GrahamC

You’re right. The other big difference is back then there was no freedom of contract. If you were under contract you couldn’t leave & even when your deal expired if your club offered you a new one you couldn’t refuse it & go elsewhere. The Arsenal bid was in 1976 but this state of affairs lasted until 1979 when Gary Collier was one of the first to move clubs in this fashion. Jean Marc Bosman’s court case in 1995 then made it possible to move on for free.

You have answered your own question with these two posts. We can do so by learning from these clubs, identifying similarities & also maximise our strengths where they are clear differences. Luton did this without being anywhere near even mid range payers in the division which answers your first point. How? By absolutely stellar recruitment & seizing their opportunity in a season when 2 of the relegated parachute payments sides didn’t even make the playoffs. A very rare occurrence. Huddersfield (a while ago now), a similar model. Brentford’s route was unique (no Academy, heavy recruitment from Denmark) & is very difficult to replicate. There is also the time to hold & time to fold argument, so when would additional investment pay off, when would it be pointless. We have often got this the wrong way around. The answer here is pretty complex, clubs are often very different in their composition & geography can play a part too. I actually thought the Pearson, Gould (then Alexander) reset after our financial woes put us in a good position to at least threaten to do this, I can’t pretend that with Tinnion at the helm I have the same optimism now, whatever Manning achieves.

Spent a ridiculous amount of my early years from about 7 to 14 kicking one of these around the streets of St. George. Remember the newsagents opposite my junior school (Summerhill) selling them.

That isn’t “infrastructure” it is the things you say. We cannot influence our boardroom, we aren’t a democracy. Our plan appears to be to continue to produce a significant amount of our own players, I might dispute how feasible that is, but hard to argue with the aim. We have tried to up our game in the transfer market, more Mark Sykes, fewer Kasey Palmers but that isn’t a quick fix. My view is in the past we have often made decisions that in hindsight look like the wrong ones, some (Palmer) did at the time, others certainly didn’t. I don’t have any confidence in either our current chairman or Director of Football so hard to be all that optimistic.

You think Bournemouth have a better “infrastructure”? It is all about money.

Scott wasn’t remotely interested in staying, he wanted to go back in January. Top six still doesn’t mean you go up, you still have to win the playoffs. Scott has been injured a lot, there is no guarantee whatsoever that even if he had stayed we would have been top six. No alternative but to sell him.

Yep & despite the joke above, Mark Shail was a very decent centre half. Some of the clowns like Dave Thompson, Julian Watts, Richard Dryden & Gus Caesar we had around that era weren’t remotely in his league.

Nope, not yet.

Had a penalty awarded against them today. The first one in 75 games of Scottish Premiership football… James Tavenier has taken 76 penalties for them since joining in 2015. Who referees their games, the DUP?

It is and a million times more important than drawing at Birmingham or losing to Millwall.

Seeing as it was nearly 50 years ago now most of us around at the time can’t remember where they have put their reading glasses, let alone who was our top scorer in 75/76. I’m joking, I think most of us know that he got 18 & Cheese 15.

My old man (83 soon & not in great health) always used to say to me when a City striker was out injured that Tom got kicked black and blue most weeks, wasn’t exactly the most robust looking (deceptive) but was always available for the next game. Must have been a dream player for AD & having spoken to the late great Gerry Gow about him once, I know his team mates (Sir Geoffrey, Cheese, Sween, etc) all thought the world of him.

I think it is harsh on 4 of them. Wells is obviously in his latter years but we don’t half miss him when he’s (rarely) unavailable. Good squad option. Weimann is in a similar category, I have a hunch this might be his final season with us but excellent servant. Cornick hasn’t worked out, if we can find a solution that works for him & us I wouldn’t stand in his way. Conway & Bell are both only 21, both have already played around 60 Championship games TC has 16 goals, Bell 7 in the league. Both have plenty of time to improve & in the latter’s case I would have no issue keeping him as a squad option even if he doesn’t. Conway will in my opinion play at a higher level than our current one & probably force the issue himself at some point but I wouldn’t rush to move him on.

He was poor at Birmingham & really poor when he came on yesterday so I’m not sure about that. I certainly wouldn’t make the deal permanent this month, let’s have a full season of him to make a considered judgement. I do think the Boro goal alone has definitely convinced a few on here, but we need to see if that was a one off. As for James & Williams I expect those two are right at the top of our wage structure & any offer to either is highly unlikely to be an increase & with King nailed on not to be on the playing staff next season we’re looking at significant changes in that area.

