Numero Uno

I get all the “it makes no difference” but five minutes on the internet tells you it’s a piss take. You might argue they have been irresponsible rather than congratulating them?

For someone who clearly wants to piss off he’s had a lot of minutes this season, more than he deserves and only due to injuries tbh, and as far as I’m concerned isn’t doing it. HNM is a player we need to offload, if he does it elsewhere good luck to him, because what he’s given us over the last 18 months isn’t even close to what it should be as a player with the amount of game time he has under his belt. When you compare the trajectory of Scott with HNM its chalk and cheese.

The problem we’ve got is Max is really a stop gap keeper at our level and we don’t know yet whether Bajic is ready. If he isn’t then Nige will go with the lesser of evils, rightly so.

Who is paying for your ambition out of interest?

He was poor yesterday. Yes, we do have problems defensively but there is no way you can say that Bentley shouldn’t take a share of the responsibility for that, especially when you look at games like Wigan and yesterday. I can guarantee that Nige would have asked either him and/or Pat Mountain a few questions after 5pm yesterday.

Imagine that, Curtis Fleming in charge, Jason Euell doing both the assistant and coaching roles, no money to spend and as the final kick in the bollocks 2-3 of the points we have already earned deducted. Let’s hope Steve can control his anger and disappointment over yesterday’s shit show better than some on here……

If Pearson goes this season our FFP position almost certainly dictates it will be an internal appointment. We get the same tactics, methods etc. but with a less experienced Manager and no money to spend to make up for the experience gap. Something for the fans who want a new Manager every time we have a bad run to reflect on.

That is they key. The Coventry keeper generally “stayed” the other night unless the ball was within a few yards of him but that was ok because their back line defended accordingly. It’s also easy to adjust when you have a clean the lot out keeper, you don’t go back to your 6 yard box very often looking to head balls. The problem with Bentley is he sometimes “half comes” then stops which is a total disaster zone for both him and the back four and often when he does come he punches balls he should be catching or flaps. As a defender that is a nightmare. More often than not if you concede 2-3 goals in a game from set piece crosses you are asking your keeper afterwards if he could have done a bit more to help.

You might be right BUT it's also true whether people want to recognise it or not, given Zak is the whipping boy, that he has been our most consistent performing defender for weeks. Hands down. I dare anyone to say that either Naismith or Atkinson have been better defensively.................because if you do you are either blind or in denial.

The issues are we cannot defend properly in terms of concentration rather than know how and that needs money to address that we don't have, we have young players like Scott and Conway in our starting eleven who will have good games and bad games because at their age they can't put in eight 7-8/10 performances every ten games, we've got players like Massengo, Atkinson and Vyner who should really be coming into their own given 100-150 league games under their belt but generally it isn't happening (mind you Vyner is playing far better than Massengo and Atkinson to be fair to him) and we are then left with a group of senior players who we struggle to get out on the park in some cases, others who are fairly limited in ability for the most part and, worse, don't seem to have much about them, attitude wise. We are the epitome of "Southern Softies", some weeks we can look dynamite (which is a massive improvement on last season) but every team knows we can be knocked out of our stride fairly easily. If Birmingham, given the way the play, could cherry pick opposition it would be us every single week. For all Naismith's faults, what I will say about him is that even after making personal mistakes he is still shouting at others and trying to get others to play which takes bravery and a solid level of attitude, confidence and knowledge of why you are out there. We clearly had none of that in our starting eleven today, no leadership or backbone whatsoever, and if I was Nige I would be livid with our senior players. Where I cannot have sympathy with Nige is the decision to continue with Bentley as Captain - he needs to concentrate on putting in performances worthy of keeping his place in the side for a start and he really doesn't need that distraction. I'm on holiday for a week but it wouldn't surprise me to switch on my phone on Wednesday and find we've turned Preston over 2-0 but equally if we lost 3-0 that wouldn't shock me either. That's where we are. Probably comes over as War and Peace but that's my two pennorth.......

That has a bigger effect on the performance of a back line than many people realise. When you are unsure, every single time a ball gets loaded into the box, whether firstly your keeper is even going to come or wants you to head it more or less under your crossbar and secondly if he does come will he flap at the sodding thing, that makes defending even harder than it is already. He did it at Wigan and he did it in spades today. The third goal didn't even look like a professional keeper between the sticks that's how bad that was. Great shot stopper I agree but that's why he's not playing at a higher level, you just cannot trust the guy on a regular basis when crosses get launched into the box.

I’d have the bastards in tomorrow ??

Especially when Wilder realises they are crap?

I think the £680k incoming from Peterborough will help and if we are close I would 100% be looking to offload Massengo in January.

Couldn’t agree more. Despite a poor run and a dreadful display today we do have goals in us and will get enough results imo to steer clear of the bottom places. We can’t afford to replace managers and staff, Steve can but the FFP position of the club can’t, simple as that. We need Nige to steer us through the absolute shambles created by the transfer and spend policy of others and when the finances are better if Nige can’t move us forward from there you start looking at alternatives when you can afford them.

We are pretty much “just” the right side of FFP as I understand it so sacking Nige and paying him up plus his staff then bringing in Wilder on a nice contract and his staff……..you do the maths.

If they didn’t get it after the last accounts they never will. You can’t explain FFP to people who won’t listen.

I've picked a good time to take a week's holiday. Missing the next two..................and can't say I'm that gutted about it right now. Just got to hope we can somehow get 3-4 points.

Not a single shot on target. That really is back to the bad old days............. The least they could do is apologise to those that travelled.

Pretty much flapping at anything and everything that comes his way. There's a lot more to Goalkeeping than saving shots and he is the absolute definition of a shot stopper.

Thought you were talking about HNM?

James is unspectacular but he would be a massive improvement on what we've got in there on today's showing. At least he turns up most weeks doing what he does whether that is to your liking or not.

One game where he ran the show in over a hundred? That's not bad. If he turned up four or five in ten I could understand some of the fuss around him.

Gotta be honest and I've said it a number of times the sooner HNM finds a club that suits his style of play the better because that club ain't us. When is the kid going to score or even assist because he's had over 100 goes at it for us, certainly hasn't scored and has barely registered an assist. That isn't a midfield player for me.

This is where Nige earns his money for me because putting in that 45 after 2K have paid their hard earned to come and watch you isn't acceptable.