Jourdan

Exeter gave a really good account of themselves. They played some nice passing football, kept us on the back foot for large spells but never capitalised at any point. They are so very evidently a young side with a lot to learn. A more streetwise team would have run us ragged tonight.
All of our added experience shone through in the end. We were calm, collected, and absolutely surgical on the counter attack. Wildsmith, Nelson, Adams, Bird, Mendez Laing, Barkhuizen and Collins all played important roles in differing ways. Mendez-Laing in particular caused all kinds of problems when we got him into areas where he can hurt the opposition.
All in all, it won’t have got the purists doing laps of their living room, but going to an in-form side on the up and full of confidence and one who had beaten Peterborough only a week prior and delivering an incredibly mature and professional away performance is honestly something Warne and the players deserve massive credit for.

Exeter gave a really good account of themselves. They played some nice passing football, kept us on the back foot for large spells but never capitalised at any point. They are so very evidently a young side with a lot to learn. A more streetwise team would have run us ragged tonight.
All of our added experience shone through in the end. We were calm, collected, and absolutely surgical on the counter attack. Wildsmith, Nelson, Adams, Bird, Mendez Laing, Barkhuizen and Collins all played important roles in differing ways. Mendez-Laing in particular caused all kinds of problems when we got him into areas where he can hurt the opposition.
All in all, it won’t have got the purists doing laps of their living room, but going to an in-form side on the up and full of confidence and one who had beaten Peterborough only a week prior and delivering an incredibly mature and professional away performance is honestly something Warne and the players deserve massive credit for.

Exeter gave a really good account of themselves. They played some nice passing football, kept us on the back foot for large spells but never capitalised at any point. They are so very evidently a young side with a lot to learn. A more streetwise team would have run us ragged tonight.
All of our added experience shone through in the end. We were calm, collected, and absolutely surgical on the counter attack. Wildsmith, Nelson, Adams, Bird, Mendez Laing, Barkhuizen and Collins all played important roles in differing ways. Mendez-Laing in particular caused all kinds of problems when we got him into areas where he can hurt the opposition.
All in all, it won’t have got the purists doing laps of their living room, but going to an in-form side on the up and full of confidence and one who had beaten Peterborough only a week prior and delivering an incredibly mature and professional away performance is honestly something Warne and the players deserve massive credit for.

Exeter gave a really good account of themselves. They played some nice passing football, kept us on the back foot for large spells but never capitalised at any point. They are so very evidently a young side with a lot to learn. A more streetwise team would have run us ragged tonight.
All of our added experience shone through in the end. We were calm, collected, and absolutely surgical on the counter attack. Wildsmith, Nelson, Adams, Bird, Mendez Laing, Barkhuizen and Collins all played important roles in differing ways. Mendez-Laing in particular caused all kinds of problems when we got him into areas where he can hurt the opposition.
All in all, it won’t have got the purists doing laps of their living room, but going to an in-form side on the up and full of confidence and one who had beaten Peterborough only a week prior and delivering an incredibly mature and professional away performance is honestly something Warne and the players deserve massive credit for.

Bolton, Barnsley, and Peterborough all finished last season above us and they are all in contention again this season. They are good teams. They are the benchmark for us this season. We knew that if we wanted to get promoted, it’s these teams we would have to outperform.
There is no contradiction. I am saying they are good teams in a competitive league. If the league wasn’t competitive, these teams and indeed ourselves would be dropping points far less frequently.
More waffle? I’ll put be putting Brussels out of business at this rate. I express my opinions plenty, if you disagree with them or can’t comprehend them, that’s fine.
How much of an advantage have we had with Wigan and Reading being in financial difficulties and having points deductions really? Reading and Wigan have beaten us this season. Reading have pipped us to transfer targets. Surely it’s the likes of Portsmouth, Oxford, Blackpool and Stevenage who have profited from this?

The Mill on the Exe
 

Wash 😉

Agree Coventry City could be a model to copy . They only missed out to Luton  on penalties. However they sold their best player for £20 million this summer to help finances . Love us to find a £20 mill striker from somewhere. 

Grotty weather on the way down but the sun is out now we are here. And it is so mild! ☀️⚽️🐏

We have the best defence in the league away from home and they’ve scored the least goals of any team at home with 10 goals in 16 games. 
 
1-0 Exeter Full time 

On the train from Plymouth to Exeter for work.
The weather is pretty wet. Apparently there is a weather warning in place for the whole of the South West, so safe journey to everyone travelling.
Hopefully it won’t affect the game being on.

Thanks, @i-Ram. Tonight could be the night.
Enjoy your evening. M&S do a cracking houmous with caramelised onion. Their chilli and manchego cheese crisps are lovely too.
Perfect for a night behind the sofa.
 

