sh1t_ref_again

What was evident yesterday and the contrast between the 2 teams, we have stopped pressing as a unit and the lack of movement off the ball allowing the quick passing, we were doing it very well until recently. Now the ball gets played backwards and sidewards or smashed down the channel as we have a lack of options. WBA were excellent at it, made it looked men against boys

You can see the logic in the approach, backed by some notable previous successes in making money from transfers, if you then stepped it up a level and start paying big money for young talent as well as buying players from Prem clubs, it will overall raise your talent pool and be self financing by profiting from these players that you turn over and sell at a profit, until eventually you have a squad of players ready to challenge at the top of the championship and get promoted. Great plan except, we did not really have the correct talent identification in place, MA had sold SL the dream and starts doing deals to blow smoke up his own backside whilst being wined and dined in Knightsbridge (8m for a defender!!) and by the time its clear we have bought the wrong players, covid hits to really **** us and MA has already seen the writing on the wall and lined up a new job. Problem is, there is no magic solution to get promoted, otherwise every club would be doing it, then it would not work anymore

You still chose not to answer if being in the prem was your measure of success I don't agree with the vitriol and nonsense posted by some on here, which always seems to happen after a few losses. Has SL made mistakes, yes, could we have done better, yes, but its very easy to be critical of decisions with hindsight, FFS I can win the lottery every week with hindsight. In general we are a well run club, who have had a long run at championship level, we are stable without risk of going out of business anytime soon as the owner is happy to underwrite the losses you incur running a football club. We are in a tough FFP position, mainly due to the gamble of investing more money and backing Ashtons plan to trade players, coupled with some bad luck with injuries etc. What would new owners bring? you can't put in anymore money due to FFP, so unless they have some cunning scheme of how to circumvent the system which in turn puts the club at risk, I don't see any benefit, so better the devil you know than the one you don't, as long as SL is prepared to invest the maximum he can. It never an easy ride when trying to change, it seems that SL is listening to NP who is trying to change the culture and some of the unseen problems behind closed doors, our biggest risk is panic and going on a different course

Don't understand some of the criticism of HNM, sure he is not on the same curve and potential as AS (there are not many that are), but he gives a lot of energy to midfield, possible one of the best we have at interceptions and breaking up play, very rarely gives the ball away cheaply and always gives 100%, but like all our players prone to poor games. Even if you do not start with Han, at the minimum he should have been on the bench and ready to come on when like yesterday we needed some freshening up. I have not been in the NP out yet, but getting very frustrated at his stance on HNM, unless of course there is some sort of agreement behind the scenes not to play him.

Sounds fairly critical to me

The prem is everyone's goal who are not in it, but that is not necessarily what dictates success or failure As you are being critical, you must have an opinion as to what success means

So what is your definition of success, reaching the prem?

This really could be the trigger to transform?

The point I was making in reply to the poster who named a few clubs that had been successful to demonstrate we were failing, I picked those clubs as they were our historic rivals and generally 20 plus years ago had been around the same divisions If you look at some of the clubs that we were in the same division as in 02/03 whan SL took over, a fair few have not progressed as well, let alone had years of steady football in the championship Wigan, Crewe, Oldham, Tranmere, Plymouth, Swindon, Peterborough, Colchester, Stockport, Port Vale, Wycombe, Barnsley, Chesterfield, Cheltenham, Mansfield, Northampton Or teams that were in the division above us Portsmouth, Ipswich, Wimbledon, Gillingham, Walsaw, Derby, Bradford, Sheffield Wednesday Of course there are many teams that have done well, some have had their day in the sun by splashing cash and now paying for it and as others have posted what could be achieved before FFP became so strict, others have pushed on and still in the prem or established championship teams Size of city, crowds, cheque book, ambition or anything else is not a guarantee of being able to get promoted to the prem. You make well intention decisions without the luxury of hindsight

