WessexPest

This club is an utter fiasco on and off the pitch and to be held at home by the weakest team in the division by ten men, on the back of the unmitigated s**** we’ve endured since the autumn of 2019, is simply unacceptable. In fact that makes us the weakest team in the division, and I don’t care that the league table says otherwise. Lansdown should admit he’s reached the end of the line and put the club up for sale. Bringing in Pearson after the circus that was Holden’s tenure was a ballsy move but it has demonstrably failed. Nige should quietly exit stage right at the end of the season. And there needs to be a mass cull of this first-team squad. Yes, I know there’s no money to bring anyone in but aging journeymen like Wells, Martin et al will get us relegated. We’re sick of hearing chancers like Ashton and Gould telling us to ignore the evidence of our eyes and that the club is prospering. It’s a dog’s dinner, and I fear there are some mightily grim days ahead.

Gutless display against the weakest team in the division and who were a man shirt for one third of the game. It’s getting worse instead of better - we are going to struggle big time next year. Pathetic.

3-2 flattered City. We are a poor, poor side kept afloat by a surprisingly prolific AW.

Still 540 minutes of this utter mince to endure too. Yes, we will be in a relegation fight next season guaranteed.

Christ on a dodgem can’t wait to bring the curtain down on this turd of a season.

Not a penalty in my book, but you can bet a pound to a pinch of s*** it would’ve been given if the “coming together” had been at the other end of the park.

FFS - on the rare occasion we are enjoying some possession we play an aimless ball and give it right back to them.

Frustrating, we caught them with an early sucker punch and it was backs to the wall from then on. Defended stoutly initially but this defence cannot soak up indefinite pressure, and the few times we were able to break our inevitably we wasted possession and they’d come right back at us again.

Precisely - in 2018 on paper we would have predicted meeting the Germans in the last eight as they were surely nailed on to win Group F. They finished last…

Ah, but don’t you see that it’s only us nasty, imperialist western countries that have to do that - not to tolerate intolerance in the rest of the world is doubly intolerant. ?

Germany v Spain probably the pick.

Day after, mate - Black Friday.

Senegal probably most likely last 16 opponents and France in QFs. A bit silly trying to plot it out though after the way 2018 panned out.

England v USA the day after Thanksgiving for us exiles! Hopefully the Americans will still be feeling the effects of a heavy meal…

Agree, although by the time they get around to actually making the draw we’ll all be part of the same smegging continent again…

I don’t think that group is possible because there can’t be more than two UEFA teams to a group.

Oh FIFA, you little jokesters, putting Scotland in the World Cup draw. Almost had me going there for a minute until I looked at the calendar. Fair play, it was a good one. ?

For the UEFA qualification process in 2026, given there are 16 places available to European teams there’s a chance to streamline the process. There are 54 member associations (assuming those Russian butchers aren’t brought back into the fold by then) so I would propose a preliminary round where the weakest 12 countries according to their FIFA rankings play off in three groups of four. Top two in each group advance to the qualification tournament proper. Those 48 countries are divided into eight groups of six - top two in each group advance to the finals, no playoff nonsense and no pointless matches against San Marino and Gibraltar. Won’t hold my breath though.

Dummy draw:- A: Qatar, Denmark, Morocco, Sco/Wal/UKR B: Spain, Switzerland, Tunisia, UAE / Aus / Peru C France, Germany, Iran, C Rica / NZ D Argentina, USA, Serbia, S Arabia E: Belgium, Croatia, Senegal, Canada F: England, Uruguay, S. Korea, Ghana G: Brazil, Netherlands, Japan, Cameroon H: Portugal, Mexico, Poland, Ecuador Group A is the worst group since Bronski Beat! I’d certainly take that group for England, although the key is also how the knockouts pan out - draw’s been pretty favourable to us in that regard in recent years. Say toodlepip to the wonderfully symmetrical 32-team tournament that has worked so well since France ‘98 after this year… ? From 2026 it will be a positively elephantine 48-team affair with 16 groups of three and an additional knockout round. The quality will be seriously diluted with nine teams qualifying from CAF (African Federation, not City as **** ;)) and eight from AFC. That will presumably include Australia who somehow get to compete in the Asian confederation, and with OFC guaranteed a qualifier from 2026 that means New Zealand will likely be assured WC qualification in perpetuity - unless someone like the Cook Islands or New Caledonia can spring a surprise (unlikely, they’re almost as **** as Old Caledonia…) Will be interesting to see how that enforces change to the qualifying system - the CONMEBOL league of nine system is already ludicrous, but with 60% of its members qualifying in future it would be pointless. No guarantee yet that all three hosts (USA, Canada, Mexico) will automatically qualify, but I anticipate they will be. They’d probably have no problem qualifying anyway as CONCACAF gets six slots total. UEFA only gets a couple more slots so you could feasibly still have a big name miss out while the likes of Cape Verde, Bahamas or Oman make it. That might be “inclusive” but it isn’t conducive to a top-quality tournament. Plus with the three-team groups obviously not all teams will be playing their final group games simultaneously, massively increasing the potential for skullduggery, e.g. a repeat of the Disgrace of Gijon. This is a very bad development IMO - still, quantity over quality eh!

It’ll be worth the irritation when it all goes Pete Tong for the Gash in the crucial run-in.

It does get exasperating going over the same old ground again and again. The scum constantly cherry pick away attendances of ours (e.g. Barnsley the other week) as evidence we have a crap support, but it gives a distorted view - if you average out our away followings versus theirs ours is better. @Peter O Hanraha-hanrahanhas laid out the stats to back this up several times. Now, they will say they have a higher percentage who go away but to me all that signifies is how abysmal their home support is. For a team on an annoyingly decent run there have been a lot of gates beginning with a 7 this season. ?

Tis indeed. P7 W6 L1.

Worst “Nutmeg Files” ever.

I’m reporting this post to Admin Well played ?

Get in - have that you Gash vermin. Their peabrained fans have already got them promoted and playing us in 2023/24 despite the fact about 10 teams are in the L2 mix. Thank you, Carlisle!