1960maaan

I thought he showed what we could have yesterday,. Not just from him but from that genuine No.10. Conway was much more involved , his runs were spotted nice and early and the link up was good. I know it was "only" Rotherham , but it was really promising.
The problem for me is that I think we will lose them both.
f we could get Twine early enough, it might convince TC to stay ( with a decent new deal obviously ) . I doubt he's enjoyed much of the recent football , he has been starved of chances for a while, but maybe the Club can convince him of the chance of a top 6 push with him at the front and with the chance of good regular service ?  His reputation would grow and he could get that big move he probably wants.
A stretch I know. 
Twine signed a four-year deal in June 2022 , Burnley paid £4m , they will be in the Championship next year. 
That for me does not add up to them taking a cut price £2m or whatever. 

While I don't remember having too many reasons to shout at the Ref, I imagine Rotherham fans would. For years we haven't got Penalty decisions , seems we are getting them all now. I know some say there is contact and the Ref gives it straight away, I have my doubts about the Pen. Happy to take it mind, but if I moan about ones not given I feel it's right to mention when I think we've been lucky. 
It looks harsh, the Ref nor Lino have a really clear view and we have had many more blatant ones not given.

Then the free kick , that's easier. It looks soft , but they are the sort that are given and Twine forces the Refs hand by grabbing the ball . TBH Rinomhota doesn't moan too much. 

We only talk about them because they lead to goals , over all I thought he was OK and those decisions mean little now. I just hope we get those next year in our title challenge. 

What chance Derby lose at home and Bolton win by 4 at Peterborough ? Yeah , shame though.

Pompey
Derby

Plus , I think , P'boro or Bolton , that is a tough call . I think P'boro could nick it.

So to sum up and allowing for my prediction record. Oxford nailed on. 

10 hours ago, Rocking Red Cyril said:

How difficult would it really be to work segregation changes for differing away fan allowance between league and FA cup games. I cannot believe it would be that difficult. The club just need to be willing to make the effort 

I think it could be the Concourse that's the main issue. That said there are always work arounds .
Big away following isn't the problem. When you get 1000 in a 3,500 stand is when you lose money , or potential money. The balance is spend Vs gain . How many times a year do we get small followings for a game that would sell out ? 

They could probably put in a movable wall for segregating the Concourse, but it has to be cost effective , they wont do anything just for fun or atmosphere.

59 minutes ago, Dan11 said:

There's been no out of control spending here (at Ipswich).

5 points is enough for us to be promoted. Beyond all of our wildest dreams! 

Early days of Ashton I thought he started to do what he did here, not that I watched too closely but it did seem like the owners may have reeled him in and there was better focus after. 

I do wonder if he/we/the Club focused on buying for the first team he might have been ok here. Trouble is he was given total freedom and it turned into a mess. 

Just saw an interesting Tweet conversation. 

Basically saying that tonights result could earn Wimbledon £1m . I had to think, but I guess it's an add on in the Al-Hamadi  transfer. That's how you want them to work , 4 months and Bingo. 

5 minutes ago, IAmNick said:

4000 players between 95 and 00 went to category 1 academies, so 800 per year. That's insane. 

Imagine if those were spread more evenly through the leagues how much that'd benefit not just the clubs but them too.

Is it flippant to say these clubs are gambling with these kids in the hope they make it big and get a payout? Crazy.

I didn't realise there were 28 Cat 1 Academies . 

Is that across the age groups ? It works out 28 players per academy every year and I'd love to know how many they let go every year.

I found overall numbers . This is all academies and Football schools apparently .

Of those entering the game aged 16, two years down the line, 50% will be outside professional football. If we look at the same cohort at 21, the attrition rate is 75% or above.

It's a tough game.

3 minutes ago, Redhed123 said:

Taylor-Clarke OOC Summer 2025

Yep, misread an old article .

3 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Normally you’d have to be registered on our squad list at the end of the winter window, and normally he’d be registered with Aldershot for the season.  Max Bird is registered on Derby’s squad list for example, not ours.  But because he’s u21 that’s not the case.  And because Aldershot are national league, it means it’s a bit uncertain.  Seb Palmer Hpulden couldn’t finish at Newport tomorrow and play for us at Stoke next weekend for example.

