GrahamC

No argument from me, but I don’t pick the team!

Martin is a good player & a useful one for us. The overuse comment above is spot on, the fact that he was taken off v Forest just after the hour was to me the first acknowledgment NP knows this, but so far he hasn’t been willing to start with a Wells/Weimann partnership instead. The other issue is he’s slow, so we cannot play in a way that leaves him isolated because he isn’t going to beat anyone for pace & needs quicker players around him. I don’t worry so much about the aerial stuff, as I actually think he does very well in the air against taller opponents.

That is a strong Weimann obsession that the OP consistently has. As soon as we lose he is on his case. One of our best 11 players, AW would always be in my side. Can see an argument for a Wells/Weimann pairing but expect Nige to stick with Martin & Wells (& play Weimann in midfield). Loving the obligatory “give Palmer another go” mention, too ?

Totally agree, good for him. I have no idea whether this would lead to anyone doing so in England, the idea of several players all coming out at once to minimise press intrusion certainly makes some sense, but seeing as we all work alongside gay colleagues or have relatives who are (or both), then it seems odd we are living in a world where that cannot seemingly happen. Incidentally Somerset cricketer Steven Davies did so a number of years ago & that was dealt with in entirely the way you would hope, to the extent it is never even mentioned nowadays.

Good post, also stepped in after Coppell walked out unexpectedly & stabilised the club. I also liked that he knew that he needed to go completely outside the club for his assistant. Not saying he was ever going to be the long term answer but also think unlike McInnes & LJ, he was sacked as soon as he had his first bad run of results. Got a lot of time for him.

He’s the 5th in 3 years. Curle (who was there for 4 years prior to that), then Sheridan, Pressley & Beech, none of whom managed a year. In contrast LJ got 4, Holden (a terrible appointment) was the only one of ours not to get at least a year.

Cheers, apologies.

Good luck to him, but that’s a tough gig. Struggling, geographically isolated & seem to burn through managers. He’s been out of the English game for a while, so will need to get up to speed quickly.

That’s fair enough but he hasn’t featured once for the 23s & I’m no conspiracy theorist but surely he hasn’t been for every single game they’ve played?

It does seem a strange situation all round. Clearly has no long term future with us, but following the collapse of his move to MK he seems in total limbo if he isn’t going to be involved in games like today’s. Pretty sure LJ gave him a lengthy contact which still has a couple of years to run.

From something I saw on Twitter it looks like Jamie Mac’s son Reuben (15!) is playing..

Yes, he should. He didn’t say “nuclear holocaust” though. did he? He said holocaust, which is the term that’s used to describe the attempted annihilation of the Jews in Europe. It is incredible that people don’t understand this or why it is so offensive.

Their owner is 62, which seeing as it is 4 years older than me, must make me still a youth.. Interestingly during the lockdown season a big percentage of their ST holders opted to forgo any refund to help the club, that’s what you call proper support.

No argument, I doubt there is much between the standard & the bottom third League One but to face say, Forest, Bournemouth & WBA, as we have in our last 3, that’s a big step up. If he could get a L1 club in January that would be ideal. Like him as a player though, think he’s got a chance of making it.

Delighted for him & it’s been a real success but worth remembering this is non league. I think he has a great chance of making it but the step up between where he is currently playing & our level is enormous.

Yep, London & Bristol are the only 2 core cities that are net contributors.

Their owner has a company that does this stuff. When Chris Wilder was at Sheff U he said he’d need 300 scouts just to compete with it. Think we forget about Brentford’s model & find our own one..

Yep, but in Simpson’s case I think his illness was why we didn’t. As an employer myself doing so then would almost certainly lead to a constructive dismissal case, as well as the way sacking someone in the middle of his cancer treatment looks from the outside. That doesn’t apply re Downing though & he certainly could have gone then.

Serious question, what does he do? I fully understand that Simpson & Downing weren’t Pearson appointments & one has gone & it looks like the other is going, but I am bemused as to what this guy actually does. Yesterday Alex Ball stepped up, not him & there was reference to Cisse being more involved in the scouting or recruitment side recently, but seeing as Gillesphy effectively admitted we don’t do so outside the UK, I am unclear what that could possibly mean. Can anyone (sensibly) enlighten me?

It is a truly embarrassing name. However we’re doing on the pitch it should be called something else.

To quote the OP “at least” 15 points from the next 10 seems a tough ask, that’s top eight to ten form & we’re not that. However if you look at the points we’ve gained, against the likes of Peterborough, Cardiff, Blackpool & Preston, it does make the games v Barnsley, Hull, Birmingham & Derby vital ones for us. If you then add in a Buster Douglas punch, so an unexpected win somewhere then we’re back on track.

Two points for me, some of the posts on here re FFP are embarrassing, the “it doesn’t matter, let’s go for it” brigade, FFS not FFP. Secondly I think we have been blown off course by a few injuries after deciding to run with a small squad. James appears to be the only fit, in favour central midfielder available (HNM was back yesterday but has been out) so the decision to go to a back 3 seems more determined by that than anything else. When we played a back four & a variant of 4-4-1-1 we were in most games & gave ourselves a chance. I have posted this a few times now, we are highly unlikely to outscore teams so need to be much harder to score against, I see Birmingham as our benchmark here, similar standard to us but defensively doing a better job.

It’s like the England cricket team, you are a far better player when you aren’t playing then when you are.. The posts saying we should play Bell, Benarous, Britton are naive in the extreme. There is a strong case for Scott to be an important squad player, though his game time will need managing, but this is fanciful stuff.

If they had any morals (ha ha!) this would be a sackable offence, even without his shit results.

We know it’s been poor but to me it is the complete lack of perspective (I do know how many games since we won at home, before anyone replies). We had limited funds this summer, chose to run with a much smaller squad & have just played 2 sides who have been in the Prem recently & have the huge advantage of FFP. What was expected by these posters after we were the worst side in the division for ‘21 (statistically worse than all 3 of the relegated sides) I really have no idea.