jono

Mwah mwah. What a delightful rebuttal. Like you, I have my opinion. Clearly we disagree. I am sorry you feel “patronised” Have you a self esteem issue ? I find it amusing that you state Warne has had it “easy” but then you you “theorise” that another manager might have matched his performance. Why then would we want another manager so desperately if the suggestion is that he might “match” what we already have. ? Perhaps I get a gold medal for stating the obvious. Probably true, but It would sit nicely with a KAE : aka the know all entitled-medal by its side, you must have a number of these in your personal trophy cabinet. For the record your suppositions and theorising also rank highly in BS department. Oh and if being supportive and having a different opinion than you counts as “patronising” then a fair few of us will need a new dictionary.

I just don’t think you see the full picture. L1 isn’t vastly different from the Championship. A few weaker clubs yes, some lack of consistency certainly. Yet there are good footballers in this league, many of whom would prosper in the championship. Those few percentage points that move you from average to serious contender are very small. Add in that many of our signings that were “designed” for PW’s vision had injuries and left us both thin on the ground in numbers and having to adopt a compromised style. It hasn’t been an easy ride. There isn’t a huge cheque book, 25k every week a saying we are DCFC also doesn’t cut it when there are 11 strong men in the opposing half who are busting a gut to put one on us. This is sport, we are in our roller coaster car with all its dints and scratches. I am just enjoying the competition and thank goodness we are at the very least a competitive group. My attitude would be different if we were below half way … but we aren’t . I seriously doubt there is a manager out there who would guarantee any team promotion with the obvious strictures they would be under given our current level of strength and stability. This isn’t happy clappy this is competition, reality, oh and support.

True, and the same can be said of every player who misses a good chance. NML has blasted some, JJ scuffed one the other night. So what ! What I can’t understand is when Collins misses one he’s the one that gets a level of grief that others simply don’t get. Hey, I don’t think Collo is a genius, he’s missed some sitters, he’s an aging league one striker. That’s par for the course. He’s also a real grafter and tough guy who gives his all. When he next misses one, all I am thinking is s*i* … go on Collo keep at it. Why do some people have to have a whipping boy ? I just don’t get it. the only time I get seriously grumpy with an individual player is when the effort and commitment isn’t there. I suppose it is different for everyone, part of the “match experience” but I see no benefit, joy, or relief from adding to the pressure on a player who’s effed up …. and knows it himself.

Clearly Sibs is traumatised, has lost his sense of humour, is a complete victim, and never gets picked for the team by his narrow minded oppressive boss. Or …Just maybe it will encourage him, my bet is he enjoyed the banter with his boss and will quite probably say right back to him “see, play me where I want and the ball is in the net” .. And Clough would have said come and sit down, we’ll have a chat and after about 5 minutes we’ll agree that I’m right. Roy, what’s happened ? Seriously, are you ok ?

He’s quirky and interesting to me. He’s had a helluav job .. watching the pennies and at the same time the overwhelming expectations of this club. Looking at where we are now, I am happy as the famous Larry. I wasn’t earlier in the season, we had games when the players looked disinterested and lacked passion, a system wasn’t in place or working. Thing is, he has worked on it and the players have bought in. As to the humour .. excellent, love it. Bored to tears of managers who either rant and blame or alternatively sound like a mega corporations PR department.

What I liked was his reference to it being a good dressing room. The way he said it seemed to suggest he really meant it rather than it being just a clichee. Being a unit / band of brothers wins games. NML playing Barks in at that point was real team play.

I like the lad instinctively. He’s a trier who plays with fire in his guts. I think he’s going to improve and might turn out to be a real winner for us

All sounded good for to me. 5 in a row, in the playoffs comfortably, good goal difference, game in hand over some. Keep up the good work i’ll now leave the thread so we can discuss: 1) See, I told you Sibs is a 10 2) Collins missed again, while it’s had luck on JJ for scuffing one 3) Bradley is a liability 4) Warne won’t be able to prosper in the Championship 5) It was only Orient 6) Cashin wants to stay 🤣🤣🤣

Unless it’s occidentally

I was being a bit tongue in cheek. Funnily enough I do “get” stats, particularly in the long view. Fascinating when you have seen bell curves and statistical processes control. But a striker in league 1 isn’t a piece of worn tooling. One day he’ll be on fire and another day it’s in row Z. The thing is, unlike the worn tooling, you don’t know when and which. I think the further up the leagues you go the more applicable and coherent things like XG are. In league one it’s an interesting curiosity; but for me, of limited value given the variables ….. and their variability. Heck who knows but I was just messing about rather than making a serious point.

