red panda

Indeed, I'm not sure we played any long balls at all in the first half. In the second half it looked as if the players had been given permission to try the occasional long ball, though usually hit with purpose rather than just hope. That did improve things, as there was a bit of variety (and probably gave QPR a bit more to think about). I'm not sure Max ever kicked long (except for the odd clearance and maybe right at the end), so there were far fewer throw-ins than normal

Positives for me were the clean sheet and we no longer simply hoof balls in the general direction of Sam and expect him to work miracles. Work in progress.

Err ... I'm not quite sure an owner can simply "resign", and we might have something of a cashflow problem if they did.

Indeed

Really? Who knew ? But with apologies for being boring, it was absolutely not his only job. He's been coaching for a long time, and was head coach at Lommel before MK.

I can understand Oxford fans' frustrations at LM jumping ship for a club that, on paper, is only a few places above them. It's possible that if he does well then a bigger club will come calling. But many Premier League clubs (including Bournemouth) seem to look overseas these days, or to others with previous PL experience. And hopefully Nathan Jones' wrecking of Southampton will discourage other clubs from dipping into the Championship for their managers in the near future

Sorry, I can't let this go. The owners are patient and it's not just special treatment. Watford are an extreme example, but there are lots of other trigger happy owners in the Championship. In the last ten years, Birmingham have had 13 managers, Cardiff 12, Huddersfield 15, Leeds 14, Leicester 12, QPR 12, Sheffield Wednesday 14, Southampton 11, Stoke 10, Sunderland 16, Swansea 13 and West Brom 16. These stats come from soccerbase.com and include caretakers (I've only shown those in double figures). On exactly the same basis, we've had 7 or possibly 8 if you count both Curtis F and Liam M (and it's only that high because SO'D sneaks into the period by a few weeks). If anyone wants to recalculate the stats without caretakers, be my guest. But I think you'll find a similar picture. Sorry to let facts get in the way of another anti-Lansdown moan. And for those wondering, the figure for Watford is 21.

I'm in row B, I think quite central, and my ticket still says Restricted Sight Line I'm guessing I won't be able to see the corners

I think they might have mentioned something that happened at Milton Keynes? Can't quite remember what ...

It's been a long few days ...

Am I being thick here, or did Peach call it a wrong decision the day before the match?? Lottery numbers please (by DM, don't tell anyone else)

Also on the BBC football website too https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/67333709. They say he was sacked by MK Dons Nevertheless, welcome Liam, 3 points on Saturday please

Is this definitely true? Ipswich to Oxford is a 3-4 hour drive each way, or slightly quicker via a soul and wallet-destroying train journey into and across London. Seems unlikely to me. But if it were true then a move to Bristol would be a perfect excuse to stop the madness (either by moving house or by staying away during the week).

I agree about LJ. Football is a game of tiny margins, so any little thing (whether it's the length of the grass, knowledge of how the NHS deal with crises or whatever) that increases your chances is worth pursuing. Wenger was considered radical when he tried to get his players eating better food. LJ's problem was that he wasn't good enough at the fundamentals, so all these little boosts weren't enough to compensate for his more significant shortcomings

I get what you're saying. But Rome wasn't built in a day. Up to 2017 we were a club yo-yoing between League One and the Championship, spending more time in the former than the latter, and struggling to stay up when we did get promoted. And two of the seasons since then were disrupted by Covid. Yes I really want us to kick on further, but it's not long ago at all that we would have bitten anyone's hand off if offered the prospect of being an "average" Championship club.

So he was sacked from his first English managerial post . So what? He still had a win ratio of 48% when he left. He's young enough to be learning and improving. And how many managers have never been sacked??

Don't know why you're so negative about this. Obviously others were involved, but Manning's on the list of coaches that had a direct influence on Rice's progress and helped him get where he is today. Straight from the horses' mouth here. Welcome Liam, and don't worry about the grumpy naysayers.

Even if they do that, there will the usual moaners asking why they didn't make the same money available to Nige!

I'm pleased with this (if true). I liked Nigel but couldn't shake off the feeling that we weren't improving very fast. LM's career win ratio is 47.9%

Or maybe he's looked at this thread and thought wrong club? If you're reading Liam , we'll get behind you once you're in place. Fans will go back to blaming the Board and/or Technical Director. And the club does have a good track record of giving managers time.

Interested why you want them to go down. On balance, I want them to stay up because I want Kelly, Semenyo and Scott to do well. But part of me wants them to go down purely because of the way they treated GO'N. Do I want them to go down simply because they signed some of our players? Absolutely not. A few posters on here seem outraged that we've lost players to a club like Bournemouth - my message to them is get over it, they are an established PL club unlike us (for the moment)

Merson was talking absolute rubbish in that clip. It doesn't make anyone a "lansdowns apologist" for pointing that out.

So they're not using the triple deckers even though the Tube is shut? Boo! Kahn out!

What a charming response

What evidence can you provide that SL's massive investment is a specious argument. If you can point me to a long list of Championship clubs being successful and making profits at the same time, or the list of people with City's interest genuinely uppermost in their mind and willing to plough in tens or hundreds of millions into the club, I'll be convinced.