Yep, and  thinking about it, if the loan would have covered the playoff games then he's still registered for them .

Ah well , Mebude it is then

20 minutes ago, Sleepy1968 said:

I'm looking forward to Leeds falling apart, again.

Getting your way so far 

I would have watched Huddersfield Vs Brum if it didn't KO the same time as us. Hoping for a home win.

2 hours ago, Davefevs said:

@GrahamC and I were discussing it the other day and I reached out to another otiber who shall remain nameless, but none of us could work out if he was eligible or ineligible based on the rules!  My gut feel is no he’s not, but as he’s u21 he doesn’t need to be added to the squad list.

Elijah Morrison in the uncut video, maybe he has a chance of being included.

My assumption was he's only played for Aldershot and their season has finished , the loan is over . I thought he would be available. 

As for Morrison , I wondered if he might be involved when he appeared so prominent in the Video. 

I hope he's on the bench tomorrow , I doubt he will be but it would add some interest .
 

Not much on Transfermarkt.

Tommy Backwell is OOC this summer 30th June

Ben Acey and Omar Taylor - Clark are out this summer too , signed extensions Oct '22.

Struggling to find much else TBH.

17 hours ago, Cov 77 said:

I don’t think they want to sell anything like 18k if previous utterings are anything to go by, I think nearer 15k tops , whatever their reasoning . 
 

To be fair I think fans groups have also pushed the changes regarding the south stand as a way to improve the atmosphere, to many cheap kids tickets not always attending for whatever reason leaving big gaps . 

17 hours ago, eardun said:

Yes Gavin Marshall said they want to increase sales to just over 15k on the FBC podcast. 

I will have to go and listen again as I took it to mean they wanted to sell more than last year , to get over 15k at the start of the season . I didn't think they wanted to limit it to just over 15k

They have to hold a certain % back for PotD , but you would think that having a guaranteed 18k every week would be preferable , then you would be near sell out every game if the PotD interest kept up. 

36 minutes ago, Silvio Dante said:

Gavin Marshall: We need to communicate better and more openly with fans 

Brian Tinnion: Hold my beer , and we shall never speak of this again .

 

Fixed it for you 

On a lighter note  hearing the "Wolf" story for his own mouth was great. We have laughed about it but man you can tell it was scary . 

2 hours ago, Jerseybean said:

There will certainly be others but Shaun Goater is the only player I can think of who played for them and us.

Gerry Gow, Vyner (loan) , David Noble ,Richard O'Donnell, Tony Thorpe , Martin Scott and Norman Hunter managed them

5 minutes ago, Kid in the Riot said:

I think he knew he couldn't carry on due to health issues. I recall in one of his last interviews he said he just needed a quick op and would be in and out of hospital in "48 hours". That was disingenuous, I believe, and he knew the situation was much more serious.

He spent a week in hospital having tests in Nov/Dec and we know that as of early Jan he still couldn't walk. 

For a fact, he would have had to take more time off from the job to get treated. Whatever anyone says, that is a less than ideal situation for the club, and frankly not good for Nige.

He won't see it this way, but ultimately the club may have done him a favour so that he could fully concentrate on getting better. 

Seems he's still not 100% fit so I've no idea how or why people think he'd have been able to see the full season out here.

I still think 99% of the problem lays with the Club, they could have done this in a much better way but the poor relationship , and poor leadership meant it didn't happen. 

Pearson was on crutches at the training ground, but he didn't take sessions as far as I'm aware, he liked others to take responsibility . That's why he seemed to take a lot of care choosing staff. As long as he could watch sessions I'm not sure it made a lot of difference to what happened, though I doubt it was helping his situation. 

What should/could have happened is, the approach him and try and talk him into taking gardening leave to have the OP. He was OOC in the summer , so unless they really thought that another Coach/Manager could really take them to the Playoffs there was no rush to change things. 
IMO the summer was the time to make changes 

Because they ( I think it was Tinnion ) suggested the change would be seamless and was done to make a top 6 push, it does make it adversarial , it's football fans after all it's what we do. All the bluff that came after was just trying to save face and make excuses , again not Mannings fault but he was always going to get some stick as the face of the Club.  Tinnion then came out and said he ( Manning) was learning on the Job, the opposite of what was suggested when he came in.

