GrahamC

100%. For me this is why he & Alexander are starting to reference Luton all the time. Whatever we think of them their recruitment is consistently excellent & whilst they have increased costs, they still have a relatively small budget. However what they did last season is a massive outlier in how sides get promoted & you also need a year where parachute payment sides don’t do well & that’s rare too. We are basically at the lottery win to go up likelihood stage of SL’s ownership. Sides like Birmingham, Stoke & even those jokers over the bridge supposedly under an embargo are bringing in far more players. SL thinks we’re stupid or plebs, or both. Sell up now.

If I couldn’t love him any more just found out that he Tweeted today “one team in Bristol” & “that day against the gas will never be forgotten”. Pure class.

Think he also said Luton (our owner’s new favourite comparison) had a “small squad” last season. Utter bollocks, in 22/23 they used 30 players, it might have been a cheap one in terms of wages but it was about 8 players bigger.

Final one on the Gardiner-Hickman comment. He said it was “part of the plan” to sell Scott but “not part of the plan” to bring in TGH, that was only because of McCrorie’s injury. By my maths therefore even if McCrorie, Weimann & Conway were all fit (Atkinson & Benarous were already injured at this point) we were always looking to run this season on a squad of 21 players, which is just one more than you can name in a squad & with one senior goalkeeper. That is both madness & contradictory to Pearson’s comments about expecting to replace Scott. Doesn’t add up & why Hoskin didn’t question him on this is baffling. You’re no GT, that’s for sure.

He did. Which is why I thought Hoskins so poor. GT would have done his research & said our 4 summer signings were a total of £4.5m say, but Scott went for £25m. He was also allowed to go unchecked mentioning we spent money in January (£1.3m) when we got over £9m for Semenyo. Hard not to draw the conclusion SL is pulling up the drawbridge, but he was allowed to spin the “we’re still ambitious” “Luton did it” nonsense. If SL wants to stop funding us fine, sell up & **** off then.

Agostino’s in the riot game for me, though Tainton scored a cracker at Eastville in ‘74..

Just listened; A couple of observations, firstly I don’t understand his contention that signing Gardiner-Hickman on loan wasn’t “part of the plan” & was only done because of injuries, because that then implies we were always selling Scott (he admitted as much) but going to go with just the 4 signings from the summer. Wasn’t picked up on this. Next the £20m reference confused me, was he saying we had reduced our wage bill to £20m or our losses? I didn’t get why there were no follow up questions, especially as Hoskins seemed to run out of them well before the end & started asking stuff that had already been said. Didn’t see the Pearson contract bit in quite the same way as others, just didn’t want to say anything on it. Overall I thought it was poor, no attempt was made to ask him how come we have lost so many in numbers, shaved a sum off the wage bill & brought in 2 big fees yet we are supposed to still be aiming for top six on a tiny squad. An opportunity lost for me.

I remember one home game under Cotts (won 4-0) where I thought the full back that was supposedly marking him was going to cry. He was beating him for skill time after time so he tried to get physical & put his shoulder into him & JET knocked him somewhere almost into North Somerset. We had the best of him & even when we as a team were crap, he was outrageously good.

Loved him, had genius level skills. When it was dire under O’Driscoll (which frankly was most of the time) he was often the only thing worth watching. Took the slowest penalties ever & this goal is arguably the best I have seen in a game against the blue few in 50 years.

Me & my mate who supports the Baggies, both think so, too. Think that Tanner has just struggled a little bit of late so it was a good opportunity to give TGH a start ahead of the international break & of course because he then isn’t available at all for the next one. If we do intend persevering with Naismith as a CB he’s also probably first in line to cover all 3 of the midfielders who started yesterday.

If you fancy a laugh have a look at his comments after Stoke’s 2-0 defeat at home to Preston. Preston’s first goal was a penalty (I know, I know) and Neil is quoted as saying his players are adamant that it was a clear dive. Preston winning a penalty, with a blatant dive, I know Alex, who could possibly have started them off being like that? Despite the reaction on here afterwards we’re still the only team to get a point off them, by the way..

Yes. As an aside you also see a few (& how appropriate) car registrations around with yew tee gee (for some reason this keeps defaulting to FTG) all a bit pathetic, isn’t it?

This is how he switches off & relaxes, not that he isn’t interested. Reckon he’s always known there’s more to life than football & unlike many managers makes time to do them to keep him in a better frame of mind for his actual job.

That’s fair & the nerves are totally understandable. Seems a good lad & also genuinely pleased to be here, for someone initially here on loan that’s a good sign. Tall too, which should help us as we’re not the biggest side.

Honest answer is “don’t know”. My hunch? He’d sign on for another year or two if offered. He’s definitely frustrated about the money available to spend post Scott but thinks he’s building something. Those who reckon his interests outside the game mean he’s slowing down or losing focus, have completely got the wrong end of the stick for me.

Not involved yesterday, guess he’s not quite up to speed yet after no club all summer, he does feature prominently in videos of their training this week. They drew 1-1, letting in a equaliser in the 95th minute.

Thought we were being told on here we should have traded him on last week? I said he was our best player against Norwich, but he’s set the standard now, so let’s hope he can stay fit & keep this up.

Was talking to @Davefevs the other day about confirmation bias, where you don’t shake a fixed idea despite the evidence & because we won yesterday I think the comments on his performance were positive, but I thought it was a bit of a mixed bag. Firstly he was clearly pretty nervous on his full debut, one of his very first touches was a really poor cross field ball that caused panic. The positives for me were one excellent defence splitting pass to Wells, his set piece delivery was good & he was committed throughout, I also really liked the way he encouraged his team mates as he was subbed. There were a fair few misplaced passes however, several of which got us in real trouble at the back & perhaps understandably he was definitely starting to flag when he came off. 6/10 for me, looks a squad addition & bet he will be glad when his stop start beginning (cup tied, then he misses the next game because it’s West Brom) is over.

Obvious but if supporters see a side busting a gut, like they did today, they’ll respond. The ovation when Cornick won that free kick late on after hassling 2 or 3 opposition players single handed was amazing. Everyone on the pitch gave their all, midfield 3 & front 3 especially. Brilliant to see.

True, he’s certainly no Kasey Palmer (£3.5m) or Hakeeb Adelakun (£800k), is he?

Cornick was excellent. Chased everything, pestered their centre backs & won a smart foul. Ideal bloke to bring on when Nakhi is flagging.

Guess what? Nige knows what he’s doing. Imagine if he was given the resources others in his role have had. Great way to go into the international break.

Thank **** the window has closed, otherwise £25m & he’d be off too. Love him, 2 assists in 2 games, brilliant goal & relentless running. Talking of which Jason Knight, what a ******* player.

Even if all 3 goals were correctly disallowed (& I think the Bell one was very tight) the non sending off summed him up. Other end of the pitch he wouldn’t get the red card out quick enough. Utter ***.

He’s a ******* joke. Either biased beyond belief or incompetent or both.