RG (Now PA’s) rebuild / plan will get us to a really good position, then we will throw it in the bin.

Yep, feels like a few years without a young/forward thinking/innovative/sycophant coach is about as much as SL can bear. Suspect one of the reasons we don’t hear much from PA is due to his full time job managing the relationship between NP and SL. Maybe correlation rather than cause and effect, but our success tends to come via stronger/reasonably traditional managers (eg JJ, GJ, SC) rather than up and coming ones (eg DMc, LJ)? Risk with stronger managers is they expect to be both accountable and empowered, whereas SL seems to like the idea that they should just be accountable! 

2 minutes ago, mozo said:

The Luton example proves it is possible, it doesn't make it probable that a club with a low squad value will go up.

Exactly. Reminds me of ‘from good to great’ a book doing the business consultancy psycho-babble rounds back in the day. Looked at US companies that had thrived over the long run and then identified traits they shared… made no attempt to identify other companies, with the same traits, that failed.