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Would you say football, or football clubs, is/are good at communicating reality though? Up until very recently?

Very sad news. Fair play to you for ploughing through three of her tomes, I am a mere philistine in this I am afraid and only know her via the visual arts and the fine BBC dramatisation of Wolf Hall with Mark Rylance, which I found absolutely captivating and have watched a few times, and consequently often think about buying the trilogy (then get put off by the sheer number of pages. And all the hours on Otib trying to read this would deny me). I might go and see it at the theatre, mind, that's a bit more Cotterill than watching it on the telly, isn't it?

Apparently, today, 19th September, is: "International Talk Like A Pirate Day." No, really. It's a thing. What do pirates talk like, OTIB?

My advice @yardy would be not to try and do it in a day, maybe stay overnight or better still, make a weekend of it.

Bit harsh, mate. Who of us can say we haven't been to one of them sexist race orgies from time to time?

No. Henry's winding you up.

That Derby 4:1 might've been the best of the lot. Team were applauded off at half-time, losing 0:1! It was a brilliant three to four months that sadly didn't last. That Derby 4:1 might've been the best of the lot. Team were applauded off at half-time, losing 0:1! It was a brilliant three to four months that sadly didn't last. That Derby 4:1 might've been the best of the lot. Team were applauded off at half-time, losing 0:1! It was a brilliant three to four months that sadly didn't last.

Do.

Argue on here

They were so looking forward to doing this at Anfield .....

Send adults?

Stop all the clocks, call off the matches, give Scott and Weimann a much needed rest; play Preston and Norwich when Kalas and Klose are fit.

I don't think I can manage ten days of mourning, although Preston home, Norwich and Burnley away ..... ?

Forest semi, second leg 89?

Doubt we'll get "3 singing," not at AG, although if we can just beat bloody Preston ....

Bradford managed promotion from L2 and a League Cup run with one more game than our cup run in 2012/13. And four FA Cup games, three more than us in 17/18. They did ok for "steam." Footballers get "tired" or run out of "steam" for all sorts of reasons, not all of them because of playing lots of games. How many times have we heard footballers saying they'd prefer to play than train? We just do not know for certain why we fell away that season. I don't think Diedhiou can have been "tired," he didn't play any games from Palace in October until his return to fitness. Kent and Diony cannot have been tired from that schedule either. Diony didn't run out of steam, he never had any in the first place. The following season, we got into April, and with the play-off "finishing line" in sight and Derby lagging behind us, we "ran out of steam" again. This time, with no "ridiculous amount of games" to point to.

Thing with Kasey Palmer is, we don't miss him, not one tiny bit. We could be struggling this season, and still we would not miss him at all. I would imagine it is the same for the other clubs he has played for. It will be no great surprise if it's the same once he has left Coventry.

One of the difficulties, in assessing the job Nige was doing, was in having a clear, unequivocal understanding of the size of the pickle we were in following covid and the era of Johnson and Ashton, how our hands were tied. But in football, no-one from a club comes out and says: "I have made a right mess of this, to be fair, and was completely taken in by the incompetent and vain Ashton who I have now fired because he was shite and making a right bloody Horlicks of this club. Nige is now buggered financially this season, and next, so if he signs some old shite and we are unwatchable and turgid for another 12 - 18 months, it's my fault and all pelters must be sent my way not Nige's." Football clubs don’t do this, they do: "we go again" and "today's attendance was 21,866." And other cheery, nothing-to-see-here nobody-goes-home-empty-handed infantile nonsense. If owners do not offer the plain truth and explain and official sites and outlets are not forthcoming, people are left to piece the reality together themselves, and some are a better at that than others.

For me, it's more stew than brew. For me, Nige has got the slow cooker on and something smells good. When's it ready, Nige?

Wednesday, just gone

Nah, think it was San Antonio Unido about 25 years ago went something like 7 years without a penalty in the Chilean Segunda Division.

Where do you go for the latter - Hargreaves Lansdown?

Yeah. And before it. Where is @BS4 on Tour... by the way?

Nige calls this the bigger or "whole" picture. He is quoted on the BBC site saying: "Most people have gone home happy because we won, but I have to look at the whole picture." Like @Harry was doing recently, when things are going well it's ok for some people to ask: How can we be better? It's not the end of the world. It's what Nige is doing. Equally, when things are not going well, it's ok for people to come on here and say "there are some positives/signs of encouragement," particularly when we're only a day in to September. Some other people properly lose their shit on here when this happens, including myself once or twice. Some people seem to struggle with debate that goes beyond "win=everything's fine/lose=everything's shite" level of chat and I wonder why they keep returning to this place when it is pretty obvious by now what they will find here, and what various posters starting threads will predictably entail. And also, it will be exactly the same at just about every club up and down the country. Man City could do with a defence to match their forward options, a little bit like ourselves, I shouldn't be surprised to see on their forum. Be a bit of a waste if they don't win the league with the new young kiddie they've got up front. The definition of 'forum' goes something like: "a place where ideas and views can be exchanged" whereas too many people seem to want this place to have one narrative or simple idea ("win=good, lose=sack someone") and to come on here after a win or loss and see that one idea they have about how things are right now repeated back to them.

Eustace: "you, you, you, you and you: get yer boots on. You two: you can leave your coat on."