You have picked random sides who you perceive as having done better, but what about our main rivals of 20 years ago, the gas, swindon Plymouth and Cardiff

Trouble is it will be such a big thing we have actually been awarded a penalty, who ever takes its bound to do a Harry and smash it over the bar

Ha like it, although took a longgggg time to load

FWIW what's said on the grapevine is meaningless BS, as anyone can make up something and pass off as fact, but as we don't know this is correct we cannot judge him on it. FWIW we don't know why he has not signed, is it terms, does he want to move away for non football reasons, is it frustration over lack of opportunity ( I think he has been hard done by sometimes being dropped after playing well), but the longer it went on and playing less, why would you sign, it seems to me Han has always been more about his own development I also blame the club, why let it drag if they knew he was unlikely to sign, they should have found a move, or sat around the table to understand and remove the obstacles stopping him signing a new contract.

Why should he accept and sign a new contract if he does not believe its good enough? Does that make him at fault, its been a difficult period with covid and contracts may now be changing but it's the players decision if he accepts the offer and the clubs decision on how much they offer or decide to sell when protecting an asset

If they could do that in the first place- fantastic

Ohh I thought you were going to say we could promoted, surprising how often a team at the bottom makes a run second half of the season

I am very much in the Nige in camp but like nearly everyone else have no knowledge of what goes on behind closed doors and why players are allowed on the bus or not. It does seem that NP is the boss and will not allow any player to undermine him, which we have been after a strong manager for years. I am very frustrated over the HNM stance, he is a very good player who should be at the minimum on the bench as we are still paying his wages. It's nonsense to say someone who will be here next year goes ahead of him for that reason, if we get relegated by a point having Han on the bench could have made the marginal difference. Have been calling for Pring for a long time as do not rate DaSilva, NP hinted some time ago about some issue he has with Pring, just glad he has for forced his way in and now difficult to drop. You only have to look at Bakinson to see how you can be in 1 minute then banished the next, stating games playing well, given new contract then I believe war of words must of happened and then he was out, never to play for us again.

Thought a straight swap for Vyner and King was have given us a better defence and maybe started with Sykes instead of Weimann. But for the 1st 45 minutes it worked, we were well worth our lead and unlucky to not be further ahead, then concede a very poor goal in injury time. Stoke were buoyant from this, then overloaded us and stopped us playing in midfield, Williams looked to be struggling with the injury. The game was crying out for a change, this is why I am really annoyed about the HNM stance, he may be off but we are still paying his wages, he is an excellent young player that could have given us the energy in midfield we lacked, by the time we went 4 at the back it was too late.

Value depends on if you look at The Semenyo last year scoring for fun and bullying bigger centre halfs or Semenyo this year who is either suffering from a lack of confidence and needs a goal or to to find some form or had world cup and agent talk on his mind instead. No way would I sell for even 5 million.

Great write up as always Jerseybean, interesting bit about the Coates family,

Same as last match except Vyner replacing King and Skyes for Weimenn if not fit

Always gets me the EV sales patter of how green they are, maybe 100% efficient at using the electric (whilst batteries are new), but never no mention of the poor efficiency to produce the electricity in the first place, whilst nuclear and wind / PV are good, natural gas turbines are less than 40%, with all electric production suffering a further loss of approx 7% in transmission losses. It all all about how you package it up as sell it. Hydrogen fuel cells would appear to be the real answer, amazed they have not yet become mainstream, I seen a boiler working in an R&D lab of a boiler manufacturer 30+ years ago, so the technology has been around for a long time

Will be interesting when Vyner is back fit if he replaces King, also thought Skyes looked better than Weinmann when he came on, but perhaps Andy was just having an off day. Quite like the look of Skyes Tanner Vyner Nailsmith Pring

Add Alex Scott for the next world cup Add Alex Scott for the next world cup Add Alex Scott for the next world cup

Rather Foden got in the game, not sure he touched the ball yet