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1 hour ago, rednotblue said:

 

Some of the defending is Sunday League stuff.

 

None of the opposition attack is Sunday League, mind ....

2 hours ago, RedRaw said:

 

nobody has been duped….I really don’t see your point other than clearly a dislike for SL

No? Not Steve, by Mark Ashton?

15 minutes ago, Roger Red Hat said:

No one is 'self made'. 

The pandemic brought this home, to most.  @Robbored might catch up, some day

16 hours ago, Blagdon Mike said:

Your second chance

MEET CLUB LEGEND

GEOFF MERRICK

signing copies of his new book

LIFE WITH THE ROBINS AND BEYOND

THIS SATURDAY 12.30-2.00pm

Outside the Supporters Bar
(through the Independence Sports Bar and up the stairs)

ALL WELCOME!

@Merrick's Marvels: I will get you this for yer birthday what I missed in January, unless you've got it already? Or, I could get you a hat like Geoff's there. Up to you.

1 hour ago, gl2 said:

odds on that happening again next season?

Not unfavourable (take a look at the top five or six in League One)

1 hour ago, Merrick's Marvels said:

Not watched it yet, so without giving the game away did he win with a horse he owns or on a bet he placed? 

A propos of nothing, I always think the comparison between Brighton's owner and ours is instructive.

Both are professional gamblers (the stock market merely being a more respectable form of betting than the horses at Kempton or the dogs at, er, Eastville) but there the similarity ends. 

For Brighton's owner is a raffish gambler at the races as well as a poker player, Racing Post in one hand, vodka martini shaken not stirred in the other, a tall tale or two to tell. Probably with a leggy "companion" on his arm. Wiki even tells me his nickname is The Lizard! Say no more.

Meanwhile Uncle Steve, an accountant, peers at his Xcel spreadsheets (sorry Mr Fevs) and watches his stocks and shares, FT in one hand, cup of tea in the other. There are no tall tales to tell, never mind leggy companions. His nickname is Uncle. 

Sexy Brighton, dull Bristol - the owners, that is, but also their football clubs.  

To make matters worse, both bet the house on young, up and coming, English coaches that no-one had heard of. 

Brighton are now in the Premier League.

We are not.

PS. A nag called Dr Duffy ran in the 2.50 at Cheltenham yesterday. Pulled up lame

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

20 hours ago, Wiltshire robin said:

I think he’ll walk at the end of the season . 

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

1 hour ago, cityexile said:

It is very easy to get in to 'recency' with all this, particularly given how poor we were last night.

Objectively however, this is not the worst team in the last 40 years. Lets say we finish 20th (boo!) this year. Over the last 40 years we have finished in a better league position 10 times, equalled this position once, and 29 times finished in a worse league position than 20th in the second league. As an aside I have watched us play every one of those seasons.

Our longest run in the top two leagues was 16 seasons between 1965/66 and 1980/81. Other than that period, assuming we stay up, this run of 8 seasons in the second league is our best run since WW1, our previous best run of 11 ending in promotion to the top league. If league position is the measure ultimately of how good we are, this squad are in the top third teams of the last 40 years.

I am getting old, but there is an argument that having played 12 of the last 14 years at second league football, believe it or not these are the 'good times' following this club.

Other clubs are available. Not for me of course.

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!!

27 minutes ago, OddBallJim said:

Just thought I’d gauge people’s opinion on why it is that when we seemingly get a managerial appointment that is endorsed by a reasonable portion of the fan base, the result ends up being totally underwhelming? 
 

I was very much excited by NP’s appointment, to the point where I bought my first ST since SC’s final season. For me, despite the financial constraints, injuries and rumours of total mismanagement behind the scenes, I expected quite a bit more from Nigel Pearson.  I expected more i.e. a definitive style of play (we seem to be slowly getting this), but also a resolute mentality that we would be hard to beat and always claw our way back into a game (which we aren’t and don’t). I’m not saying I thought we’d be play off contenders, but to be languishing in the lower half has me feeling very… meh

I was excited when we appointed Coppell and that went totally tits up. I was excited, perhaps less so, by SOD and that was something of a disaster. I didn’t really know what to make of SC, who turned out to be excellent in league one, and (like many I suspect) I had a somewhat marmite view of LJ. The less said about the astonishing ineptitude of appointing DH the better. 
 

So why is it that when we get “the fans choice” (or at least my preferred choice ) things go to pot? Financial mismanagement? Fallings out with the board or players? Honestly it has me baffled. Maybe I am the curse somehow?!

I desperately want NP to succeed but at the moment I just can’t see it. I want to be proven wrong!

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).

2 hours ago, firstdivision said:

You saved the best and most accurate sentence to last, damning of both players and manager. 
The team that finished last season was the worst in recent times but it was stripped of so many players because of injury. This team does not have the same excuse. (There are a few injuries but nowhere near so many.)

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.

17 hours ago, Red-Robbo said:

 

 

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"

1 minute ago, Magger1 said:

Point 3 most rational supporters understand why we’re 18th WHY can the rational supporters tell me why we sounded 30 points or so in the last 10 minutes or less of matches or why we lost to 10 men Coventry when in front WHY 

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 (?)

1 hour ago, And Its Smith said:

Is the squad that bad?  Go through each player and they are either very good youngsters or seasoned pros that have in the past show a lot better than they are producing now.  Drop most of our players into top half of the table teams and they will look a lot better.  Whether we like it or not, players need to be (a) motivated, (b) organised and (c) working to a plan.   The responsibility for all of those things come down to the manager.  
 

The jury has to still be out on Pearson as we need to be completely sure that a manager isn’t up to it before we get rid of them. I am sure this season will fade out like last season but he has then got to start next season showing signs of improvement, even if that is just a more solid defence 

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

1 hour ago, Edgy Red said:

I don't think we can keep saying the squad he inherited is rubbish. 

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 .....

17 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

 

Firstly Pearson said that he asked to play for the 23s 

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

13 hours ago, BS2 Red said:

 

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)?

34 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Good post….the other key bit about Preston is that all the way through our time together in the Championship is that they’ve done it on a fraction of the cost / budget we have.

They’ve run their club at around 50% the cost of City, 60% one season.

it kills me how badly we’ve done in comparison to them.  Now we are saddled with costs making it harder still.

I just hope Pearson and Gould can eventually build something good with a cost base like that.

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. 

8 hours ago, JonDolman said:

 

Look at Huddersfield, Luton, Millwall, Preston, Coventry, Blackpool.

All doing better than expected on limited budgets. Preston certainly are now since Lowe joined them.

 

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!

13 hours ago, grifty said:

I'm just disappointed that almost everything we did in those 5 or 6 games where we looked good (offensively) we've seemingly stopped doing.

 

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 ...... 

24 minutes ago, firstdivision said:

 My feeling is ‘be careful what you wish for.’

 

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?