Supersonic Robin

If all were fit, I'd probably be leaning towards: Bentley Tanner Kalas Atkinson Dasilva HNM James Scott Weimann Pring Martin Semenyo is close to getting into my team in one of the wide positions, and I wouldn't be against starting Wells ahead of Martin.

Sunderland have the record - they went approximately a full year (364 days) without a home win. Think it was 22 matches. In fairness though, about half of that run for Sunderland was in the Premier League.

A similar thought occured to me whilst watching today - crazy that I'm sat here saying "We can't really expect to be beating a team like Bournemouth". Depressing in the grand scheme of things isn't it.......

I'm not at all surprised about us losing today. But, as others have indicated, there's a difference between losing a competitive game with a battling performance, and getting absolutely battered by a team in the same division as you. Unfortunately, today wasn't competitive or especially respectable for us. No need to panic IMO, but I do appreciate why some fans are feeling disgruntled with today's performance.

@Sleepy1968and I were talking about permanently contracted players here, so wasn't a comment on Tammy Abraham. Hence why I don't reference Tammy at all or include him on that list

I suppose the frustration is which clubs are currently seen as "bigger, better, and with more chance of winning things": Lloyd Kelly moved to the "bigger and better" Bouremouth Bobby Reid moved to the "bigger and better" Cardiff Joe Bryan moved to the "bigger and better" Fulham Adam Webster moved to the "bigger and better" Brighton Josh Brownhill moved to the "bigger and better" Burnley I don't really mind us losing our best players as that happens to every club in the world (perhaps bar Real Madrid and Barcelona). I absolutely get why these players move....they would be crazy to turn down premier league football and money. However, I can see why one might be frustrated about some of the clubs listed above being considered a step up from us. Perhaps that's what @Sleepy1968 was getting at?

Always find it strange that neutral fans are so against these kind of takeovers. I really don't mind a club spending a s**t tonne and actually feel FFP being amended to allow this may be a good thing. I like the idea that a big injection of money could change the fortunes of a club - I'd much rather that than see the usual "big 4-6" hoard the wealth and trophies year after year whilst every other club competes for 7th place.

Agree, Not the Top 20 are the ones to go for IMO. Really knowledgeable guys. Personally find the second tier pod a bit lazy (e.g. if a player scores for us 2 weeks in a row it means they're our best player and we're dependent upon him). Not to say they're dreadful, but they do feel a bit more like fans just throwing 'hot takes' out there.

Because he's a professional footballer. It's not exactly the norm for players to strop about lack of game time after leaving a club. Did he do enough to retain his place when he was given opportunities here? IMO, no. There may well be a decent player in there, but I don't think he can feel too hard done by with regard to his time here. Also consider that Szmodics got opportunities to impress the coaches/manager in training every day, and evidently couldn't do enough. I agree that *logically* any frustrations Szmodics might have should be directed at LJ, but that doesn't necessarily appear to be the case.

Nothing to do with whether her scored against us. It appears he holds a bit of a grudge because: and Also heard from twitter that he's supposedly "baiting the City fans" at the game. Certainly appears that Szmodics didn't take his unsuccessful spell with us well, and holds some kind of negative emotions towards us as a result.

Think I recall that when he left us he made some sort of semi-salty comment about the amount of game time he had here. Did he really expect to be starting every week after be jumping up from L2? It appears he holds a bit of a grudge against us now!

Here come another 1000 comments saying Szmodics is the next Messi. Bare in mind the bloke doesn't usually start for relegation threatened Peterborough

Wouldn't go that far. Laughable that we signed both him and Palmer perhaps, but it's not like Szmodics looked amazing when he did play (admittedly that wasn't much)

With Diedhiou we would still be lacking in pace and mobility up top. Given his performances towards the end of last season, we also can't be sure that Fam would show the effort and commitment that Pearson would demand. I do think we're missing a striker, but I don't think that Fam is that striker. I haven't thought "I wish Diedhiou was playing" at any point so far this season.

