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A horse he owns. Someone put a £150k punt on it winning, too. Probably not an accountant in Guernsey.

Good shout, mate. Yes. But question is: where? Probably not the Carpathian Mountains this summer, I would suggest.

Whichever division you/we are in, there's a certain minimum number of games you need to win - or a limit to how many games/weeks you can go without a win, before a significant percentage of yer crowd lose their rag - to keep people reasonably calm/satisfied. In a 46 game season that number of wins will be somewhere around 15 (14-16) minimum, meaning on average you're winning once in every three and not going months without a win. Unless LJ is on one of his hot or cold streaks. Winning makes supporters feel good, very good; not winning denies them that feeling. We are addicted to the buzz of feel-good hormones that flood our bodies when we win. To feeling prowed. When we don’t win and are forced into cold-turkey, we are agitated and unreasonable, and someone will know about it, and someone must pay. Some people can put the defeats and not-winning streaks into context and soothe their disappointment accordingly; others are more reactive and lose their shit more rapidly. Whatever division we are (the top, the middle ones, the bottom) in after a while and the initial euphoria or depression has receded, we return to our ordinary levels of contentment and or disappointment. And our aching need to win the next game, and feel the buzz again.

Our are lads out on the lash (and the flash) for a day at the races anyone know? Or has Nige binned that off after last night's showing? And I just see Brighton's Tony Bloom has won up there - good job Steve and his Bristol Sports stable have steered clear of that sort of thing, I'd say.

What is happening here now is that Steve and his eye-watering wedge is keeping us, just, a second-tier club, our head's above the water of relegation, where under any previous owners we would be sunk. If we hadn't gone down last season, under any previous owners, we'd be bottom of the pile now on about 24 points and already planning for Gillingham / Walsall / L1. Rather like modern medicine keeps old folk alive well into their 80s and even their 90s, living a dismal life of decrepitude and decreasing independence and autonomy, grimly watching afternoon telly in their own homes (if they're lucky; if they're not, in an old folks home), whereas decades ago 99% of them would be six feet under by now having gone before getting to the almost pointless existence that is life post-80 with all its aches and pains (and worse), so is Steve keeping us alive about at least six places higher than where we usually would be, ripping up L1 and enjoying the gay-abandon of trampling Gillingham / Walsall / L1 in to the dirt. Or, er, about to do that very soon. Instead, thanks to Steve - thanks Steve! - we cling on grimly to our Championship lives, stinking and stagnating the place out, turning people off and away in their hundreds. All that's happening here is a long goodbye - to the second tier - a much, much longer goodbye than typically. And boy is it painful / dull! Put us out of our misery, Steve, and take us back to L1 now!!

It's like the best time to plant a tree being twenty years ago and all that, we might've got Nige in 2016 when we had a group of decent lads struggling to step up and Nige hadn't yet been struck down with covid (if someone hadn't been set on having Mark Ashton and Lee Johnson). In other words, our timing's shit. Like Phil Tufnell batting. I still expect us to appoint Moyesie, but in about 25 years and only when he needs us more than we need him (because he's lost it). And maybe Joe Royle, who we coul've had twice before (when he was top notch).

I thought the best line was the OP's Thread title, the players rewarding themselves with a day off having won at the weekend (needn't have said any more than that). Like last season, Nige arrives, we win two games, we're safe and the players take the rest of the season off. The only way to "manage" this squad is to get rid of the wasters and the easily satisfied/complacent, and bring in better, hungrier characters.

Neil Hannon's greatest line, fer me, is the one about Mike Gatting, Gatt's insatiable gut/appetite and the Ball of the Century at Old Trafford in 1993 when Shane Warne bowled Gatt's "for a buggering duck", in his song "Jiggery Pokery:" "If it had been a cheese roll it would never have got passed me"

Cos Cov had ten men believing they could do it/us and we had eleven fearing we might blow it. Collectively, we are mentally fragile.

Of our teams at this level over the last four decades that avoided the ignominy of relegation is this/this is the worst (?)

Good effort, Dave. But have another go (start with this: "the squad he inherited is ... )

Let's try: "the squad he inherited is rubbish. The squad he inherited is rubbish. The squad he inherited is rubbish." Your go ....

Surely Martin Parr will display these in his gallery over Arnos Vale? Although if there's room in an empty engine shed at Parsons Street .....

He could ask Nige if he can play for the First X1 now?

How Jim white's not on Newsnight I'll never know ...

Dean "Deano" Ashton, on the telly, Forest v 'uddersfield just now. This is a new one on me. Would any of our technical or in the know contributors be able to explain what a "reverse back-heel" is? Is it kicking the ball forwards? Or doesn't it work like that (mate)?

That was my point, we've spent considerably more than Preston to do considerably worse. Six seasons in seven. Fair play to Lee, he got us to finish above them the once but even under him we were very wasteful, and under-performed.

Had a look at us compared to Preston. Preston are, I think, a very good barometer by which to assess how we have done back in the Championship, both of us being promoted together in 2015. They, like us, never having been in the PL and not enjoying the advantage of Parachute payments. In the six seasons back in this division we have finished higher than Preston once, in 2018/19. That was our best effort, finishing 8th with 70 points; Preston's best finish is 7th in 17/18 with 73 points. Preston's lowest finish is 14th, our's 19th. Preston have finished top half in four of these six Championship seasons. We have managed this 3 times. They have been consistent, we have been a bit all-over-the-shop: from struggling to thrilling to declining and now struggling again and stagnating. Preston's attendances have ranged between 12,600 and 14,100 with an average over the five seasons of crowds in the ground being about 13,300. Our's ranging from 15,200 to 21,800, averaging about 19600 over the five seasons. We have been much better supported and minted. We have (I think) paid out more in wages than them while performing worse than them. Five times out of six (soon to be six out of seven). We are trailing them yet again. I believe Preston are a fair comparison unlike say Luton or Coventry or Blackpool who are doing better than us this season but might be in a temporary "hot streak" of form before returning to something more realistic for them. Huddersfield might make a useful comparison, too, but I think Preston is the best one. We won’t mention Brentford. If we drop out of this division before Preston SL shold admit defeat and fall on h in my estimation. Not acceptable. Our inability to even match Preston in this division over six seasons lays the fault at one man and that isn't here-today-gone-tomorrow sorts like LJ, Ashton, Deano, Nige. Steve is the one constant throughout this period of under-performance, disappointment and stagnation. We look to Steve to steer us in to the play-offs but he can't even compete with ****ing Preston!

Darned opponents! And their pesky analysts! if it hadn't been for them seeing what we were doing well and coming up with their dastardly plans to stop us, we'd be ......

That's not a "feeling," that's a thought (a fearful one). Which can probably be traced back to Alan Curbishley and Charlton and all that. Or even back to 1982, and all that. Do you ever think about clubs where they got things right and things worked out really well? I wonder what that feels like? What do you think?

The "experienced" players

You can take more, mate. You've not reached peak dross, not yet. Or is that nadir dross?

The Blue Few?

No doubt the milkman from the long-gone dairy on Parrys Lane was in the know back then .....

Thought so. Add to that the Right Reverend George Carey, the Bishop of Bath & Wells (but not the Baby-Eating Bishop of Bath & Wells), who would go on to be Archbishop of Canterbury, and is now Baron Carey of Clifton, and it was quite an illustrious road, Ormerod, back then. There was a Graveney there too at some point, but not Dave or Tom. Wonder where the Rovers manager lived back then - Shire, perhaps?