Bris Vegas

75 minutes gone. We have had 5 shots, and only been in Charlton’s defensive third 19 times with the ball on the deck. Once every 5 minutes. And this is an improvement on previous performances.

That people are getting excited over this improvement goes to show how disappointing our performances have been this season. We have only been in Charlton’s final third 12 times with the ball on the deck. That’s like once every 3 minutes.

I think if we pick maximum points from the next two home games we’ll be clear favourites for second spot. We’ll have 10 games remaining, five at home and five away. And we’ll have Bolton at home. Reading and Blackpool at home won’t be easy. Nor will Pompey, Bristol Rovers and Wycombe away. But of those 10 games, four are easy in Northampton, Cambridge, Carlisle and Leyton Orient. Win the next two plus the four easy and that is the six of eight wins we probably need for promotion.

The Gary Neville (Sky Sports sponsored) podcast basically gives you an indication of how big clubs are. Forest get about as much airtime as Crystal Palace and Luton. Nothing. The only big clubs in the PL are the top 7 or 8. The rest just make up the numbers.

The sign of Klopp’s genius is when he can field inferior players but still get them performing like a top team. There is no way Liverpool should have won that final, let alone be the better team, in extra time. But that is the belief Klopp gives them. SAF was similar, with players like Fletcher, Gibson, J Sung Park, O’Shea, Wes Brown, Da Silva twins and even Chicharito playing like world beaters when in reality they were probably no better than West Ham’s players at the time. As much as I think Pep is the greatest coach of his generation, he needs exact types to fit his style of play. Pep’s best beats everybody else’s best. But Klopp I think would outperform Pep at a lesser club with the same players, like a West Ham.

I thought it was an improvement on last season’s display at Barnsley. But it’s another sure sign that when we get promoted this season, we must thank Warne and replace him. We will have no chance in the Championship with Warne in charge.

Barnsley play Bolton in midweek soon. It could be that is Bolton and Barnsley’s game in hand. If Barnsley beat us both, they will have belief they can pip that 2nd automatic spot. Pompey probably only need another 6 or 7 wins from their remaining 12 games and they will be promoted.

Derby may be awful to watch, but credit where it’s due, we have generally looked solid defensively this season that we only need a moment or two of quality in the final third to win games. We are going up. No doubts whatsoever.

You can tell this is a lower league game by the state of the pitch, the football on show and the fact most of our players’ shirts were covered in mud after about 20 minutes. I can’t wait to get out of this league. It’s dreadful.

I could be wrong but I think we were momentarily top during Frank Lampard’s season when we went 1-0 up at Middlesbrough. We then ultimately drew 1-1 and ended the day in about 6th.

I wouldn’t take that wager because we may sack Warne after 10 games and bring in Neil Warnock. Or three other teams may get 10 point deductions. IMO if we keep Warne, then we won’t average higher than 1.2ppg (minimum number of games applied of course) even with a midtable squad.

Paul Warne is an inferior Gary Rowett. And Gary Rowett’s team was a horrible watch, despite having top six Championship players. Now imagine Warneball with a bottom eight Championship squad. It’s going to be grim, worse than what Sheffield Wednesday fans have endured this season. That is, of course, if we get promoted this season which I think we will.

I can say with certainty because he isn’t a good coach. He could get us up if we had the best set of players in the Championship, but that is never going to happen without significant investment and smart recruitment. Warne isn’t any better than say Tony Mowbray. And Tony Mowbray couldn’t get over the line with Blackburn or Sunderland - teams with better players than us. So we have a squad with less quality than Blackburn managed by a coach who isn’t as good as Tony Mowbray. Why on earth would anyone fancy Warne to get us up to the Premier League. We will be wasting our time with him in the Championship.

The aim has to be the Premier League. Maybe not in year 1, or even year 2 or 3. But the PL has to be the aim. And we have no chance of getting there with Warne as manager. So why keep him? It’s not even like he is at least improving our younger players or adding any value to our current players.

Preston and Bristol City both sacked previous managers for playing pragmatic defensive football and went on to hire managers who favor possession-based football. Norwich still have parachute payments and have decent players, while a number of their fans want Wagner out. It’s not a case that you can’t succeed with lesser possession. Derby are proof of that in League One as we are 11th in that category. Warne can get away with it in League One as we simply have better players than the rest and the opposition standards are so much lower. In League One we are 11th for possession, 8th for shots per game, 11th for pass accuracy and 6th for chances created. Yet we are 2nd in the league, which is a clear indication that our extra quality is seeing us over the line. That won’t be the case in the league above.

Why can’t you believe it? Next season in the Championship the odds will be stacked against us. Unlike in League One, we won’t have the best players and we won’t have the biggest budget. Therefore we will need good coaching to succeed. Warne isn’t a good coach. You only have to look at the top sides in the Championship currently. They are all the best footballing sides, the ones who dominate the ball. Rotherham, Huddersfield, Sheff Wed, Millwall and Birmingham are the five teams with the lowest possession in the Championship. They make up five of the bottom seven. QPR (16th) and Stoke (12th) are the others. The top five are Leicester, Southampton, Leeds, Sunderland and Hull - teams who make up the top 8. Where do you think we will be under Warne averaging 40-45% possession per game?

You can get away with it at League One level because the majority of the opposition lack the quality and imagination to break down teams despite having the majority of the ball. It would never work at Championship level as Warne has shown in the last due to the vast step up in quality. We will get promoted this season I’m convinced. But then we must thank Warne for his services and replace him. Keep him and next season will be a disaster.

The big games against the likes of Barnsley, Pompey and Bolton will determine our fate. Especially the latter at home as that will likely turn out to be the real six pointer between 2nd and 3rd. Warne’s record in the big games is notoriously poor.

Always happy to help👍

Not sure why you are trying to bait me by quoting my comments made after about 30 minutes. At the time Exeter were the better side, having dominated the ball and hitting the post. My quote about the game plan was quoting word for word what Shaun Barker said on co-coms. I struggled to make sense of it given we hadn’t done anything up until that point aside from score through Bird’s individual play 🤷‍♂️ I like how you try the ‘gotcha’ moments with me. I wouldn’t say you are jealous of my superior footballing knowledge. I’m not sure what it is?

We have the best team in the league and the biggest budget. We’re underachieving.

Good managers get the most out of their players. Warne does not. That is why Warnock can keep poor teams up, but Warne can’t. That isn’t a Michael Owen comment.

Derby’s game plan of score more than the opposition is working a treat. Other than that, I can’t see any pattern in our play whatsoever other than get it wide and swing a hopeful ball in. If we didn’t have better players than the opposition, we’d be much further down the table. We’re winning because of Bird’s moment of Championship level quality.

Exeter are the better side here. They play some nice stuff.

If I haven’t watched a game, I will generally look at the following stats to get an idea of who was the better side. - Final third entries - xG - Shots on goal - Possession With those stats you can pretty much see the overall picture of the game. The Newcastle xG against Forest was low because you only need to see the source of the goals. - Newcastle’s first two goals came from set-pieces. The success rate of goals from corners is something like 2%. - Newcastle’s third goal was a shot from outside the box. The three goals didn’t come from chances created yet xG measures the quality of chance created - hence Newcastle’s overall tally is low. The problem with just using the shots metric is you can’t tell the quality of those chances. You could have 30 shots from outside the box which has a small chance of success. Another example was City’s away defeat to Wolves. They lost 2-1 and the shot count was about 25-4 in their favor. But they didn’t create any quality chances, with City’s only goal coming from an Alvarez free-kick. On paper City were by far the better side with more possession, final third entries and shots. But their xG was low because of their lack of real high quality goal scoring chances created.