Obviously some will say "another home game without a win" but a point against Fulham is a good result. Sounds like the levels of effort and commitment were impressive today and a clear improvement on last season. Don't mean to be a party pooper, but worth noting that we have ridden our luck quite notably in the last couple of games. Neverthless, good point today. We're not necessarily attractive to watch, but we seem capable of grinding out results when required.

Brilliant to be level. Think a few have over-exaggerated the quality of the finish from Palmer though......I was bloody underwhelmed when I finally saw a clip of the goal?

Whether or not individuals are "good enough" depends on what your aims are. This season, realistically, midtable is probably our aim. Are Wells and Martin good enough for midtable? yeah probably. But unfortunately most midtable teams aren't going to be good enough to take many points off Fulham. We all know that NP would like a new striker long term. We've just got to be patient and make use of what we've got now.

Are we sure we didn't build Ashton Gate on some cursed Native American burial site or something?

Appreciate he's played at full back previously, but was most often used at CB last season. I don't recall Pearson saying that - perhaps he has and I missed it. Either way, personally I see him more as a CB. Agree that he isn't better than Kalas, Atkinson or Baker, but that doesn't change Vyner's best position. Think my fundamental point remains; he's "doing a job" for us at RB. I don't think he's intended to be a long term solution there. I imagine NP would have upgraded at RB if circumstances had allowed it.

I'd hope that most attending games will appreciate that there is a clear improvement upon last season. IMO the "3-0 down at HT" stuff is a bit melodramatic. Worth noting that Luton's 2 or 3 best chances in the first half were all in the space a 10 second scramble. If one goes in, the others don't, so you can't really count them all together - they're all attempts at scoring the same chance if you get me. 1-0 Luton at HT probably would have been fair. FWIW I think Kalas played well today. Won many headers, covered in behind well multiple times, made some vital interceptions and blocks, and did better than Vyner at RB. Do agree that the long throw routines perhaps aren't the way forward though. Tonight was disappointing, but doesn't mean we're not moving in the right direction all things considered.

Worth remembering what Vyner is - a CB "doing a job" out of position at RB. We're hoping for him to be, on average, a 5 or 6 out of 10 across the season. He'll probably have a few games where he's a bit above that and a few games where he's below. I do think Vyner was poor tonight, and I did get frustrated with him. He's what we've got though - unfortunately we're going to have to "make do" a bit in a few positions. Not saying that people are necessarily wrong to identify him as a weakness, just that it's worth calibrating our expectations of him and understanding why we're not necessarily capable of signing a quality replacement.

A draw at home to Luton isn't the end of the world, and the same can be said of our other failures to win at home this season. When you look at it collectively though, you'd really be expecting a win or 2 from Blackpool, Swansea, Preston and Luton. I'm still confident in saying that we're notably better than we were last season, and I'm still not worried about relegation. Would just be great to get the monkey off our backs at home and inject a bit more positivity into AG. Very disappointing tonight though.

Could be seen as a bit of a must win with regard to finally getting an elusive home win. Next 2 home games after this are Fulham and Bournemouth - 2 very challenging fixtures. Fail to win tonight and it could well be another month or so without a win at home ?

The atmosphere tends to influence the nature of games IMO - a strong atmosphere causes an increase in intensity on the pitch (of course it could be argued that the cause/effect is reversed). IIRC many of the championship games played without fans during the pandemic felt a bit slower There are examples of an atmosphere allowing a home side to come from behind or achieve an upset, but (obviously) the key factor is still the ability of the teams on the pitch. In that sense, a good atmosphere probably won't win you games. e.g. Despite the "famous Elland Road atmosphere", Liverpool still battered Leeds this weekend. In terms of good form caused by atmospheres, a lot of it may be more about psychology....does the away team feel that the away ground is a "tough place to go" and lose confidence? Or inversely in our case, do away teams have a boost of confidence in thinking that AG is an "easy place to go"? (regardless of whether the atmosphere actually makes such feelings accurate)

Felt a winnable game before kick off, but one of our more disappointing performances so far this season IMO. Seemed a real lack of quality from both teams at times. Thought we looked rather blunt going forward and a bit more leaky at the back than I'd have liked. Suppose we were always going to have a few games like that this season. No disaster, but a bit underwhelming. On a positive note - Massengo looked excellent again.