Jourdan

Saturday can’t come soon enough. I am driving my wife crazy… Me: I have something to tell you. Wife: What is it? Me: It’s important. It’s big. It’s life changing. Wife: Tell me. Me: Promise me you won’t be angry or upset. Wife: OK. Tell me. Me: Are you sure? Wife: You’ve lost your job? Me: No. Wife: You want a divorce? Me: No. Wife: You’ve been having an affair? Me: No. Wife: Well, what is it? Me: RAMS ARE GOING UP, OLE OLE! 🎵 😂

Wildsmith Wilson - Nelson - Cashin - Sibley Adams - Bird - Smith NML - Collins - CBT

All set here in sunny Cornwall, ready for some Sonny Bradley heroics.

It could be a good warm up for the following year when Warne masterminds promotion to the PL.

Why not? The club has a loud enough PA system to get messages across to the fans. Also the LED boards… Teams who finish second in League 1 get a ‘promotion trophy’.

The club just have to be prepared for it and allow it in a controlled way. I think it’s fine to let the fans invade the pitch and soak in the moment, before returning to their seats so the players can do their lap of honour and celebrate and lift the trophy with fans who have stayed behind.

The club should just encourage fans to do it in a respectful way, being respectful to players, coaches, officials, and visiting fans. To warn people of criminal proceedings strikes me as mean-spirited. The fans have been on the PP pitch before. Southampton and Brighton at home in the play-offs, and during the victory parade after Wembley in 2007, for instance. If it’s done in the right spirit, it’s a natural way to celebrate and release those emotions.

I don’t think there’ll be a pitch invasion at Cambridge. You can imagine though that there will be some kind of overspill if we score, especially in front of our own fans. Similar to the scenes at Port Vale. If we go into the Carlisle game needing a result and we get one, I am 99% sure there will be a pitch invasion. Is it the right thing to do? Personally I think it depends on how you behave yourself. If people do it respectfully, I think it can be a joyous moment and let’s face it, these moments are few and far between. I certainly fondly remember dancing on the pitch in the rain after Southampton at home in the play-offs singing Que Sera Que Sera.

They should have given us a bigger allocation really.

Cambridge 1-1 Derby Mendez Laing

The thing is, how we fare in the Championship (should we get there) doesn’t depend solely on Warne. It will require Clowes, Pearce, Hale, Thomas, Warne and all the other key people at the club working well to get things right. The common denominator between teams that go up and prosper and teams that fall flat is not style of play. It’s how the club operates, the resources they have to be able to improve, and how they work strategically to achieve that. Many think Warne will be the weak link moving forward, but if he has a team of good football people around him and the backing of the board, maybe collectively we’ll be stronger and more switched on than people assume.

Thank Warne, give him a bonus, and give him a pay-off before a ball has been kicked? All based on a feeling? What sense would there be in that? I don’t dispute we will be operating a bigger budget if we go up. However surely we will still need to spend and use our resources wisely? If we are looking to improve the squad and ensure we are competitive, surely every penny counts? Surely it would make more sense to invest everything we can in the team? Bear in mind, we’d not just be paying off Warne but also any staff that came in to be part of his team. Why would you advocate for a change upon promotion? The only way it would make sense to me is if working relationships behind the scenes were irreparably damaged and there is no evidence of that, to my knowledge. I don’t understand why you assume the style of play is destined to be terrible. Maybe I am wrong but I figure it will be determined by the players Warne and the club can attract. Surely Warne will be trying to get better players who can do what he wants more effectively. Perhaps these better players will be more well rounded and able to play in more than one way. We have played good football at times under Warne and usually it has been built around the better players we have had. If we sign 3-4 players with the ability of a Bird or the flair and vision of a McGoldrick, why can’t we go up and play a brand of football that is pleasing to the manager and the fans?

There’s nothing to be fearful about in the Championship and I can’t believe this narrative is already being pushed. The jump in quality really isn’t that significant, outside of the usual teams we see every year that are leaning on parachute payments to keep their squads together. Even then these teams are nothing close to infallible, especially in one off games. A third of promoted teams from League 1 in the past five years have not only gone up and consolidated their position but they have competed at the right end of the Championship table, in some cases getting promoted or mightily close. The teams that usually go up and find their way back to League 1 are the ones without the resources or infrastructure to hold their own. We are only going to end up like Rotherham, Wycombe, Barnsley, Blackpool, Peterborough and others if we show a serious lack of ambition financially or there is a lack of synergy and effective strategy behind the scenes. If Clowes, Pearce, Thomas, Hale and Warne are all working well and pulling in the same direction, why is it beyond us to build a competitive squad for the Championship, one that could finish 15-18th in year one, for instance? No-one stands still and neither will we. Everyone resets. Teams get better. Teams get worse. Managers change. Managers improve. Managers decline. There are so many variables at play, why would we be fearful now when we can work towards a stronger position over the summer? Such needless negativity when nothing is set in stone.

