maxjam

I dunno, someone at EFL Towers is waiting for us to all run on the pitch so they can make a new rule up and press the deduct points button 😛

Saw this on X, made me laugh!

Not that it really means anything but Rotherham were relegated by 4pts in the 2018/19 season and by 2pts in the 2020/21 season. Last season PW left them towards the end of September in 8th place and they managed to stay up with 50pts. This season, their first full season without PW in a long time, they are currently a massive 20pts adrift at the bottom. Normally wage budget is a good indicator of where you'll finish at the end of the season and Rotherham prove this time and again. Didn't Nigel Clough hail Burton Albions success at remaining in the Championship for one his greatest achievements? I don't know what Rotherhams Lg1 budget is like compared to the rest, but for PW to get them promoted 3x (and us 1x hopefully!) and keep them in contention throughout a Championship season shouldn't be underestimated imho. I did say that normally wage budget is a good indicator of where you'll finish, but I think the circumstances of us coming out of administration counter that argument a little. Did LR have a choice of player or did he just get who was available? PW came in and inherited a squad of older players that needed to be managed and younger players that needed time to grow - one of his first interviews highlighted a lack of players in their prime. During his time with us his hands have been tied financially and he's managed an injury prone squad to the brink of automatic promotion. I personally think if we go up at the weekend we're ahead of schedule. Next season would have been his first legitimate attempt with a bit of financial muscle - hence DC giving him a 4yr deal. Next season is going to be tough, we aren't an Ipswich who built a squad over several seasons and just need to add a few players to go again. Its another rebuild with limited funds, we were warned at the recent Fans Forum that we'd be looking for stability first and foremost and to me that means just avoiding relegation next season. Unless we get some outside funding I won't be shouting for PWs head at Christmas if we're struggling. Bottom 6 at the end of the season would be a good building block to kick on from if we've got a core of players we can then add to. We're not throwing money around risking our existence like we used to. Slow, steady and realistic progress is the way forwards.

The problem with VAR having those lines on the pitch and checking to see whether player A has a bigger foot than player B comes down to the frame the decide to use as reference. If we're going to say a player is 5mm offside, exactly how sure you are of the millisecond the ball has been played? VAR was bought into correct the obvious errors, not bring offside decisions down to ridiculous margins - especially given the fact that it is impossible to tell the exact time the ball has left the foot of the player making the pass. A quick fix would be to thicken the lines used and unless you can see daylight between them, its onside.

Well cricket's torture.

'Our patience has been tested multiple times' Sounds like a Marinakis threat to me 😛

Didn't watch the match but from this image it looks like the Coventry player is more or less stationary and the Man Utd player is jogging back - a fraction of a second later he would have been onside. Regardless, as @Grumpy Git rightly said, VAR was bought in to avoid obvious errors, with the game moving at speed and it being impossible to tell the millisecond the ball has left the boot, far thicker offside lines should be used and if they overlap its onside. You can barely split the 2 players in question (especially the centre of body rather than toenail) imho the goal should have probably stood if that was the margin.

Ahem...

Good weekend to be fair 🙂 and

If we're posting comedy clips, this was Bolton yesterday 😛

They have more than 11 pts but we'll hopefully see this unwanted record taken off our hands.

The GSE era was a long time ago now, I am quite happy to be corrected on some of the details 👍 DC, whilst a wealthy man isn't 'football rich' nor one to throw money around recklessly. A lot of Championship teams are only able to exist because of their benefactors - Middlesboro for example, with their owner converting vast sums of debt into shares (or something like that, I forget now) but still treading water outside the play-off positions. My main point was that despite the quality of football at times, we've had a potentially successful season. Regardless of what happens next weekend we've been in and around the top 6/top 2 for months and some people still haven't been happy with PW. IMHO next season is going to be tough - its not like we have a good squad atm ready to step up or got some youth prospects coming through and just need to add a couple of players. We've come out of administration with the academy stripped bare and relied on older freebies that weren't wanted anywhere else. I'd of course love to be proved wrong, but think we have to temper our expectations for next season and not call for change when we're bottom 6 at Christmas, survival is all that matters. Unless we get significant outside investment its still going to be a while before we're in a position to compete at the top end. A few years ago we won the u21 Premier League. Last season we finished adrift at the bottom. This season we're still bottom but have closed the gap and potentially our main prospect is out on loan at Gateshead - its gonna be a challenge for him to step up to the Championship after half a season of non league football. I see a lot of talk on the forums about giving PW until Christmas etc, but without the big investor you mention realistically I'm not sure if peoples expectations for next season will match reality. Of course this is all conjecture atm. We've hopefully got a promotion to confirm and enjoy and transfer window to navigate before next season kicks off. I just don't particularly enjoy reading the forum if we're all turning on each other because some people think we should be ahead of where we actually are.

