The Journalist

Fair comment - I guess to bring that 12-monthly cycle forward you're going to take a bit of a hit on older stock. I wonder how much in the way of current shirts etc they're still shifting?! Even with reductions they're still expensive and just feel a waste of money to me by this point, off the back of an unmemorable season that's about to finish.

I can never get my head around teams not bringing a new shirt out before the final home game of the season. Sell more for the summer, gives an impression of better value for money because it has a longer shelf life and you're more likely to get further sales around Christmas given little'uns would feel due another new shirt having had their last one six months ago. What am I missing?! (Worth saying the vast majority of clubs are like us on this, so I accept I may actually be missing something because I'm not a commercial expert...)

Genuinely excited. Love a chip.

I want to see this second AW goal.

100% a straight red card because if the goalkeeper doesn’t illegally kick the ball away it’s a goal. Actually incredibly good refereeing to make quite a common sense decision from a very unusual scenario.

The only Bristol City game I commentated on all season. They say timing is everything.

Not sure anyone's missed the point. Teams have been deducted points because they signed players they couldn't afford, spent beyond their means and tried to gain - and as Wycombe would argue did gain - a competitive advantage. In essence, without a points deduction the league table also wouldn't reflect where we actually are because two clubs cheated in an attempt to get in front of us. The other thing to add - as others have already pointed out - is that we wouldn't necessarily have drifted along in the manner we have done for weeks because we'd have been under a lot more pressure. And results and performances do back that point of view up to an extent - we've not been this shit all season, it's just a classic case of the hard work being done and the players being too spineless and unprofessional to maintain standards with nothing to play for. Just my two cents, anyway.

Who said that?! Not being facetious, genuine question.

This has made my day if nothing else.

"I never understand why grown men think it's a good idea to wear a football shirt"

This is why I don’t want Pearson sacked while we’re safe from relegation regardless of how we’re performing. The club structure has been and is in such a mess that we really do need a manager, at this point, with both the experience and confidence to challenge the owner/board to make the necessary behind-the-scenes changes to ensure sustainable long-term success. Pearson WILL do this, even if there’s a better coach out there to get a bit more out of the players. Pearson’s job spans far beyond what happens on the pitch and is why - and I know @Davefevs shares this view - even though I don’t necessarily think he’s the manager to move us towards the Premier League I believe he’s the the right man to set us on the right course.

Might be my imagination but he's always looked better after an international break/a spell out of the side (which hasn't happened often!). When he came back in after being dropped earlier in the year he looked much more physically up to it, more powerful in both his hold up play and his running the channels. Either way, when used properly he's a good player with lots to offer. It's not really his fault we often haven't used him properly.

I really like Han-Noah. Always gives everything, tenacious, enthusiastic, clearly really gifted in terms of technical ability… … Yet consistently makes some really poor decisions in his own defensive third and contributes next to nothing in the attacking third in terms of goals and assists. Still only 20 with bucket loads of room for development, yet has also played nearly 100 first-team games! I think he has a really big decision to make in terms of what next in his career. And, if he doesn’t stay, it’s really hard to call what sort of level he’ll be playing this time next year.

On that theme, I was actually going to edit my original post to say just that - to downplay the PR impact isn't to say I supported his signing. Like you, I didn't like it at all. Anyone who didn't want him here was well within their rights to be unhappy about it.

There are players in our current squad who were worse signings than Simpson (I struggle to look past Kasey Palmer for that accolade when you consider the eye-watering sums of money involved for a player who wasn't even good on loan)! In terms of negative PR, I think people over-egg this point slightly. Bristol City are a very small bubble - the ripples weren't even felt that strongly across the local media, let alone further afield. Most football fans probably wouldn't even know Danny Simpson was at Bristol City, frankly.

Not ploughed through all four pages but anyone saying we've been "saved" by other teams receiving points deductions needs to give their head a wobble. Those teams were deducted points because they cheated. They cheated in signing substantially better players than they could afford. They've been deducted points to counter the competitive advantage they gained/tried to gain by signing those players.

Agreed - I thought in the early part of the season James looked like exactly what we've needed since Pack left. Needs to get properly fit, clearly, but he's a proper all-rounder.

Maybe they were funding Danny Simpson's vast wages ala 32Red and Wayne Rooney and it's all just got a bit much for both parties.

His seat was in Gary Johnson’s office. Denied it was him though.

I've always quite liked having flair players (in the David Noble sense of the word) or at least proper footballing players playing off one flank, as long as you've got someone comfortable going on the outside on the opposite side so you don't just become ridiculously narrow. Josh Brownhill, while obviously being very different to Noble, also had the intelligence to come inside from wide and influence the play. Jamie Paterson's another who was good at that IMO.

Sheff Utd L Preston W Crystal Palace W Crystal Palace W Hull L And, I'm not sure if you were at the Sheffield United one, but I vividly remember the match as one of the best performances I've ever seen from a City side in defeat. The players got a standing ovation from the entire away end post-game.

And five of those games David Noble started - the final five of the campaign - were actually off the right in a similar role to the one Josh Brownhill played during our cup run. Lee Johnson, as it happens, was left out for Nick Carle. That midfield of McIndoe - Carle - Elliott - Noble saw us end that season playing probably our best football of the entire campaign. I'm not sure Noble EVER started a game in the middle of midfield in the Championship. He just didn't have the mobility for it, so we had to find different areas of the field to hide his lack of athleticism.

I'd have thought with the power of hindsight he'd have just dived the right way for every penalty.

The next Jude Bellingham.

Another good performance from a team half made up of young’uns. Don’t mind it at all, don’t really care about the result. Next few months remains a bit of a free hit in terms of fine tuning and getting experience into players. While we’re still losing plenty, I think we’ve served up more entertainment in the past two/three months than the past two/three years put together.