Of course there isn’t when we get results. It is easy to back a winning team, which we have been doing for the majority of games since November. But there is definitely something bubbling under the surface. You could feel that in the ground away at Exeter even when we were 1-0 up at HT. I dread to think what it was like at Wycombe on Wednesday.

For me, Warne has done a very respectable job in the circumstances and I would love to see him take us up and turn a few heads in the Championship. There’s no question that he deserves that shot if we go up in two weeks’ time. He’s a likeable person with good people-centred principles and he is still very early in his coaching career with room to grow and improve and time to learn and adapt. Could our club be the environment where he does that? Absolutely no reason why not. I don’t think staying at Rotherham for six years where he got set in his ways and could touch the ceiling of what they could achieve without standing on his tiptoes did him any favours. He has arguably learnt more in his two years managing us than in his entire time there. It’s a challenge, but one where the goals are actually tangible and scaleable. All that said, I do find his relationship with the fans to be a major issue. One that only promotion really begins to resolve and as such leaves his future very much hanging in the balance. Clowes will ultimately decide but you can see how fan disengagement in the summer may sway him given the tight nature of the finances. It strikes me that Warne is trying to build a culture at the club, much like Klopp has at Liverpool. It is one that very much relies on togetherness and everyone pulling in the same direction. The board and the higher ups have bought into it. The players have bought into it, even though that doesn’t always translate into performances. But without the fans, how far can it really go? He still has a love-hate relationship with the fans and this is where it all falls down. This is such a key relationship to get right when it comes to what Warne is trying to achieve. Can he take the fans on a journey? Can the fans stay onside? Can the fans buy in? The novelty of League 1 football is rapidly wearing off and while I don’t think a third season in League 1 would be a disaster for the club given what came before, it would certainly be a stain on Warne’s reputation and one that would be difficult for him to recover from without regrouping and starting afresh somewhere else. 7th to 3rd or 4th in terms of league finish would still be a step forward, but the feeling is different. If you are coming from where Lincoln were, for instance, you feel a buzz. But having been in 2nd with six games to go and having a clear points advantage over the teams in 3rd-5th, to let it slip now would be a body blow despite the healthy competition. If we slip out of the automatic promotion places and/or lose in the playoffs, I just can’t see the fanbase rallying around Warne. There would be appetite for change and sadly that would be something Clowes is unable to ignore. These three games could well be make or break.

Derby 2-1 Leyton Orient CBT

I understand that completely, but it was almost like he’d gone full circle to the kind of performance he put in v Exeter away. Very worrying.

With CBT still finding his feet and Ward and Barkhuizen often getting injured, I think Warne sees no other choice but to play him. There’s not really an alternative, especially as Nyambe and Forsyth being out pushes Wilson and Sibley into playing more defensive roles than we would ideally want.

CBT is the worry for me. He looked very bright v Blackpool and then played his best game so far for us v Portsmouth. Then tonight he regressed. I really thought tonight would be the night he came to the party. He won’t get a better chance. He is clearly a confidence player and he is clearly playing within himself much of the time since joining us. Perhaps he is overwhelmed by the pressure to impress. There is certainly a feeling of that. I am not often critical of Warne and the coaches, but perhaps they could be managing him better, because something is not right.

NML can always make something happen and he has been our best attacking player this season, so in Warne’s eyes, almost definitely. He is as important to us this year as McGoldrick was last year.

There is definitely a feeling that we took four points from Bolton and Portsmouth and thought the hard work was done. Tonight was summed up by NML getting the ball out on the right and just wearily putting it out of play. Of course we can still do it. 90-92 points has to be the target. But do we have any gas left in the tank? It’s a big concern.

I would normally agree but tonight was especially poor. Arguably the worst performance of the season given the significance of the game.

I am usually positive but there’s no hiding behind anything tonight. That was absolutely shocking to the extent that you could argue a point was more than we actually deserved. A draw was a fair expectation before the game. We knew Wycombe would make it awkward for us. However the manner of our performance to get there was just so desperately sloppy and that will swing the feeling from it being a good point to a disappointing one. Bolton and Peterborough will be rubbing their hands tonight and rightfully so.

Just returned home from the honeymoon and this is not the homecoming I was hoping for! We are playing into Wycombe’s hands and they will punish us if we aren’t careful. They are getting some joy through the middle and in transitions. However it’s not all doom and gloom. We have looked nervous and erratic, yes, but we have created two really good chances worthy of winning any game, only for NML and CBT to somehow waste them. A lot of poor touches and unfavourable bounces - is it the pitch I wonder? Perhaps it’s just the two teams lacking composure, but it’s not been much of a spectacle so far! Let’s hope it improves!