Numero Uno

Exactly and "better" players alongside them who haven't been pulling their weight for weeks get a free pass........

He's gone, give it up. We all know the reason he's not here is because Palmer and O'Dowda are and that's to do with finances not football reasons. Give Stevie Boy a call on his mobile if you want to make a real issue of it!!

What’s the point though in a way? After selling players Barnsley are a poor outfit on a very tight budget, will very likely get relegated whoever is in charge and all you are doing is paying another manager to get them relegated plus gardening leave to the one you should have left in place to get them relegated.

Deserved the sack for losing to us tbh?

I don’t disagree but yesterday he was our weakest midfield player. He looked like he had won a fan’s competition at times. Hopefully he’ll get back to what he can do on Tuesday. We still lack leaders in this squad, something I was hoping James might be, and that is something Nige really must address.

Yep. He's a fantastic shot stopper but there is a clear reason why he hasn't made it to the Premiership yet when a couple of years ago he was one you would have expected to push on a bit more.

He absolutely detested it here though, and I've heard that from people who would know, so it might be one of those chicken and egg situations.

What, on his performance yesterday? If so the people picking that would have been off their heads on hallucinogenic drugs which, to be fair, is about the only thing that would have made that game bearable it was so low on quality. Did you see the game?

Crap goalkeeping, end of story. Really crap.

This is where I differ from most on the forum. Cracking saves are great but they don't impress me as much as others. These higher level pro's train all week to make saves like that, probably making 30-40 saves like that every week if not more. I want to see a keeper who exhibits good decision making and takes pressure off defenders. Why should our centre halves be heading balls underneath their own crossbar all afternoon? And then when the goalkeeper does come, he doesn't get within the next ******* postcode of the ball. No defender wants that behind them. MOTD was waxing lyrical over Ramsdale yesterday because of the SAVES he made...................and they were great saves, especially the Madison free kick....BUT what impressed me the most in the 20 odd minutes I watched in the concourse before the game was the crosses he was collecting and you could tell from the defenders reactions they appreciated that every last bit as much as the great saves he made.

James? He couldn't pass wind yesterday but it's far easier for people who aren't watching the game properly and want a scapegoat to blame Bakinson for the fact that we kept giving the ball away. I'll be honest, I think James has been underwhelming for weeks and needs to liven up a bit.

I said this today. Someone will break their leg due to this stupid rule, there will be uproar about it and the rule will get changed back.

I don't think Nige trusts him just yet, stamina wise, to do it for 90 minutes but the fact he started him is a step forward.

It's about management with these young players, something I think Pearson is very good at for all the criticism he gets on here by a few. I think we will see Scott affecting games come the end of the season and it's right that he is being eased in so that he reaches that level.

Yep but he seems to be the fall guy with people. I know why Pearson kept James on (because he wouldn't want Bakinson trying to do James job) BUT James was having a mare and it affected both Massengo who was only at 80% today imo and Bakinson who was certainly nowhere near the worst of the performers on that pitch today and played our ONLY quality pass of the second 45 minutes.

No, Lansdown but there did look to be a few in the Dolman who were doing the same.

Ok, them dominating it was a tad over the top. However saying it was even is one way of putting it......even in terms of both sides being as bloody awful as each other in a game that wouldn't have looked out of place at National League South level at times in terms of the "quality" on show.

One guy near me literally got up and left after Barnsley scored............

No and I don't think it's any accident that the two coaches have been ****** out of it. When teams like Barnsley, no disrespect to them, can keep possession of the football for decent periods even if they somehow contrived not to do the most important thing of the lot then there is literally no excuse for us. Matty James passing today was shambolic and he simply cannot be that bad a player. Something is not right on the coaching side of the operation. A lot of hard work required on the training ground to repair a huge amount of damage caused over the last couple of years. The next coaching appointment is an important one imo. The huge bonus for us is that we are still managing to pick up points IN SPITE OF our performances in an attacking sense and that gives Nige a little bit of breathing space in the short term.

I get all of that but that particular level of performance today is not sustainable however hard the players work. When you think about it applauding a player for "putting in a shift" is about as feint as praise gets. Whilst we know what a job Nige has on his plate we do have players running about out there who are picking up £20K plus per week and there is no way that those particular players should be getting a free ride from anyone or be excused for having piss poor standards just because we were so desperate for a win. These guys need to be setting an example to the younger players in the squad and lately it's not been happening. Turning up in an attacking sense for literally a few minutes out of 100 on a regular basis will lose you games week-in and week-out. It's not even an argument. The Manager clearly recognised the level of our performance in his post-match interview and I wouldn't mind betting that the majority of the players out on that field today with the red shirt on will be gone in the next 18 months...........most out of choice by the Manager as much as necessity to bring in funds. We were all desperate for the win and most of us realise that the Manager needs to be given time but you'll have to excuse me for missing out the platitudes after getting ******* battered by Barnsley for 96 minutes out of 100 and hanging on to an undeserved win (but a win is a win so fair enough on the effort side of it), a Barnsley side that will be lucky to get near 10 wins this season - no, I'll save that for when they put a decent performance on the table - hopefully Tuesday.

You can see there is something to work with but the lad will need to be managed very carefully. He's not the biggest and in this league there will be occasions where he gets chewed up and spat out. That's already happened with Scott on at least one occasion this season when he got hooked after half an hour.........and Scott has got plenty of ability.

I'll be honest and I'm sure many will disagree but I thought James was very poor today, Massengo did not hit his normal heights (although that can be a high bar) and Bakinson actually did alright for me when you consider he had James alongside him who had a bit of a mare imo. Great pass for Wells which really should have resulted in a third goal whether that be from Wells himself or a tap in from a squared ball.

It's the fact that this is a very mediocre Championship that SHOULD keep us in the division this season which as far as I'm concerned is job done. Then we can have a look at bringing in better and hopefully offloading some of our non-contributors.

Agreed but there were a few occasions where Wells was responsible for Wells being offside.

It's a very refreshing change to have a Manager who could not only see what the rest of us saw today but is prepared to say it. Obviously his job in the longer term is to dramatically improve the level of performance which was bottom of the barrel at times, terrible, but with FFP forcing Steve to keep his hands in his sky rocket this isn't an overnight transformation. In the short term we simply have to play better than that though - hopefully it's a confidence thing because if it isn't then we are in for a very tough season. My gripe today was that we should be playing better than that against Barnsley where we literally turned up for 4 minutes in terms of attacking play. Luckily those 4 minutes won us the game. If we can battle our way to a draw on Tuesday night then it will be a very good few days for us in the context of the season.