GrahamC

Who has already served a prison sentence, & has a track record of this. Not really thought that statement through, have you, Wael?

Anyway back to matters on the pitch, a very decent effort for the Fourth Division club to hold the mighty Havant & Waterlooville to a goalless draw at fortress Mem last night. Looks like the player described by the Post as like “Jack Grealish” (I kid you not, I can’t actually remember his name, but he scored 10 for Forest Green last season) must have had an off day? Missing the tactical genius of Norman Stanley Barton, presumably?

No time at all for that lot & pretty obvious Barton is odious but not sure we can throw too many stones after employing Danny Simpson.

Seems completely out of character to me ?

Huge fan of Mick’s. He was absolutely hard as nails, took no shit whatsoever & was brilliant in the air. As others have said let’s hope he makes a full recovery.

Gloucestershire are an improved side but seeing as we were without Banton, Abell, Davey, Gregory & Waller (who plays in all the T20s) it was a great win. No county produces anywhere near as many players as the ‘Set.

Think Barton has brought in 6 new players now, many of them are Scousers & a fair few from Fleetwood or elsewhere in the North. I consider myself a bit of a football anorak at times but I have never heard of any of them.

100%. There is a lot of opposition to the Ashton Gate station bit, not least from Avon & Somerset police, but at least getting the line up & running is a start.

There are no plans for this, it has been mentioned numerous times by SL that the ground is plenty big enough for us & the proximity of houses on Ashton Rd makes this logistically impossible. SL doesn’t own any of them, either…

Bedminster was in Somerset until the 1890s, so certainly 800 years is incorrect for my part of BS3.

Sorry but two or three games aside that 40,000 stuff is bollocks. Dig out a book and look at our attendances in the top flight, I can remember a few games with barely 15,000 of us there & 20,000 being very good for us & that is well before we started our fall. Our gates then fell off a cliff, I can recall Championship standard games in crowds of 6000. It was built back up under the Cooper & Jordan era but dropped again under Osman. Our support in the last few years has been absolutely amazing, partially because anyone moving here & interested in watching football is only going in one direction.

They do this shit every year, don’t they? Some load of bulk signings (4 today) that no one has ever heard of pretty soon after the previous season ends, their fans start up the “we’re going places” stuff (you are, Sutton United) & some of our more intellectually challenged pipe up with “why haven’t we signed anyone”? Went well last year, didn’t it?

They’re ******** & there is also an element of North Korea about their fan base. They massively exaggerate their support & seem to think the football world loves them, too. Weird. Can only believe the muppet who posted this dragged Cotts in as an example because he is “one of those gurt shitheads” not the smartest example to use, was it?

To be fair to Cotterill, he took over when Shrewsbury were bottom, (2 wins all season) then beat 3 of the top 4 away in his first 4 games, he had Shrewsbury well clear of relegation, spent a month in an ICU battling Covid & only returned a couple of games from the end with Shrewsbury in 17th. How on earth does that compare with Barton’s incredible achievement of taking over a side a point outside the relegation zone & then finishing last? Barton isn’t fit to clean Cotts shoes, in every respect.

Only one I’d heard of was Mark Little, but they have just released him though. He did manage to scam 2 years wages out of them for 16 appearances though ?

Good post. Maybe I am getting more generous in my old age but I would see his form in the second half of the season in this light; Prior to the season just ended he had started 4 games at this level with a few sub appearances too. We both were pretty underwhelmed by what we had seen then & so his transformation in the first half of the season was impressive. However at 21, in a side that consistently failed to score or even create opportunities being expected to form most of our pitiful attacking “threat” was a hell of a burden for him to shoulder. Our 2 main strikers by this time consisted of a guy who started phoning it in because he was off & one who is far happier to point out to Antoine that his pass was poor than to encourage him. He is, to use one of Nige’s favourite phrases, robust, and had been involved in every single game bar one (which he missed due to a bereavement, not an injury) up until the very last game. I think it is fair to consider him physically & mentally knackered by the end of the season, therefore. You are right, the replacement bit is key here, all bar the relegated clubs will have no money to spend & if we can get the right appointment in to improve this area, as I said before £4m would get you a lot this summer, when you factor in the expected huge reduction in the wage bill by releasing 9 or 10.

He’s too young to run his contract down, as we would get compensation provided we had offered him another, a completely different scenario to Diedhiou.

I can see why Palace are interested, as his despite his lack of goals, he’s quick, strong & direct. Only 21 so still plenty of time to improve, however if we can get Palace to raise the price to £4m I’d still sell, unlike Toney, the lad isn’t a goalscorer & let’s face it, for a kid from London the possibility of playing in the Prem for a London team is going to turn his head.

About 3500 do, that was their last crowd before they ****** off to Bath.

Not for the first time this season, Gregor’s predicted team was miles out & in the wrong formation, too..

Yes, maybe. Really can’t see us keeping both, but presumably a final chance for them.

Looking at the team you could be right, as it is really hard to see the logic in him & Mariappa both starting ahead of Vyner if both are then getting released next week.

Strange that 2 central defenders who are out of contract start & Vyner doesn’t. Hard to argue with much of the rest, basically a side that is all under contract for next season.

Too true, neither of us are Nigel Pearson, so we don’t know, we’ll find out next week.

He won’t be “cheap” he’s a top 4 earner. Plus even if we got him to accept half, so £9k a week, how does that help us if he is missing 50% of the time? Which would still be a huge improvement on this season. May as well keep Mariappa in that case, on about a third of what Baker is & available far more often.