italian dave

I think so. Yes, I heard that: I think that was a very steep learning curve for LJ - he was still a relatively young manager at the time. I often wonder though whether without the clamour from fans we'd have actually signed him that season. I agree about Webster - I just think an offer of that size wasn't anticipated and because it came late we didn't fill the boots, and didn't really have a plan B to do so. Jury still out on Pearson for me: I've a friend who's a Watford fan so I get a slightly different perspective to what we hear from Leicester! He's the City manager, so of course I'll support him and want him to do well. I just had hoped we'd see a little more improvement, even by the tail end of last season. It does look slightly better so far this, if uninspiring, but it still feels like we're always likely to concede, especially against better sids than Blackpool, and hard to se where many goals come from. But we'll see - onwards and upwards!

I think there’s a lot in that, although there is also the saying that you make your own luck. And it has to be said that what happened in the 93rd min on Saturday and the 96th last night were very much us shootings ourselves in the foot, and things would look a little different this morning if those things had been different.

As I’ve said in response to another poster, I’m not suggesting that we’ve signed dozens of outstanding players with promotion winning pedigree. The few we have are the ones we cashed in on very quickly. I just think that terms like ‘pub team’ and ‘detritus’ are completely over the top. We still have players who are decent at this level. A good many of those we’ve moved on still play at this or similar level. The issue for the past two years or more, in my view, has been more about factors such as tactics, commitment, leadership, balance, strategy (and arguably injuries) than about the quality of the players per se.

(Championship) average I wouldn’t argue with at all. What I was arguing with was “pub team”.

Sure, all fair comment, and as I said my original comment was simply about the suggestion that NP has no money unless he sells being “diametrically opposite” to LJs position. I’m not trying to argue that both are in precisely the same position, just not diametrically opposite. Tomlin of course was a success initially, and it was enormous fan pressure as much as anything that engineered a contract - what do we know, eh?! I guess neither of us will ever know exactly what happens behind the scenes: I just got the impression that Johnson lost a bit of confidence in the direction of the club after the sale of Webster (I’m sure I can remember a few hints in comments he made) and lost his mojo big time after the sale of Brownhill. Unlike Kodjia, Kelly etc those two came about quite suddenly, late, with no replacement in place or time to line one up. So, yes, I’d agree the downturn came long before the suspension of play - although despite the poor performances we were still picking up points.

No, not arguing about the performances or the results. Just that those are not bad "pub team" players.

Yeah: I wasn't really trying to compare who had most/least, whose players were whose etc - just making the point that we've been in a similar position throughout the past four management teams at least, namely that we can't buy unless we sell. I just don't think its as black and white as is sometimes portrayed. Losing players of the calibre he did undoubtedly affected LJs record with us. I know you can argue about how well we replaced players, and there's some truth in that - but you cant go out and do a Webster every year! I still believe that it was the manner of the way he lost Webster and Brownhill that took the wind out of LJs sails the last year/18 months.

Bentley, Kalas, Dasilva, Nagy, James, Martin, King, Weimann, Baker, Wells, Massengo …..pub team players? We’ll just have to disagree.

In fairness, that’s not the diametric opposite of what LJ was told. LJ had to sell to buy. I’d agree it’s a different context now, partly covid, partly because we had no value to cash in on. But ultimately it was only the sales of Kelly, Webster, Kodjia etc that brought in the money to buy. Still trying to get that picture of you mowing the lawn in a fury in the dark though ??

Yeah, I take the point that everything else doesn’t change overnight when a manager leaves. I just don’t see that harping back to a manager who left the club that long ago really helps with how we move forward. And, incidentally, I don’t think the players we have/had are that bad. In fact I’d say we have some good players. Coaching, tactics, concentration, mentality, commitment, I don’t know what it is but I don’t think the players individually are that bad.

Lee Johnson left 15 months ago. Dean Holden left 6 months ago. Some clubs get through three or four managers in that time! We can’t keep blaming them we have to deal with the here and now.

Some things are just destined to come back and haunt you!

I can see the point of triggering a bidding war but surely there are other ways to do that. I just think that where it’s known that a player wants away that removes a card from his current club’s hand. But I’m sure NP has more experience of this than me! Perhaps he could have done with the advice of a seasoned wheeler dealer, someone like….Mark Ashton - only joking !

Sadly though, if he’s asked to leave that will probably reduce his value.

I share that concern about the defence. We failed to pick up runners, gave away sill free kicks (in positions we conceded from so many times last year), failed to be first to the ball, and got away with it because they weren’t great in the final third. Against better sides we’d have been punished.

Are you trying to spoil my evening?!! As if reminders of Ashton and Rolls weren’t enough, up pops Russell Osman ?

I guess the risk for the club is that those three bums on seats, buying their pies and pints, and going to the toilet, results in 30 fewer bums on seats etc the next game, because they're at home with covid. But I doubt they'll see it like that! You'd have thought it possible to restrict access codes to streaming to those who've got match tickets - but I can see that gets time consuming and like you cant see restrictions being lifted otherwise.

Fair play….s/he can’t be accused of not putting their money where their mouth is.

They’d put him in their hall of fame for that.

Mmmmmm……compulsory vaccination….now there’s an idea ??

A couple of newspaper headline this today - not sure whether there's anything in it, or it belongs in the 'irresponsible headlines' thread?

I like the idea of an anti-vaxxers section towards which, even into which, Nakhi Wells could run to celebrate scoring.

I think that if you're going to do anything like this then it needs to be done with clarity, transparency and clear data-driven rationale. Otherwise it will cause misunderstanding, confusion and will never get public consensus. And I agree with you (and @Baba Yaga) about the complete lack of any of those things from our government. Its just been yet another example of policy being made up as they go along, knee jerk response, constant u-turns, with no clear strategy. There are probably three reasons for having vaccine passports (and I'm not arguing for or against here, just setting out what the case might be): - short term as an alternative to tighter restrictions: we can open this up but there's a risk so the only way we can do it safely is to use passports - short term as amends of incentivising vaccinations: this is a public health imperative and if you go along with it you make the country safer and you get something out of it as a direct result - long term as a means of controlling an infectious disease: where the data supports the very clear benefits, ie with them the virus stops spreading, without them it doesn't. Seems to me that it's far too early for the last of those, not least because the data isn't even available, let alone clear. I give you two scenarios, both starting where we were a month or two ago: 1. We hope that we will be able to relax restrictions in July. We're confident we'll be able to do so as long as cases don't rise. As cases start to rise the message becomes more cautious: the data is highlighting the risks of opening up too quickly, we need to go forward cautiously and we're looking at whether its sensible to relax restrictions and at other measures that might be necessary, including vaccine passports. As numbers continue to rise: we are still confident vaccines are helping keep this under control but given the rise in cases, hospitalisations etc we don't want to relax everything as completely as we'd intended. However, we can still take that a significant step with the reassurance that other measures, including vaccine passports in the short term, will give us. 2. Freedom Day will happen in July and it will be irreversible. We're aware the numbers are continuing to rise but vaccines vaccines vaccines. We have no plans for vaccine passports. And when the day arrives, with continuing rises in cases, along with the challenge that scientists are warning this is at best risky and irresponsible, I need to manage this news conference - so I'll suggest that we're going to introduce vaccine passports, even though we haven't really thought it through and we'll need to backtrack and obfuscate in a few hours time. No surprise when the UK, using the second approach, finds people confused and angry.

By all accounts we won't be here to do so....sorry! Riaz - I always had you down as a bit of a Corbyn-ista. Seems like I was right and wrong - I just had the wrong one in mind!