They couldn't sack him for health issues , but if they had managed to get him on Gardening leave and had Flemming in charge for the rest of the season , at least the fans would have seen reason. Then we start with a new manager/coach who gets a proper pre season.

It's just down to poor leadership of the Club at the very top. For one brief minute we looked like we were on to something , we had a strong Manager and a top CEO. Going back to an inexperienced Chairman and a shared CEO and a TD we look like a rudderless ship.

It's arrived 

Only just started listening, but one thing that made me laugh.

When asked "are confidentiality clauses forever " Nine replies "ask me in 12 months time" 

Called us Bristol .... he's dead to me 

Bloody hell if that's right ...

1 hour ago, Never to the dark side said:

Although he does like his cards,34 games with 164 yellows, 9 reds

That's about a Red every 4 games and an average of around 5 yellows a game , what's he been Reffing, the WWF ??

2 hours ago, Silvio Dante said:

Its been interesting both because you can see that a change in demeanour leads to better answers (I don’t think there was a Pearson change in demeanour against results that was as clear) and because Piercys bit is always good value (I tend to want the RB bit to be done so I can get to him). 

I don't think there was a change in demeanour with results, but there seemed a definite change in attitude by Pearson. I found him a bit tetchy even adversarial at times to start, but he definitely relaxed as time went on , which is interesting in someone so experienced. I think he may even have mentioned relaxing himself. 

Manning is different , this is his biggest job and he's still relatively young and inexperienced . I don't enjoy them ATM , I find them quite dull and repetitive , TBH that could be the same for any Presser . That's why I appreciate your bullet point posts. 
With luck and time he will relax and they will become better, even enjoyable. But trying to come up with new things to say , new phrases etc is almost impossible , but it's the information that is key . 

1 hour ago, Betty Swallocks said:

Isn’t there an EFL rule that says a certain % of stadium capacity needs to be held back for POTD?

Yep , I didn't even think about it until last year when I read the Norwich had sold out. They sold 21,000 Sts and the ground holds 27,359. 

Klopp's farewell tour going well then 

17 minutes ago, Silvio Dante said:

- Conversations with OOC players haven’t happened as yet (I’d say that’s a lie…!)

I'd tend to agree.

- Medube - looked decent in training and might get an opportunity (I think that’s the second lie)

I agree again , otherwise he would have had a few more minutes at least.

- “People misread what I say and don’t listen properly at times. I want players to be emotional but recognise you need to be in control and not make rash actions” In training gave bad decisions in game to work on reactions (I do that with 12 year olds so wholeheartedly back it!)

The comment of people not listening was a bit barbed - but it’s also no coincidence he’s got better at communicating as he’s got more relaxed and it was a large part of he wasn’t articulating as well.

Yep ,any misunderstanding is more to do with how he put it IMO.

- Knights current position; has done a great job there, the group understand how to play positions now. Asked if it was a long term plan or had developed - said it wasn’t a plan long term and LM is adaptable and likes to tweak things. Knight is now running less/smarter.

I said when he was playing that 10 role, he was trying to do too much pressing, he was a headless chicken at times. I still say that role doesn't suit him and the deeper role is a much better fit. But what do I know?

- Conway - no update. Want to keep him, he has an offer. Loves working with him. Thinks Conway has improved this season and should score 15+ a season, Twine helps that.

More service helps that wherever and whoever that comes from. Sound like he's placing all his cards on getting Twine.

Again, pretty relaxed (as expected). The comment of people not listening was a bit barbed - but it’s also no coincidence he’s got better at communicating as he’s got more relaxed and it was a large part of he wasn’t articulating as well. (And tbf I had noted I think he said emotion when he meant focus and he’s using it in a different context here). That whole section was pretty interesting and is worth a listen.

Thanks Silvio , I do struggle to stay with these Pressers so appreciate your work.