Baba Yaga

He's a Rovers fan but is wearing a Norwich shirt on his pic, so either that's his 2nd club or he just wears it because he really likes tartan too. ?

Fair point every seat counts... I read that they didn't want to give Barnsley any disabled seats at first so I guess they chucked them away with the rest of the south stand. But since they u-turned maybe they made a trip to home bargains on muller road in the week? Genuinely wouldn't be surprised if there were new garden chairs dotted around the away end tomorrow. To be honest I feel a little bit bad for their fans who have bought tickets in the South stand because they probably won't all be able to get a seat in the rest of the stadium. Earlier I was looking into it and they now have less seats than all football league clubs except for the newcomers Harrogate Town and Sutton United who are still upgrading their grounds to league standards.

https://sgsa.org.uk/football-league-capacity-requirements/ Not sure if this has been mentioned yet but the rules are you are meant to have 2k seats once you have been in the football league for 3 seasons (believe their conference days were slightly more than that ?), they had approx 3k seats before and they have ripped out probably around 40%. I wonder if the football league will be investigating this and what the likely punishments could be? They are clearly breaching the football league members criteria. Whoever screwed up here and probably cost the club hundreds of thousands should be booted out but you have to seriously question the lack of professionalism right up to the top. Think more than a few of them deserve a cigar to the eyeball from Joey. ?

I read it as him playing the game too, my first thought was it could be because if a team comes in for another one of our players before the window closes then he is going to want a bigger say in what the outcome is, although probably runs much deeper than just that. Not sure he is worried about keeping the fans onside enough to put on an act, I listened to the press conference before the Preston game and I think he mentioned they have a wages budget that they are at the limit of, it sounded like him and the board are pulling in the same direction there and I would think they have already agreed whether or not they can spend more after Scott is sold.

Agree with this, for instance Knight looked good against Cheltenham and Oxford but average against Preston. Very excited to see how Roberts gets on in the championship but will be a different challenge for him when it does happen.

I think it is a bit premature to think this way, like it or not the premier league is still very strongly positioned, domestically I would argue things like the cost of living crisis are as big of a threat to the tv deal as Saudi as I can't see many UK premier league fans jumping ship even if the quality of football goes down a bit. Abroad its harder to talk about, certainly in the middle east there would be a big challenge to the market there but in the rest of the world we have the benefit of being English speaking and more established in their markets already, these PIF clubs have a long way to go to challenge the status of the global band of a Man Utd, Liverpool, Chelsea etc. After covid I think the rate of growth of the premier league TV deals may already be falling and with FFP also in the mix then the clubs should not be in for a sharp shock financially, they have to adapt because their income won't continue to increase by 30% every 3 years but I see that as manageable, I still think the european super league is a greater threat to PL dominance.

Fair point because I too didn't think much of Roberts performance in the first half but I was much closer to the side he was playing on in the 2nd half and I could see clearer and thought he did quite well going forwards especially in the closing stages. Likewise with Cornick it was the 2nd half on my mind but when watching back the highlights he was more involved in the first 45 than I recalled last night.

Have to agree I was happy with the 2 new signings tonight, however the January signings Cornick and Mehmeti I was hoping for them to push on from last season but didn't see it, very early days though and hoping for good seasons for them too.

In Tanners case I would say no, for me he looked quite slow on the ball and there were times I wanted him to push forward and he didn't. Have definitely seen him play much more attacking than he did tonight although can't argue with the goal. Roberts however tried a few overlaps and his crossing was generally better than Mehmeti too, thinking the competition on the left between him and Pring could be interesting.

Hoping the end blocks of the side stand will go on sale to away fans tomorrow, reading the Cheltenham website there are a few hundred empty seats still. If not will just have to go in the home fans bit which should be pretty empty by the looks of things.

Apparently the likes of De Bruyne and Haaland are on around £20m a year so if Mbappe gets around £600m in Saudi then he earns very roughly speaking both of their careers earnings in 1 year. The premier league must be quaking in their boots right now, bringing it back to Bristol City and Steve L I wonder if we will soon be talking about how we missed out on the Premier league's golden age?

Wish them well especially with Carey on board but it still looks like a management team severely lacking in lower league experience, and if their strategy is based around a 'progressive' style as others talked about in the previous thread then I wouldn't be surprised if they find themselves unprepared once the season begins. Still I think it's a great challenge and will be watching from a distance, also Matty Taylor isn't a bad signing for them. Just seen the FGR manager from last season Ian Birchnall is now assistant manager at Anderlecht which I find a bit surprising.

So much credit for Alcaraz for coming back in the 5th set when momentum shifted away from him for a bit. Hopefully these 2 can have a few more battles before passage of time takes over. From what I have seen they are the best by a distance.

Yep it was pretty brutal seeing her tears and what she said about it being the worst loss of her career, would be good to see her get over the line at some point but she played nowhere her normal levels yesterday. As for today will be interesting to see if they have any issues performing, expecting a breathless start here but we will see.

I'm comparing the quality of information (long winded posts with context and multiple sides of story for Huw vs little snippets of one side for Le Tiss). That's the difference I am referring to and suggesting it's due to your blinders rather than any more meaningful moral stand point. Like I have already mentioned more context and another side of the story is out there for Le Tiss should you wish to see that but probably you don't.

It's interesting how people feel fine to be judge and jury for Le Tiss dismissing him as whatever yet they have a big problem when others do that for Huw Edwards. It's clear to me he isn't a crackpot from the interview I already mentioned but your mind is already made up. This is my point that it's clear people have their ideological blinders on to dismiss someone out of hand only getting snippets of info from twitter and then for others because they haven't said things they don't like in their cases they deserve lots of understanding.

It's interesting to me that people have a lot of time to write out long posts giving background and context to the Huw Edwards situation and then for others like Le Tiss the treatment is a couple of 10 second clips or in your case one line that gives one side of the story. That was something he addressed in the interview I previously mentioned by the way where he puts across what he actually meant there.

It's weird reading through the Huw Edwards thread and it seems the main people defending Huw last few days are here today having a dig. On Le Tiss I watched him get interviewed by Simon Jordan a few weeks ago and think he comes across as a pretty sound person in a longer format than twitter.

I thought the first game was one sided and ended quick but this one looks even more so, easy for me to say without a solution but looks like Medvedevs strategy is not working at all. Suppose it all sets up a good final.

If it is Djokovic vs Alcaraz it will be interesting to see if lessons have been learnt from that match and if Alcaraz can hang in there better to take it a longer distance this time, but being on grass and considering it hasn't been very long it will be a tough task. From what I have seen in the last 2 games Vondrousova has been quite patchy (she went under the radar before that for me), will be good if she can make Jabeur play as well as in the semi, for me she looks better under pressure but things could be different when it's the final. On Svitolina she did very well to beat Swiatek who I was expecting to win before that match.

Impressive comeback from Jabeur, watching the deciding set it was much deserved. Great chance for her to get a grand slam and I think she would be the first woman from an African or Arab country to do that. Hard for me to see past Djokovic and Alcaraz winning tomorrow.

Vondrousova in the final, from the parts I saw I think the winner of the next match has to be the strong favourite to win the title.

Yep he deserved that, being 2 sets down after such a close match up to now would have been really harsh. Wouldn't like to call which way this goes but hoping Murray has a little momentum now.

Who made the list? Paul Ince ?

Muchova out in the 1st round, the first and last time I tip somebody to do well in Tennis. ? Some result for Broady but I didn't get to see it so will have to catch the highlights.