Thanks, @i-Ram. Tonight could be the night.
Enjoy your evening. M&S do a cracking houmous with caramelised onion. Their chilli and manchego cheese crisps are lovely too.
Perfect for a night behind the sofa.
 

I am sorry but how is us possibly getting promoted to the Championship under Warne in any way comparable to us getting promoted to the PL the previous time over 15 years ago?
In 2008, the board and the manager were reportedly at odds and the board were seemingly unwilling to invest in summer 2008 to improve the team sufficiently. We couldn’t compete with the other promoted sides never mind the 17 others. The step up to the PL was huge back then. Is the step up to the Championship really anywhere close to that?
Consider that Clowes appears to be nothing but in full support of Warne and consider that once the restrictions are lifted and with the additional revenue streams to follow from promotion, we’d be able to compete financially with anyone else who gets promoted and probably around 6-10 other Championship clubs as a fair estimate. Surely that’s a far better place to be in?
What’s there to stop us from improving and adapting to the Championship well? Not only footballing sides do it. Luton and Coventry did it. In fact, if you look at Wigan, Barnsley, Peterborough and Blackpool as recent reoccurrences, it’s footballing sides who more often tend to go back where they came from.
This fearmongering is outrageous. 

We’ve had injuries in recent weeks. I appreciate people feel Warne is messing with the team for the sake of it, but hasn’t it in part been due to circumstance? How he’s navigated that circumstance is another matter, but not having the likes of Nyambe, Forsyth, Elder, Cashin, Smith, Washington, Waghorn, CBT and others available at times has played as much a part as his decision to change the goalkeeper for example. I was told it’s not correct to ignore caveats on another thread over the last couple of days so feel this should be highlighted.
 

Bolton, Barnsley, and Peterborough all finished last season above us and they are all in contention again this season. They are good teams. They are the benchmark for us this season. We knew that if we wanted to get promoted, it’s these teams we would have to outperform.
There is no contradiction. I am saying they are good teams in a competitive league. If the league wasn’t competitive, these teams and indeed ourselves would be dropping points far less frequently.
More waffle? I’ll put be putting Brussels out of business at this rate. I express my opinions plenty, if you disagree with them or can’t comprehend them, that’s fine.
How much of an advantage have we had with Wigan and Reading being in financial difficulties and having points deductions really? Reading and Wigan have beaten us this season. Reading have pipped us to transfer targets. Surely it’s the likes of Portsmouth, Oxford, Blackpool and Stevenage who have profited from this?

I am sorry but how is us possibly getting promoted to the Championship under Warne in any way comparable to us getting promoted to the PL the previous time over 15 years ago?
In 2008, the board and the manager were reportedly at odds and the board were seemingly unwilling to invest in summer 2008 to improve the team sufficiently. We couldn’t compete with the other promoted sides never mind the 17 others. The step up to the PL was huge back then. Is the step up to the Championship really anywhere close to that?
Consider that Clowes appears to be nothing but in full support of Warne and consider that once the restrictions are lifted and with the additional revenue streams to follow from promotion, we’d be able to compete financially with anyone else who gets promoted and probably around 6-10 other Championship clubs as a fair estimate. Surely that’s a far better place to be in?
What’s there to stop us from improving and adapting to the Championship well? Not only footballing sides do it. Luton and Coventry did it. In fact, if you look at Wigan, Barnsley, Peterborough and Blackpool as recent reoccurrences, it’s footballing sides who more often tend to go back where they came from.
This fearmongering is outrageous. 

Love all the spurious, near-unanswerable questions which depict a future based on a blind-faith-lead, theoretical idea that Warne has what it takes to manage in the Championship and would see us matching the likes of Ipswich, Sunderland & Plymouth rather than Sheffield Weds, who are the club we're most comparable to out of last season's promoted teams. 
Ipswich & Plymouth have had success due to appointing progressive young managers, Sunderland got up through Neil (not great) but made a very shrewd appointment in Mowbray after he left.  Coventry & Robins I don't know a great deal about but he appears to be one of those managers who's just clicked at a certain club and feels like the right fit. Sheff Weds may yet stand a chance of staying up because Danny Röhl looks a good appointment, he also seems to be well regarded as another of progressive types.
The whole "competitive league" thing is the same argument Forest fans were roundly laughed at for coming out with with last season to make it sound like they were beating all the odds to stay up, despite it mainly being because of the way other teams imploded after years of poor management caught up with them and Forest's own £150m+ splurge producing  just enough s*** to stick to the wall.
A league can be both more competive but also far weaker, and that probably fits in with what we're seeing - we do get results because we put in the graft, there's plenty of industry and  'busywork' (and it has always been to Warne's credit that he recognises how important that is) which covers the competitiveness, but we also have individuals with more quality (and just as importaintly experience) than pretty much anyone else, which covers the general lowering of quality.
That will (probaby) be enough to get us out of League One this season, but to stay in the Championship you can't just rely on the hard work, and I think it unlikely that, whatever our budget, we'll be able to bring in enough (/good enough) players to provide that individual quality to the degree we'll be able to play poorly collectively but still scrape enough points for survival.
That means needing a manager who can do those (cliched) "producing a team better than the sum of its parts", "performing above budget" and "out-thinking the opposition" things.

