BCFCGav

If he never officiates again, it’ll be too soon. Muppet of the highest magnitude. 

We have to put a complaint in against that ref. We’ve been ******* robbed of any chance in that game. He needs to be seriously scrutinised. Never felt so fuming after a match.

This ref has been one of the most biased ******* I’ve ever seen. Identical penalty shouts, one given, then letting Austin rile up the crowd for about a minute while the ref just stood there with his nob in his hands. Hope he gets the full Pearson treatment at full time.

I thought 16 was the cut off? Guess I thought wrong!

The OTIB curse, he’s injured. We need to discuss rovers players more.

…just missed an absolute sitter! After a wonderful goal earlier. Very fun player to watch. C’mon Newcastle!

How the Luton stole Christmas. Very annoying. Ah well, no bad tidings at Christmas! Hope all recover fast and fully.

Merry Christmas everybody! 

7 hours ago, Bobby kellard hero said:

My weekend in London for Fulham looks f——d.

The era of ruined plans this. We’ll just have to royally make up for it when we can

EFL and Prem will have to be strict this year if we’re going to complete all the competitions. As will UEFA with European matches. If you can play, you play.

Beats the hell out of another league suspension.

16 minutes ago, BigTone said:

I think we will try and cash in on Wells, Palmer & Dasilva. Regrettably I think Massengo also. Weimann we need to keep.

I just can’t see money coming in for any of them bar Massengo. And if whispers are true we really need incoming cash. Buyers will know their situation and tell us to sod off if we start chasing fees.

9 minutes ago, JonDolman said:

I don't think we'd get any decent offers for Weimann. The suggestion doesn't deserve confused emojis though imo.

I think it’s a good idea! Still we like a debate on here, so I don’t mind a few funky emojis coming my way

Bit of an ‘out there’ shout but with Andi being on course for an 18 goal season (9 at the half way point), still with a relentless work rate and having a few years left in him at 30, is there a chance we can cash in in January? We all know we need some incoming cash from transfers but naturally we don’t want to lose Scott, Massengo, Benarous, Semenyo as they could all have a big say in our (potential) future successes. Further, I’m sure that Martin, Wells, Semenyo and Conway is enough firepower to see us safe. Could a top 6 Championship club or a team abroad be tempted? How much could we get?

Side note, I’m a big fan of Weimann, just thinking about what’s best for the club. 

36 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Haha, see my response to Harry in the Massengo thread.

Ah great minds! My gut feeling is Nige will stick not twist, some of our best results this season have been with the back 5. Boxing Day will tell all. If we’ve got a game to watch, I won’t complain too much regardless of formation! 

I wonder if we’ll revert to traditional full backs in a back 4 after yesterday, with width coming from wide midfielders. Something like…:

Bentley: Tanner, Kalas, Atkinson, Dasilva: Scott, King, James, Semenyo: Weimann, Martin.

Very speculative XI but not one I’d be unhappy to see on Boxing Day. 

Disappointing result, though maybe our best display in attack? Unpopular opinion perhaps. Defence was a shambles mind.

Baker - career threatening. All the best Bakes.

Cundy - soon.

King - soon.

Williams

O’Dowda

So the new addition in O’Dowda. Surely Pring is a ready made replacement? Thought the Benarous call odd yesterday. Onto Luton away, Covid permitting. COYR.

Really disappointed to see Atkinson getting the chop before Vyner does. Am I missing something? We were defensively poor as a unit today but Atkinson is our best CB quite often imo.

So embarrassing. Underdeveloped coked up brains I suspect.

See I'll go if it's on because I can't stand missing matches, and have no contact with anyone vulnerable. But if it was a viable option on Robin's TV without having to bother with a VPN, I'd do that as I think that's for the greater good. I don't think it'll be long before we're back on Robins TV anyway, so let's just start now. 

2 hours ago, Dolman_Stand said:

Agree with you, even for the disruption it will cause people rather than then number of hospitalisations which remains to be seen.

It's not just the 15 to 20k at AG on Saturday it's the entire attendance across the football league and other sports that would dwarf the so called super spreaders of Cheltenham 2020 and Liverpool v Atletico match. Must be a couple million people due to attend sporting fixtures this weekend that would only fan the flames of the next wave.

Exactly. And I don't know about other posters but I already know far more people who are positive this time around then I did in waves 1 and 2. Honestly feels like if we continue the way we are it's an inevitability about half of us end up with it. 

The only good is I feel confident that the many vaccines that have been given out will keep hospitilisations and deaths low, so I guess it's a balancing act now of how many people are we happy to put 'in harms way' considering their chances of being fine are very high. Though what consolation is that to those who aren't fine. Tricky calls to be made, but what we're doing now feels like no decisions have really been made at all.  

Needs to go behind closed doors now sadly. We’ve clearly not got a handle on it so allowing 20,000+ to gather and mingle is insanity. Back to Robins TV for a bit. Sadly Boris will pussy foot around it for a month first to make sure we’re really in the shit, then act.

4 minutes ago, Numero Uno said:

Can't agree with you at all on the Goalkeepers. Two of the three will never ever be given a league start for any other reason than Bentley being injured. That's not covering a position in my book.

Isn't that the definition of cover 

I think we've seen enough of Max to know he's a solid enough back up should Bents get a knock, and we don't know much about Wiles-Richards because we haven't needed to. But if he didn't have it he'd have been released by now. Not a problem area at all for me.

Thinking about depth of positions in our now preferred 5-3-2:

GK: Bentley, O'Leary, Wiles-Richards 

CB: 3 from Atkinson, Kalas, Baker, Vyner, Cundy. Given injury records of Bakes and Cundy I think we need one more 

RWB: Simpson, Tanner. Maybe one light 

LWB: O'Dowda, Pring, Dasilva 

CM: 3 from James, King, Williams, Bakinson, HNM, Scott, Benarous, Palmer 

Striker: 2 from Weimann, Martin, Wells, Semenyo, Conway 

Obviously I've put players in their 'natural' positions but many cover multiple roles. I think what this shows is we are manned well enough in all positions, barring the two I've marked orange where we could possibly do with one more. So no 'emergency' positions, which means we can think about areas we just want to improve. I see the need for a consistent goal scorer but generally we're scoring at an ok rate this season, but defensively leaky. I'd like to see us sign another consistent CB who could form a reliable back 3 with Atkinson and Kalas, with Baker, Cundy and Vyner covering. Then if Cundy is up to doing that covering, let Vyner go.

I really hope it's incompetence and not something altogether shadier (which is quite a depressing thing to have to write).

Tanner’s fit again which is very good, but on James’ second game back was he looking a bit tentative at the end? Well he scored regardless! Hopefully just fatigue and nothing to worry about. Scott similarly is hopefully just a knock and will be back next Saturday, fingers crossed. Which leaves us with:

Cundy

Baker

King

Williams

So pretty good overall! No shock Nige’s trusted medics are doing a world better than Ashton’s mates (I know, I know, let it go). 

Covid bad. Vaccine good. Ashton Gate safe(r). Easy.