Legend, possibly my favourite player of all time (in our best team of all time) & far, far too modest. An all time great. Was astonished when he wasn’t one of the first 11 players inducted to our hall of fame, as there’s been no better striker in my 50+ years of supporting. Said this in a post about him last week, he scored league goals against Liverpool, Man City, Spurs & Everton. Who can else claim that whilst playing for us?

As my post history probably shows I’m supportive of our current squad but if there is one area we can hugely improve then it is this. Far too often the thrower is confronted by one simple throw possibility (usually to Williams) & one other option, often to Conway or Weimann. Everyone else is stood still, waiting for something to happen. We have to become better at this element, I understand you don’t disrupt shape by having 5 or 6 players running all over the place but we are too static & predictable.

Don’t want to appear a smart arse but I posted before yesterday’s game in response to someone who said that we would win 3-1 that it would be a slog & I wouldn’t be surprised if a single goal decided it. Bigger picture is whether Holden, Pearson or Manning is in charge we consistently struggle against the Millwalls, Birminghams & Prestons of this division whereas games against those who come to play (West Brom, Sunderland, Boro, Norwich) are usually entertaining & we often get something. It is a bigger issue than yesterday & one that needs addressing, Manning certainly has a style he wants to implement & whilst I’m not going to pretend it is what I’d like to see, he is no fool & presumably will be looking to shape the squad to better suit this style.

Remember it as 40p? Incredible really. Yep, by the end of the season they were really dog eared.

Suppose he would argue he basically only has 15 players. Clearly not having Cornick (didn’t get on at Brum, only did so today because Sykes was injured). Effectively means it is 2 from 3 of Williams, James, TGH. Wells or Conway & then one of Weimann, Bell or Mehmeti (he’s sticking with the latter). Look at the rest of the subs Knight-Lebel (appeared once in 17) Nelson (never come on), King 35 & no way is he on the bench in February unless we have injuries. Bajic. His options are limited, no idea where Yeboah was today but he’s raw & incredibly erratic & I’m not sure Manning (who has only brought him on once) thinks he’s anywhere near ready. You would have to think a couple of returners & 2 signings will see a different bench by the end of the month. Think this predated the Italians, still Elton wasn’t it?

Far better than the linesman who repeatedly allowed Murray Wallace to handoff his opponent, must have thought it was rugby. How on earth did their 7 not get booked straight after their goal, had hold of Rob Dickie’s shirt for about 30 seconds. Not why we lost but they absolutely knew they could get away with loads from today’s officials.

Callum Styles can’t get in the Barnsley side one division down, I get Murphy (18, loads of time to improve) but Styles isn’t the answer. I’d be amazed if we bring in 3 more midfielders next summer alongside Knight & Murphy. 2 possibly, depending on whether any of James, Williams or TGH are still here, but can’t see 3.

There’s ambition & there’s complete confusion. We paid a million on Thorpe, a third division striker that we didn’t remotely need (we already had Akinbiyi, Andersen, Cramb & Torpey). Our only defensive acquisition was Julian Watts, a terrible CB who made Jamie McCombe look like Franco Baresi on the ball. John Ward’s idea of a Championship midfield was to pair Matt Hewlett with Carl Hutchings a third division defender who ran around a lot to no effect trying to control the ball, he made Carlton Palmer look like Glenn Hoddle. Ward never managed at Championship level again after we sacked him (can’t think why). Lennartsson who expected to be Director of Football then was asked to become Head Coach & added a random assortment of foreign players seemingly without a plan, Bo Anderson was the shortest Dane I have ever seen, unfortunately he was a goalkeeper, Vilmos Sebok was good on the ball but seemed not to like defending, unfortunately we played him at CB (he was sweeper for Hungary) & Testimitanu who was the only one with any guts, got badly injured soon after signing. A absolute shambles of a season where we finished 24th, the season after going up neck & neck with Watford.

When memorably the coach got lost on the way to the game. There’s definitely a metaphor there, though I actually liked Benny & don’t think for a minute he expected to be Head Coach, but there was some seriously confused thinking going on from the outset that season.

Barnsley was pretty special too. Think that was the game after Holden had been sacked & Paul Simpson came out afterwards & basically admitted it was as bad as he’d seen & Kalas gave an interview where he said we had to defend all game because we kept giving the ball back to the opposition. There were loads that pandemic season that were pitiful.

We lost there 4-0 in December 92, we were even worse, Dziekanowski allegedly “played” in that game. Reality is he stood around for 90 minutes watching Gary Shelton try to tackle 3 opponents.