Tamworthram

Well I know that but I’m just commenting on what could happen today.

Without diving into actual home and away form for all the teams, it looks like the best hope for today is damage limitation as none of our rivals seem to have too hard a game. Maybe Charlton can do us a favour and beat Peterborough. We'd then move up to third without even playing. 🤞

It's bad enough that the dogs are pooing everywhere but now their owners are doing as well? Oh, sorry. I misread the thread title. 😀

OK, so “excessive force” is a serious understatement but there’s no need to round on me. I think you know what I meant. If not, I’ll make it clearer. I don’t approve of what Israel are trying to do or the way they are going about it. I find it abhorrent. It’s a horrible situation that those of us in the west can’t really begin to appreciate. The equally distressing thing is, it’s almost impossible to imagine a solution that will be acceptable to both sides. 😢

I think you’re the one dressing it up to be honest. I think there is a reasonable case for protecting the free passage of vessels in international waters. I don’t support the excessive force used by Israel but neither do I support the blackmailing tactics employed by the rebels. In some ways, whilst I don’t profess to be anywhere near knowledgeable on the subject, I wonder if the rebels are just as much victims as the innocent people of Gaza. Are they just being used by Iran in the same way the innocent people of Gaza are being used by Hamas? The world certainly is fcked up and there seem to be plenty of villains (on all sides) but very few heroes. 😢

A slight exaggeration. There were "only" 16 targets and according to some chap on the radio this morning (no idea who) they will all have been targets that have been hit before. It's a worrying development but isn't your second comment a tad over the top as well? The Houthi rebels are launching attacks on civilian vessels that were probably going nowhere near Israel and had nothing to do with the ongoing conflict.

Gambling on getting promoted? Haven’t we been there, done that? And that was a gamble where the prize (moving from the Championship into the Premier League) was surely significantly bigger than moving from League 1 up to the Championship.

Bring it on. It served us well at the BBG 😀

Reminds me of the Mrs Merton interview with Debbie McGee: "So, what first attracted you to the millionaire Paul Daniels?"

Without knowing all the details it's difficult to form an opinion. I agree with @Stive Pesley that Fujitsu probably shouldn't be completely demonised because of this horrible scandal but, if they are culpable in any way then a contribution should be sought. Regarding the £700m case, as you say they won their day in court so I'm not sure you can blame them for seeking compensation. If you cancel a contract for someone to complete a piece of work then, unless you can wriggle out on a technicality or the contract allows a cancellation, surely you should expect to have to pay up. Regarding future work, I'd like to think the government's procurement process is robust enough to ensure contracts are awarded to the right people but, sadly, my confidence in their right and proper persons process is no better than it is for the EFL. This would be a fault on behalf of the government not Fujitsu. You can't blame them for bidding for work.

I agree the individuals concerned will no doubt have moved on long again but, if they were employees of Fujitsu (and IF Fujitsu were found to be complicit) wouldn’t the company have to be responsible for the actions of its employees 🤷🏻 Demonising might be too strong a word as I agree (and have said) the PO must shoulder the overwhelming guilt but maybe Fujitsu do have some responsibility. None of us really know what happened.

That’s the worry. However, another performance like that against Oxford and the second half against Wigan and we’ll blow them away. Which team will Warne pick and will the players turn up? As Warne often says in his interviews - we win together, we lose together. Whatever the performance/result, I very much see it as a shared praise or responsibility. PW needs to get the formation and tactics right but even if he doesn’t, the players should be performing better than they have on occasions. I don’t do predictions, all I’ll say is that I’m a tad nervous. This one feels particularly difficult to call.

I don’t think anyone is suggesting that the Post Office management shouldn’t take the overwhelming (by some considerable margin) share of the blame. Just that Fujitsu “may” have been complicit. If Fujitsu are guilty in any way then I would say it almost (but not quite) fades into insignificance compared to the PO’s role. Whatever Fujitsu we’re doing, I’m confident in my mind that it was at least with the blessing of the PO.

In the TV series I seem to recall he said they had a whole team in the basement at Fujitsu changing figures pretty much 24/7. Maybe that was for dramatic effect (seems too massive an allegation to be made up) or maybe the whistle blower got it wrong. Both scenario seems unlikely to me. If it happened then, even if it was sanctioned by the Post Office, it strikes me that Fujitsu were complicit and contributed towards the scandal.

Are you on the waiting list? It worked for me even for the Burton game.

Quelle surprise. It's all Warne's fault again. 😀

Yes. Get rid of our top scorer. That’ll show me. 😀

But you’re talking about two different things there. 1) If we go up, getting knocked out of this competition will soon be forgotten - I agree. 2) Players need a decent crowd to get themselves motivated - I agree to an extent. I accepted that it makes it easier if there is a big crowd behind you but they should be able to motivate themselves sufficiently especially with the realistic prospect of making it to Wembley. I’m not sure the week before Christmas is a fair analogy. That, in my mind, would be similar to the last game of the season when you’ve got nothing to play for and players are looking forward to a break with their families. I’m no better than most but I do try to keep level headed and comment on the performance of each game individually- good, bad or indifferent. I’m obviously very happy with our recent run of results but that shouldn’t prevent us being very critical of last nights performance.

It’s a good job these players weren’t around in the Covid season then. I agree, it must help to have a decent crowd cheering you on (or not as is sometimes the case) but professional footballers should be able to motivate themselves to perform at a much higher standard than they did last night. So, I agree with your first three words. Just a shame your 4th word was “but”.

Does that mean there is no speed limit on the estate where I live because I have no intention of exceeding 30mph? 😀 Seriously though, if we are still subject to agreed business plan that includes self imposed spending limits, surely effectively they are restrictions if the business plan wouldn’t have been approved without them. We’ll never know if it would have been rejected but I’m pretty confident that DC and his team had a reasonable idea of the type of spending the EFL were likely to approve. Surely conversations took place. My view is that, technically we may not be able to call them restrictions but effectively they probably are.

I disagree. I like Nyambe (even though he is very one footed) but based on the very small sample size I would rate Rooney slightly higher.

If we’d paid a transfer fee though there would still have been agents fees and the players signed would have been on a decent wage for this level. If you’re going to include these (and wages in particular) then there is no such thing as a free transfer. By not paying a transfer fee then we have effectively got them on the cheap. Sadly, it’s showing in some cases.

I thought it had been widely accepted that we haven’t paid a transfer fee for a couple of years now. I’m sure you know that was what @G STAR RAM was referring to.

You’re forgiven.

There was the usual amount of going down easily but you must have seen it differently to me. I don’t think we were particularly hard done by the ref. As you say, even if the ref was poor there is no way he cost us the match. We could still be playing now and still wouldn’t score. Very poor performance. I’m not going to lose any sleep over going out of this competition (although I would have been there at Wembley if we’d made it) but that was just embarrassing.