May Contain Nuts

This is more what I had in mind, the most niche of niche puns!

I think we're a long way from willingly paying £1m even if we could. Besides, I think this guy is another who is clearly a good player but it doesn't really sound like he'd fit in with how Warne sets his midfield up. That is all to say, if we were signing him, it would not exactly bring me to Climax.

He would be at fault for using good amounts of what budget we did have in the summer window on players who have proven no better than what we already had. The money going out to Washington, Bradley, Ward, Fornah & Elder every week for minimal return on the pitch isn't exactly helping our chances of strengthening this month. Essentially we paid out wages on the higher end of the free transfer market for squad players, when perhaps cheaper alternatives could have done the same job as backups. Not that I'm saying I could name the other options, but then I'm not a scout.

He sounds / looks the epitome of the perfect Warne player to me

On yer bike, Son!

Perhaps we're trying to get him on the NHS?

Joe not Jordan.

Indeed, but our potential success in this competition was still being readied as a club to beat Warne doubters over the head with. It's always been meaningless to me, one way or.the other.

How did Bradley do in a back 4?

Not necessarily surprised you did, but fair enough. Apologies for not being clear enough.

Bit of a problem when it's his one and only strength. He's like Ben Davies but not as good.

...because my comment isn't really. based on tonight's game but Fornah's appearances so far. What's ridiculous is your lack of reading comprehension if you couldn't see that.

Sounds fun. Gonna be honest I've not bothered to attend this match OR even pay a tenner to watch it online. For shame. Just from the comments though, I don't understand why we bought Fornah or what his role in the team is even supposed to be? Bizarre signing if we don't know how to use him properly.

It was the Marketing Derby interview, page 22 https://heyzine.com/flip-book/8867b12b48.html#page/22 Obviously it's an ambition more than a hard deadline, but it tells us what we're working towards.

The stated aim is to be an 'established Championship club' (which to me means one looking to kick on / start thinking about a further promotion) within 5 years of the takeover - so by the end of the 2026/27 season we should be thinking of aiming toward the 2027/28 Championship play-offs. Admittedly it does depend what you think Clowes means by an established Championship club, but I don't think I'm being unfair to suggest that a club with ambition should be looking at these timescales. To do that, realistically we either need to get promoted this season or next. If we got promoted this season I'd expect that to take the form of 2024/25 - Struggle (but succeed!) in a battle against relegation (18th-21st) 2025/26 - Safe in lower mid table (13th-17th) 2026/27 - Upper mid table finish (8th-12th) = Fully achieving the target If promoted next season instead 2025/26 - Struggle (but succeed!) in a battle against relegation (18th-21st) 2026/27 - Safe in lower mid table (13th-17th) = Still good, a little behind my intepretation of the target but we have something to build on If we fail to gain promotion by the end of 2024/25 (or get promoted this season, but come straight back down) it's 2025/26 - Get promoted from League One (/again) 2026/27 - Struggle (but succeed!) in a battle against relegation (18th-21st) = falling short of the target. In simple terms though, you just don't appoint Warne as manager and give him all the fanfare unless you expect him to be able to get us promoted at the earliest convenience.

Exactly, and the evidence points to it working, at least against this level of defence, hence no real issue with it in the short term, but a hope it evolves. I'm only basing mine on the noises coming out from the club. The talk pre-season was that we expected to be challlenging for promotion, and that the manager has been given a suitable budget to make that achievable. He's been apppointed on the strength of his experience at doing just that. What job do you suppose is expected of him other than to be challenging for and ultimately achieving promotion? Why should I expect any less? Especially when looking at the state of most of our opponents. If we have a promotion worthy budget, and someone brought in due to their expertise in achieving promotion, then not achieving promotion must be falling below expectation. It's not the end of the world if we don't go up this season, but it would be bitterly disappointing to face another season at this level. If we were runaway leaders at the top of the league I'd say he's achieving something above expectations, but we're not.

Not at all. It depends on the job they've been given to do, the difficulty off it, the level of competition they're up against, the spending power of direct competitors, outside (or insde!) interference ie how much they've been backed by the board (not just moneywise), and a whole lot of of other things. Not even a handful, just a couple. Harry Storer Jnr & Arthur Cox. And even then, getting promoted from Division 3 wouldn't put him in pantheon of Cox or any other manager who's got us promoted into the top division. That would be the excess or undue credit I mentioned. He's started doing the job expected of him, no more, no less, after his 15th month in charge.

I think that's a good point and I can definitely get on board with that line of thinking. I've not really got a problem with how play tbh, I just see it as very much a means to an end. If the plan is to evolve it into something more all-ecompassing that would be great. I'm just not convinced from what I've seen that that is the plan but being ever more effective buys more time to prove me wrong.

Aye, he's clearly a fan as he stated before our game at the start of the season that Wigan (probably) have the best front 4 in the division. Not sure if he singled him out though. Then again, that would also mean he's a fan of Callum McManaman, which is hardly a promising sign! Nor is the paltry 2 goals and 2 assists he's managed in the league so far this season - although he was much, much more productive in the 2021/22 season (15 goals, 10 assists) so clearly has a lot ot offer at this level. I'm not sure why his numbers are so low this season?

Rather that than give someone undue and excess credit when they haven't actually achieved anything with us. It's all set up for him to succeeed, and if he fulfills his remit of getting us up and keeping us up he'll receive all the credit due, at least from me. Until then, he's proved nothing.

I'd say the first goal was the result of good pressing and opportunism - I do think we work better now as a unit in that regard as last season and early this it didn't seem like a very organised press at all - but not cohesive or rehearsed attacking play, the passes are players on the stretch getting what they can on the ball, not 'fancy flicks', it wasn't a planned move to my eyes. The third goal is all about Bird running down the channel and pulling it across, I still just about Include that goal as one fom a wide area tbh (it's teetering on the verge of 'down the middle'), just because it wasn't from outside the box doesn't mean it wasn't still a cross. I do agree things are improving in the manner you say though, generally.

We've just furthered our transformation to 2021-22 Rotherham is all, if Bradley had worked out as intended we'd probably be there by now. Yes we can knock the ball around playing the odd triangle here and there and apply pressure more consistently, so we aren't just 'lumping it to the wings' (we only ever really resorted to that out of desperation anyway) but make no mistake the vast majority (I'll call it 70/80%) of our play is still (and moreso than last season) centered around working the ball out wide and it's still very predictable - just more effective. You'd still be hard pushed to say we look like a cohesive attacking unit when doing anything other than working it wide, our good play still tends to 'break out' from from otherwise mediocre performances rather than feeling fully rehearsed, and our best moments still come from individual players proving their class in ways other League One teams simply can't deal with.

Pretty sure I've never criticised Collins so guess I'm going hungry.

Whereas we put a video up with some morose music at half time with names written so small nobody can read them.