They will probably dock points from us for putting them in that situation 😛

Of course the squad needs an overhaul, my concern is where the money is coming from. DC is running a tight ship - and I approve of that, given the past few years, but if you recall the lean GSE years even they were pumping money into the club and getting nowhere. You could argue that (assuming we finish the job next weekend) we've gone up too quickly - the squad needs a fair amount of surgery next season to compete and we're still a fair way from any youngsters coming through. I don't envisage many signings as such, more freebies and loans again. We we're warned at the fans forum a while back that if we do up we're looking at a couple of seasons of stability before we hopefully push on - to me that means avoid relegation/push for mid-table. Given that we've been in and around the top 6/top 2 for months and some people have still wanted to get rid of PW, unless we've got some 'god tier' scouting lined up next season is gonna be a tough and PW will come under pressure again from the usual suspects. Personally, unless we get some outside investment I'm okay with slow and financially prudent progression.

I do have an old mobile, all I use it for is for 2 factor authentication purposes for websites on my PC. It never leaves my desk, its quite bulky and tbh I'm not sure it has bluetooth connectivity. My missus is always on at me to upgrade it and tbh I don't usually mind spending money, especially on tech but I also like to get my monies worth out of what I buy and it would just be an expensive paperweight. Modern phones also have a tendency to be the size of a small tablet, ideally I'd like a small MP3 player I could use with wireless earbuds - and if I do drop it in the sea or woods or wherever won't have to sell a kidney to replace it! I do have a Spotify account and enjoy various podcasts and have had an Audible subscription for around a year now - I've recently bought the Lord of the Rings trilogy approx 20-25hrs each. I'm creating a backlog trying to listen to them all at home, taking an MP3 player out whilst I walk my dogs would solve that!

Does anyone have any experience with an MP3 player? Are they even a thing now-a-days as virtually everyone has a mobile phone!? I enjoy listening to audiobooks and walk my dogs for about 2hrs a day, so figure I could combine the two. I've just had a quick look on t'internet and found that they basically fall into 2 categories - expensive for audiophiles or cheap and cheerful with mixed reviews. I'm looking for something cheap, cheerful and easily replaceable as I'll probably drop it several times whilst I'm out and about, that works well with bluetooth earbuds. Reviews of a couple of MP3 players I have looked at on Amazon highlighted patchy wireless connectivity as an issue - thats a key feature for me as I can't be doing with wires dangling everywhere getting in my way! Assuming they are not too niche these days I wondered if anyone had any experience or recommendations.

I hope I see one from Derby https://www.portsmouthfc.co.uk/news/2024/april/portsmouth-fc-statement-on-fa-cup-changes/

Headline FA Cup replays scrapped: The Football Association says 'all parties accepted' decision Body of text The EFL has urged the FA to "re-evaluate their approach", stating there was "no agreement" prior to the deal being announced and no "formal consultation".

Of course they only consulted 20 teams. Football didn't exist before 1992 and everything below the PL is a money leaching burden.

'Hello is that Paul? Oh hi, its Mikel Arteta here from Arsenal. About Matt Hamshaw...'

I've watched it... If you're a gamer you'll probably enjoy the show, it captures the feel of the games and has loads of easter eggs. If you've never heard of Fallout, its still been getting good reviews and Season 1 sets up the world and story nicely for the future. I found it to be kinda 'meh' however - although I guess despite being a huge gamer I've never really enjoyed the Fallout/Bethesda games, so maybe its just me. Reading other reviews it does seem that I am in a minority. You can easily watch it in a couple of evenings though, which is a positive for me! So at least there isn't too much of a time investment - my missus wants me to watch Breaking Bad cos apparently its the 'best thing ever' but I see how many episodes there are and 'nah...'

Not so much about specific ads but the adverts they are now inserting into Netflix/Amazon Prime etc shows and movies (unless you pay extra to go ad free). If they must do that, at least put some unskippable adverts before the opening credits rather than mid movie - although I guess thats not irritating enough to squeeze more money out of people.