I am sorry but how is us possibly getting promoted to the Championship under Warne in any way comparable to us getting promoted to the PL the previous time over 15 years ago?
In 2008, the board and the manager were reportedly at odds and the board were seemingly unwilling to invest in summer 2008 to improve the team sufficiently. We couldn’t compete with the other promoted sides never mind the 17 others. The step up to the PL was huge back then. Is the step up to the Championship really anywhere close to that?
Consider that Clowes appears to be nothing but in full support of Warne and consider that once the restrictions are lifted and with the additional revenue streams to follow from promotion, we’d be able to compete financially with anyone else who gets promoted and probably around 6-10 other Championship clubs as a fair estimate. Surely that’s a far better place to be in?
What’s there to stop us from improving and adapting to the Championship well? Not only footballing sides do it. Luton and Coventry did it. In fact, if you look at Wigan, Barnsley, Peterborough and Blackpool as recent reoccurrences, it’s footballing sides who more often tend to go back where they came from.
This fearmongering is outrageous. 

Psychiatric?

You poor thing.

Do teams never get promoted and overachieve the following season?
Is such a phenomenon exclusive to League 1?
Didn’t Sheffield United and Wolves not long ago finish in the top half of the PL following promotion?
If it’s possible in the PL, why should we be surprised to see it in League 1 where the margins are much finer?

I am sorry but how is us possibly getting promoted to the Championship under Warne in any way comparable to us getting promoted to the PL the previous time over 15 years ago?
In 2008, the board and the manager were reportedly at odds and the board were seemingly unwilling to invest in summer 2008 to improve the team sufficiently. We couldn’t compete with the other promoted sides never mind the 17 others. The step up to the PL was huge back then. Is the step up to the Championship really anywhere close to that?
Consider that Clowes appears to be nothing but in full support of Warne and consider that once the restrictions are lifted and with the additional revenue streams to follow from promotion, we’d be able to compete financially with anyone else who gets promoted and probably around 6-10 other Championship clubs as a fair estimate. Surely that’s a far better place to be in?
What’s there to stop us from improving and adapting to the Championship well? Not only footballing sides do it. Luton and Coventry did it. In fact, if you look at Wigan, Barnsley, Peterborough and Blackpool as recent reoccurrences, it’s footballing sides who more often tend to go back where they came from.
This fearmongering is outrageous. 

Bolton, Barnsley, and Peterborough all finished last season above us and they are all in contention again this season. They are good teams. They are the benchmark for us this season. We knew that if we wanted to get promoted, it’s these teams we would have to outperform.
There is no contradiction. I am saying they are good teams in a competitive league. If the league wasn’t competitive, these teams and indeed ourselves would be dropping points far less frequently.
More waffle? I’ll put be putting Brussels out of business at this rate. I express my opinions plenty, if you disagree with them or can’t comprehend them, that’s fine.
How much of an advantage have we had with Wigan and Reading being in financial difficulties and having points deductions really? Reading and Wigan have beaten us this season. Reading have pipped us to transfer targets. Surely it’s the likes of Portsmouth, Oxford, Blackpool and Stevenage who have profited from this?

I am sorry but how is us possibly getting promoted to the Championship under Warne in any way comparable to us getting promoted to the PL the previous time over 15 years ago?
In 2008, the board and the manager were reportedly at odds and the board were seemingly unwilling to invest in summer 2008 to improve the team sufficiently. We couldn’t compete with the other promoted sides never mind the 17 others. The step up to the PL was huge back then. Is the step up to the Championship really anywhere close to that?
Consider that Clowes appears to be nothing but in full support of Warne and consider that once the restrictions are lifted and with the additional revenue streams to follow from promotion, we’d be able to compete financially with anyone else who gets promoted and probably around 6-10 other Championship clubs as a fair estimate. Surely that’s a far better place to be in?
What’s there to stop us from improving and adapting to the Championship well? Not only footballing sides do it. Luton and Coventry did it. In fact, if you look at Wigan, Barnsley, Peterborough and Blackpool as recent reoccurrences, it’s footballing sides who more often tend to go back where they came from.
This fearmongering is outrageous.