IlsonDerby

I think had there been anything to play for in the last two minutes he wouldn’t have blown early - the crowd would have been told to move back and we’d have played it out. I was still shocked though when it was blown 2 minutes early 😂

Scab. Hopefully replaces us in league one this summer.

He’s done what was expected of a derby manager this season which was a difficult feat (when was the last time a manager lived up to the bookies expectations for us?) but his team expected promotion and a lot of fans expected the same so fair play to him. I’ve found the football to be tough to watch at times but at the same time I’ve loved the season as a whole. The downs made the ups that much sweeter and I’m willing to put the football down to pragmatism in the face of restrictions to how he could shape his squad. I’ve always said I liked him as a guy and now as a manager he’s achieved success with us too. Im now reserving judgement on what his football can look like until after this unrestricted transfer window where hopefully he will get in the profile of player he wants. I don’t expect even a top half finish next season I just want to see a squad beginning to come together and take shape with a younger profile of player and to not be a chance of relegation in the last match of the season. Fair play to anyone who never lost faith particularly after the Stevenage away performance. His staff and he managed to turn it around from that point and went in a run that would have achieved 103 points if extrapolated over a 46 match season. That’s incredible dominance. All derby aren’t we?

you’re as dull as anyone you’re criticising in this comment. Up the championship rams!

I think we’re in a slightly different position to those 2 clubs. Plymouth had to spend a chunk to just be as good as before due to loan players being crucial for their promotion. Sheff also didn’t seem to release as many of us and they had a manager change which would have messed up some recruitment plans. Im hoping we’ve had lists upon lists of available and suitable players for if we went up drawn up since September and we’ve been scouting and fine tuning those lists since.

Former ram from that time period who I’d be interested to look at: Emil Riis Jakobsen

GK: Wildsmith, Vickers RWB: Ward, Wilson, Nyambe LWB: Elder, Sibley CB: Cashin, Nelson, Forsyth, Bradley, Rooney, Nyambe CM: Thommo Wing/Attack: NML, CBT, Barkhuizen, Striker: Washington, Think it’s clear a decision needs to be made on Rooney - I’d like to see him loaned out to a league 1 club as I think waiting behind Nelson and Nyambe for the RCB role will limit opportunity. I’d like another excellent CB in to add to the quality of Cash and Nelson. I think we need 4 new CMs with 2 in the style of Ebou and 2 in the style of Bird. I think we need someone like Ebou playing every single match for Warnes style to work. I’d like 2 wide/attackers if real quality to be pushing straight away for a starting spot. I’d like 2 strikers of championship quality with Barkhuizen and Wash used sparingly to support up top but also with the option of playing a front 3 so only 1 needed for some matches. I think a minimum of 10 players capable of stepping into the first team. A mixture of honest pros needing a fresh start somewhere from the championship and some bright young things (Kane etc) from league 1 could go a long way to plugging these gaps with a few real high quality prem loans to finish it off. I suspect Warne will want 12 as he’ll want 3 strikers in and probably another LWB option. Id retain those I’ve put in the squad list above and release all others. Do I think Smith could do a job? Yeah. But he’s out of contract and could those resources be better used? I think so.

I suspect he wouldn’t feel comfortable telling you lot he’d turned one down to be fair 😂 I think he’d want some guarantees about who starts next season as number 1. I think he’s earned it but we know Vickers is Warnes guy.

We have been in the best form in the division comfortably since that defeat to Stevenage including finishing the last 6 games top of the form table too. We went up because of how many matches we won. This might sound obvious but what I mean is there were barely any draws. We either lost or we won and a win and a loss is better than 2 draws… We went up because of our defence. It is clear from watching and from the statistics that to succeed next year we need more goals. I’d imagine the recruitment team are aware of this and I’ll be excited to see who we manage to bring in to fill these positions. Anyway some interesting tables: Image 1 rates us as the best team in the league based on whoscored metrics (along side posh) which shows just how good Pompey were at grinding out results when it wasn’t going their way. Image 2 just shows the impressive number of wins be the very high number of losses. I wonder if a team has ever gone up automatically with 10 league losses before? Image 3 shows the xG created by all teams. Remember this isn’t saying that we should have scored X goals it is saying that we created chances of the quality that would on average return X goals but again you can see we are down to fifth. Final image is the league table from October 29th. Just goes to show that since that very very toxic night in Stevenage we have been an absolute force. Over 2.2 points per game and a goal difference of +35!

It was like a carpet! Some effort from earlier on in the season when the rain had ruined it. I don’t ever want to see any ‘bobbled’ miss kicks from our lads again 😂

Loved it. Just stood there letting the emotions run over me whilst the pitch invasion happened and then after I’d taken it all in we went down on to get a photo with me mum and dad on the pitch. We stayed on there for the bounce and celebrations and then left. One little issue - if anyone knows the 2/3 fans that went to the Carlisle fans giving it the big one (not those that were applauding them) just clip them round the tabs. Idiots. Just won promotion and they want to head over to the away fans giving it w anchor signs.

Dunno what people are whinging about. The fans invading the pitch literally always happens for a promotion. We aren’t alone in doing that. fortunately only one tw4t went on before the full time whistle and our own fans got him off. It’d be lovely to see players and their kin celebrate. Hopefully they’ll do an event at pride park like when we went up in 07 for that.

Sat and cried my eyes out in the car on the drive when it was announced the sale of the club had gone through and we were saved. Was holding back the tears today. Felt so overwhelmed with emotions. what a day!

Daniel lad I hope you enjoyed it today up there. Heard a rumour we’re signing an N Blackman in summer - probably nothing in it 👀😂

And what a match it was - I hope you manage to keep up to date with it all without being at the matches. As pride park sang ‘d*dgy sticks are F’ing class’

My arse hole has been twitching since 6am. come on derby - let’s get it done. Everything left on the pitch! None of us want our bank accounts filling with ‘just incase bet’ winnings.

The way I’ve interpreted it. On the pitch before the final whistle = bad On the pitch of promotion is confirmed = expected

Byrne and Marshall got relegated the season before we signed them from Wigan and they were good signings in the champs.

I’ve got £830 coming my way if Bolton beat us to it. I’d rather not see a Penny of it.

He’s been crap every season he’s played above this level hasn’t he?

If we go with 352 then you’ve essentially signed CBT and given NML a new contract for no reason? I hope he goes for 343 if he wants to continue with 3 at the back - meaning we’d need 2 very athletic central midfielders to do what Ebou does to allow the rest of the team to do their jobs.

I had a tenner on Bolton after their draw against Shrews - thought I’d done well getting 15s bloody 66s now!!

This - I’ve never understood people unwilling to celebrate because it’s league 1 or (a lower example the papa johns trophy) we are a league one team. We are a team eligible for the papa johns. Winning promotion. Winning a trophy etc at the level you are at is always an achievement even if you’d rather be higher up.

I’m 32 and don’t remember an automatic promotion because at 4 years old it was a blur - I just remember the radio commentary whilst dad did the ironing on a Saturday afternoon (too poor for a ticket back then but also a big reason I feel so nostalgic hearing Graham Richard’s voice) so I reckon you could be looking at anyone younger than 35 not properly remembering an automatic promotion.