Numero Uno

.............especially when the people remaining have got to do 120% of their current workload on 90% of the salary. When you consider we gave Clive Whitehead an ELEVEN YEAR contract and Ritchie and Gow SEVEN year contracts you realise how mismanaged the club was at the time.

Who genuinely seems to be the most bitter of the eight to this day.....................

From what I am told one of the eight in particular is still extremely bitter about the whole thing to this day..........actually you mention it in one of your earlier posts.

Oh yeah, no guarantees BUT had we passed on him and then carried on letting in the goals and losing games (which we could still do as you say) there would have been a lot of questions asked by the "hindsight merchants" that fill this board. Bear in mind, also, that the guy is 33 years of age not 63!! I wish I was an "old lag", a "pensioner" etc. I know that much.....................

If his presence helps us achieve 3-4 clean sheets then that is very likely to be job done this season. Or, even where we don't keep a clean sheet and we are hanging onto a point or three, if he gets his head on that whipped in free kick that was landing straight on the opposition centre forward's bonce!! On that basis why wouldn't you take that "ultra pragmatic" approach? In fact had we not taken that approach imagine the uproar on here if we were to carry on letting in 2-3 goals per game without him?

Yes, low cost and low risk signing which is where we are as a club anyway!! As others have said, if the guy is over his injuries we have a very capable centre half for the rest of the season.

Lets be fair, that has been our problem for literally four years plus now. Look at the Cardiff game on Saturday, we destroyed them on the counter. We may be able to make tweaks with tactics but it will take new personnel unfortunately before we are really able to boss games possession wise AND be a goal threat at the same time.

Generally yes but this is a specific position where due to injuries we are weak as piss and as Nige correctly says it is not sustainable to be going into every game needing to score at least twice to get a point out of it and three to four times to get a win.

3.5 goals per season is ok for a Centre Half..........as long as three of them are winners.

No, all you have to ask is are you happy with the way the manager is progressing the three year job that the owner has asked him to do? That is the only question you need to answer, nothing else...............and whether the answer is yes or no, thinking for themselves is everyone's prerogative, you then have to add in the perspective that with our FFP situation the bloke is going nowhere (unless he jacks it in himself) anyway.

I think Bentley will be back in on Saturday. For starters coaches in this league aren't daft and what do you think Preston will be doing on Saturday if O'Leary is in goal? All clubs in this league have analysts who would have gone through the last five or six matches of their upcoming opponents and, unfortunately, will have noticed a recurring theme with us defensively, Preston will be no different.

There’s no excuses it’s crap goalkeeping end of story. Soft as shit.

Saying what you think is one thing, passing it off as absolute fact just makes you look and sound like a total ********.......particularly when you know no more of what is going on behind the scenes than the rest of us.

Semenyo is the obvious example of that. League 1/2 at best was mentioned by literally hundreds on here if you can be arsed to go back a couple of years. As you say there is no consideration by so many fans that when you are looking at a young player who is considered good enough by the Management you have to factor in that Championship football is brutal and it takes time for the majority of them to get to grips with it.........that's why Scott was subbed after half an hour earlier in the season and why Benarous is being rested at the moment. There are a handful of exception's at most, Scott being one of them, in the top two divisions where kids of that age get their chance and establish themselves very quickly. You certainly won't see three or four 18 year old kids from the same Academy of that standard when the truth is you are extremely lucky to get one. The fact that some fans can only see what is in front of them at the exact moment they see it is disappointing but not surprising and that is why we get these uneducated comments quite regularly on our younger players.

Not going to labour the point but it is entirely possible those 14 minutes that Bakinson was given the opportunity to play at Fulham were the straw that broke the camel's back for Nigel Pearson where Tyreeq Bakinson was concerned. It might only be 14 minutes plus another 4-5 injury time but that is irrelevant, Tyreeq is a professional footballer and he is meant to put a shift in..............in all circumstances. Maybe Nige sent him on hoping to see some evidence of the lad wanting to fight his way into a starting berth the following week and, instead, what he saw confirmed to him that the kid had no intention of committing to the plan in the way others have.........Zak Vyner as a good example who has not been playing to the best of his ability, gets dropped on Saturday but then comes on unexpectedly, was ready and willing and had one of his better games this season. That's the attitude "when the going gets tough" that I can only assume Pearson wants to see from his players.

I'm not sure he did "break rules", I think that was a case of many people (myself included) getting 2 + 2 to equal 5. When I looked at the comment again it seemed to me that Nige thought Bentley's form had dipped and the "he knows the rules" comment related to the fact that nobody in the squad is given a "free place" in the side, Captain or otherwise...........exactly how it should be.

Doesn’t matter, he’s gone and it has to be better to concentrate on the players who gave it their all yesterday,

The important thing is the support on match day which has been fantastic given our circumstances. It is a fact that the vast majority of the biggest moaners on here don’t go to matches and it’s utterly bizarre.

Nobody is suggesting cutting costs on youth development. In fact we should spend more on the development of OUR youth. It’s the steady stream of punts that we have taken as a club, Bakinson, Hines, Engvall and zillions of others that is finished. FFP determines that has to be the case. However, even if you develop your own you have to make a decision on all of them at some point. You can’t keep them for ever. Wollacott, your example, was 24/25 and had been here 15 years and was nowhere near a first team spot so for HIS benefit we had to let him make a career elsewhere. He might end up being top notch but having watched him last week he certainly looked like a League 2 keeper thrust into AFCON. Championship football is way above the level that 99% of 18 year old Academy lads can play at. You do have to be careful otherwise you can finish lads before they’ve even started.

Its got to be. You look at that penalty given today then you look at Ederson totally cleaning out Ryan Fraser a few week back and not even looked at…….it’s all about keeping certain clubs at the top of the league. What Leicester did a few years back was a “mistake” that will never be allowed to happen again.

Yes is the answer…….

That decision deserves a National League appointment next week. To get it wrong and change your correct decision when you have a second look at it is lily livered at best, bent at worst.

It’s strange that yet again the people who don’t think it’s good enough are conspicuous by their absence since yesterday lunch time. What a terrible way to support a football club ie only show up to bellyache.

I think Mike Dean would have done in that instance tbf.

Shame there’s not a Tunnel Cam because Viera walks down the tunnel five yards in front of the Ref….