Did you by any chance co write the script for final destination ?

So with this XG malarkey, does that mean we should have won by 2.04 to 0.87 ? .. so a bit better than 2-1 ? 3-0 seems to suggest XG is a tad flawed ? .. id est .. we got 50% more than XG and then they got .. errrm zero, no votes at all, not a sausage

The games where Bird interacts with our better/faster thinking players are when we can see his talents. He does end up plugging away in some games and looks ordinary but he has so much to offer if only to more of the lads can tune in to his wavelength a bit more often. But you know, I think that just might have started happening ?

Don’t worry Mel Morris is chained to a bicycle dynamo in the basement doing penance while B4 lectures him about transfer values. All part of our new sustainability measures carbon neutral plan. All will be well

xG is the new amortisation .. be there or be square

Doubt that. Oh yes 200 million was spent but one suspects that was split between Mel, money lenders, HMRC, creditors and DC. Morris never spent 200 mil of his own money !

No. We were relegated because we had points deducted. We weren’t relegated because we didn’t win enough games/get enough points. Bris, we can have a cause and effect argument all day long and I am not for one minute excusing Mel Morris and the numerous financial “experts” he had clinging to his coat tails or indeed the numerous over priced goods we bought, but for “the good of the game” we were made an example of and relegation was part of that political process. Just saying it’s all our fault because we bought the wrong players for the wrong price is naive.

The pathway widened because we were restricted in our signings. I am not looking for an argument, I like to see young ones blooded and think there should always be a place on the bench for an academy player but sometime when the swamp is full of alligators you have to remember the objective is to drain it - hence managers playing tried and tested.

Indeed, but it’s worth remembering that most of us believed Mel was bank rolling the club from his own pocket. Rather than borrowing money secured against the stadium. And, whatever the rights and wrongs of the running of the club it was the deduction of points that got us relegated. The car got wrecked because it hit a brick wall .. the fact that the tyres bursting lead to that is secondary. The rules enforced by the EFL got us relegated nothing else. That was the brick wall. Perhaps it was a deserved punishment but that’s a second argument

So points deductions had nothing to do with relegation then ?

He’s a wild one. You need players like him. Sod the iPad, fortune favours the brave.

Or to speculate again whoever is running the youth set up hasn’t been banging on his door saying “this boy is special, you have to use him now, he’s ready”

I doubt Warne would agree with your speculative opinion as to his interest in youth teams.

We weren’t dreadful. We weren’t great either; Bristol, a couple players apart weren’t very good. Martin lead the line well enough I suppose and scored the obligatory old boys goal from a set piece, but Nelson and Cash pretty much snuffed him out when he wasn’t wrestling them to the floor. Our lads worked hard but lacked polish over 90 minutes .. did enough to narrowly win it. I’ve seen better and I’ve seen worse.

Woooah .. “fortunate” .. urrr no 2 strikers (Collo and Fornah) in exactly the right place to score from an excellent cross leaving a covering defender in the poo who then did the job for them. Followed by excellent individual play leading to a cut back to another player in the right position who scored well. No fortune there. Just good attacking play. And the penalty ? More like a gold medal for a wannabe Tom Daley. .. should have been booked without a single shadow of a doubt. Right in front of me blatant cheating. So they hit the post .. tough luck for them, on a break against the run of play. They missed a chance boo hoo. It wasn’t a great game and neither team showed their best but 2-1 was a pretty fair reflection of play to my mind. I didn’t enjoy the game that much, we can play better, not over excited but 3 points well earned ta very much