IAmNick

If at any point you come across a bloke nicknamed the tripod you may be in the wrong place

Wow, look at that bench. With no disrespect to any of the individually it really shows you where we are right now.

How are the fans being used as dupes? Surely if he really wanted to build houses there all along to make money he could have just bought the land, built the houses by now, and never even mentioned it in the same breath as the club or anything about it to the fans? It's not like he asked us to fund the purchase, or used money from the club to buy it. I'm confused how pretending to build a stadium there was of any benefit to him at all, it only seems to have wasted a lot of time and money (there's opportunity cost behind having an unused asset like that don't forget).

Yeah I agree. He's a solid 6 out of 10 pretty much every game for me, and more often a 7/8 than a 5 if he's not. That's just what we're missing at the moment... a few more of them around the team to allow for the inconsistent kids and we'd be in a much better place. Didn't realise that about his Afobe comparison, interesting!

Will probably get 10 - 12 goals this season, half that many assists, and a huge part of an attack that is the reason we've survived this year. Second most minutes on the pitch as well... not to be sniffed at with this squad. I'm pleased. There absolutely is! Think people don't realise how complex those games are these days...

I'm almost certain he's going to accidentally quote his own post and start arguing with it in a second

Good post and lots of fair questions to raise. For the record I think your opinion is fairly popular at the moment, or at least not unpopular. I'm going to clarify this by saying I agree that the defence is poor, and Pearson should have done, and be doing a better job than he is at coaching them. We've conceded far too many goals, there are no two ways about it. We've also lost too many games. It's been worse than I hoped overall, though broadly what I expected. Personally I also put this down to two things though: 1. The defence hasn't been settled all year. We can get into whether that's the medical team or not, or why else it may have happened but those are other discussions - the fact is we've been unable to play the same back 3/4/5 for a string of games all year. All of our defensive signings from the summer have been injured for a fair portion (Baker, Tanner, Atkinson) - with Baker being our best defender for some and Tanner obviously covering a critical position squad wise. That has a massive impact on your defensive quality. Of the back 3 last night one of them none of us had ever heard of in the summer, one of them I'd be surprised if anyone really thought they'd be starting, and one was "one for the (near) future" we hoped would get a few games in and around the team this year. If you said Cundy would be starting alongside Atkinson and a random 35 year old 6 months ago the overwhelming response would have been "...Uh oh, something must have gone really wrong". 2. I think Pearson thought we were safe, so broadly had two options in January (which is when our really awful defensive record really kicked into gear, compared to the just awful one before it ). A: Bring in a fair few loans to tide us over until the end of the season. Upsides: We finish higher in the table (weren't going to hit the playoffs). Downsides: Wages (already a struggle), interrupts / blocks pathway (loads of promising youngsters kicking around at the moment) B: We're safe, stick with what we have and risk some changes to sort of make it work, and see what happens. Upsides: Can get experience into the youngsters, keep control of the finances. Downsides: More inconsistent, small risk of going down. I think he went with B which is why we're seeing a lot more of the kids now, we're scoring pretty freely but also conceding pretty freely. We look like a team full of kids and players who've barely played together which is exactly what we are. I reckon if we really were in the shit and had to knuckle down and grind out a 1 - 0 we could, but maybe I'm delusional there! I keep thinking - what does that get us? We're safe, is it more valuable to play Danny Simpson for the rest of the year and get x more points, or Pring / Dasilva / whoever? At the start of the year, and for the last few years I've seen many comments about whether the academy is working and why do we even bother with it (Just look at Brentford!), stuff like "Just play the kids, I don't care if we lose! Give them a go!" and so on - well now we are, and we're getting wild inconsistency all over the pitch and people complaining about it. Overall as I said the defence should be better. It's been awful, and it's not just the players of course - some of that definitely lies at Pearson and the team he's assembled too. I can see some reasons and mitigations there though - but it HAS to be better next year, and so do we overall. If we're looking the same by Christmas, then I'd be done with Pearson barring some exceptional circumstance. I want to see top half, and ideally top 10. This year I expected bottom third and was hoping for avoiding relegation and seeing our promising youngsters which is exactly what we've got. It's certainly not been pretty (or enjoyable) at times but it's what I expected, and could have been a lot worse. I like to think I'm not blind faith, but I'm also not anti-Pearson... yet.

I'd argue there's a chance of a good outcome from a pot luck...

Yeah I mentioned similar (less detail ) on the match thread last night. Cundy gets blocked off in an identical manner for both goals, and misses what should (not fully apportioning blame as there's more!) have been his balls to clear or man to put off both times. It's annoying because it's literally the EXACT same corner both times - everyone is stood in exactly the same place on both teams, the ball goes to the same place both times, and the same thing happens both times. Aaaaargh.

Without question, or at least something a fair bit stronger in the free drink...

In the interview above he said he couldn't disagree with them! I assume it was about the game rather than him in that case..!

40 years ago was DEFINITELY longer ago than that, surely, please...

It's not just who did or didn't play in one off games though is it, it's about building partnerships around the pitch (centre backs, midfield, up and down the flanks, you know what I mean) through playing over and over again around the same people, and we just haven't been able to do that. No wonder they look so disjointed at times.

Oh come on, I get it's annoying when we play like crap and get beaten but I don't think "A player looked like he might be good 3 - 4 years ago" is really a fair rebuttal. A lot on here said they'd take sorting the wages out a bit, staying up, and seeing a load of our promising youngsters get game time and kick on. That's exactly what we've got. It's definitely not been pretty but this season is pretty much what I expected so I'm not throwing my toys out just yet personally.

Any positive? The huge improvement of Semenyo, Scott, Pring, and Massengo for a good chunk of the season? Tonight was pretty awful but if you're saying there have been NO positives to his appointment at all you're utterly blinkered.

Think tonight is what it looks like when we take our standard "defend like shit and let in 2 goals" part of the recipe, without adding the "but also score 2 at the same time" bit. Really poor overall.

If you can't find a single one then you're not looking at all

Lets be honest, probably half the teams outside the top 6 (and maybe the odd team in it) would have a fair chunk of fans saying that about their manage. It's partly why their life expectancy is about a year tops at most clubs!

Going for a 2 - 2 draw. Bring Wells on for Martin, stick with the 4 4 2 we've gone to. Barnsley look awful at the back, a better final ball and we'd still be in this even with our shocking defending. On Pearson to make it happen though, so let's see it.

I agree, strictly speaking they've scored two easy goals from very poorly defended corners, but we've had by far the better chances overall.

"Full respect to the City fans still singing away" Wasn't it "We're f*cking shit" a minute ago, and "We've got the ball" as he said that? Hahahah

Ok they're actually just taking the piss if they're taking corners like that now

It's all oop north init

He had a man (Cundy), he just lost him for both goals in almost the exact same way!

Barnsley second: https://streamja.com/G2W5O