TaahnRam

I know lots of us are taking this hard but just imagine how hard it is for the players right now, as Warne gets his guitar out and sings about how their families still love them on the free love highway. 

Over reactions exactly what I was expecting when coming on here, along with Collins being targetted as usual.
For the majority of the game we were the better team but we gifted them 2 soft goals. They hardly got in our half in 2nd half, it was all us.
Collins was full of effort as always, ended up running out wide due to lack of support up front which hopefully he will get when Washington is fit. He had 1 chance and forced a save from the keeper.
For me Smith was our best player, particularly 1st half, only midfielder who was trying to play forward. Bird put alot of work in but no great creativity in a position that requires it.
Biggest disappointments for me were Wildsmith, NML & Hourihane. Why Hourihane went back to Bradley for their 1st I dont know, got the ball in the middle of the pitch with loads of space in front of him & he passes back to Bradley.
Some of Wards deliveries were brilliant, Wilson looked a bright spark but will frustrate fans. Our main issue today was the bench, no attakcing options other than Washington.
Ref gave them everything 1st half, how we didnt get a penalty on Bradley I dont know, the lino was looking right at it. The booking for Smith was a joke too.
Get Sibley & Barkhuizen back plus 2 or 3 more attacking players in & we will be right up there come the end of the season.

Think this team pretty much picks itself given our lack of numbers, only real question mark is over the LWB position for me. Interesting to see whether he plays Thommo who I think has been decent in preseason playing out of position. Personally I'd start with Wilson for the energy, replace with Fozzy if he runs out of steam.
                    Wildsmith
         Nelson   Bradley   Cashin
Ward      Smith.    Hourihane.   Wilson
                          Bird
               NML.        Collins 
 
 
 
 

The Max Bird who has been Man of the Match in nearly every pre-season game?
This would be very disappointing and our last hope of actually seeing some finesse this season gone.  

There seems to be an assumption on the part of some posters that we need to replace all of Didzy's goal total for last season but this isn't necessarily the case. A tighter defence, particularly in the crunch games against other likely playoff opposition could mean we score fewer goals yet gain more points - let's not forget over a quarter of his league goals came in 2 games against teams which finished 22nd and 24th in the league, where there was a 9-0 aggregate scoreline.
I'm certainly not decrying his contribution last season - he was a class above every other member of our squad and produced much of the entertainment throughout the season - but I'm far from being convinced that we have to replace his 22 league goals for us to have a successful season and yes I'd still like to see us sign a young striker with pace to increase our attacking options.

It’s dependent on his role. Don’t make him sit as a solo DM in front of the back four and he’s a much much better player. 

1st sight of him today, played 45 mins at wing back v Stoke. Looked a bit short of match fitness which isn't surprising given he's been injured. Hopeful he'll be a decent addition. Made a couple of surges forward but wasn't really tested defensively given stoke were shocking. 

We were 3 nil up and stoke obviously got a rocket at HT, of course the midfield sat deep. Last 15 mins we had 2 retired players and another (waggy) who won't have trained with the team. Are we the finished article? Of course not but this was a big step up from the games so far

Maybe I'm on the crack, but I don't agree with pretty much all of that.

I don't think so...... I thought Stoke were far the better team ....... Derby have got big problems in midfield and it needs addressing 
We are really lightweight and sit too deep. When Smith went off we were awful ... It has to be said, also we need more pace up front 

Looks like there’s red on it. 

Quite enjoy sitting somewhere different now and again. Change is as good as a rest, as they say.  The atmosphere for these games is also always pretty poor, as there’s hardly anyone there anyway.
Opening up the whole ground to satisfy a few people who won’t go if they can’t sit in their seat wouldn’t make much difference to attendance ( probably a very small number who think like that).  It would also make what little atmosphere there is even worse, as it would be even more dissipated.  

And lastly, the third shirt concept.  

Here's my concepts for this season... have at it. Here's the home.

The pig & pump. Good food and decent real ale, opposite the crooked spire. 

The pig & pump. Good food and decent real ale, opposite the crooked spire. 

I’m surprised we still owe anything, or at least need to find money to pay it off.
I would have thought as part of the takeover, all monies owed would have to been accounted for before the deal could have  gone through as it was a football debt.
I may be wrong though

That'll do nicely

Darryl Powell's a football genius....
He did a cracking interview after that game about it. Along the lines of "I was just trying to lob it back into the box but caught it too hard. 'oh no' I thought: 'what have I done that for'. Then I saw it drop in and thought 'yeeesssss:"
🤣

Forsyth played well for large chunks of the most recent season, what’s gone on prior to this year isn’t exactly relevant. 
We’ve released several other experienced players and as a long serving player at the club it makes sense to keep him around to provide a bit of stability and continuity within the dressing room. He’s not necessarily going to be first choice but he will be a steady hand to help at times and will potentially end up club captain. 

Is the worst post of the season 22/23 award still open or does this abomination set an early bar for 23/24?

I touched on part of this in the match thread, and I am gutted to miss out although I feel like I'm less disappointed because of the circumstances. It's strange, if we'd completely capitulated and looked gutless, then I'd be fuming, but because it was down to an individual error/officiating error (again), it almost feels like well what could we do... We actually played really well, given the circumstances, deserved at least a point and showed a lot of fight. For me it's a lot different to previous seasons where we've just missed out on the top 6. I don't think "bottling" it comes into play this year. We just couldn't finish our chances, we could've won a hell of a lot more points without playing any better or any worse, just by putting away our chances. I also don't care what people say about bad decisions evening themselves out over a season, I think if someone did a case study on our season, it would show that's very far from the truth...
But other reasons to be positive:
- We'll have our first season in a long time where we can go into the pre-season with a bit of stability and certainty. We can look to build on the squad we do have with a manager who has had long enough to decide what we need to go up a level. It's not going to be perfect because of the circumstances we find ourselves under, but I think we should be in a much stronger position come August than we were last year. At least we won't have to wait another 2 months to know if we're going to be taken over, and start from scratch then. We won't have to miss out on signings and we can get started right now.
- The circumstances... we'll still be under the business plan, but we'll be into our last year. There's talk it'll be 'relaxed', Nixon (yes I know) has linked us to actually spending Great British Pound Sterling on a player, whether we will or not, when was the last time we even could?
- We're still a bigger fish in a smaller pond. I know we can't take anything for granted and big teams get 'stuck' down here. We have to take any opportunity we can to get out of this league BUT, we will be in a position where we are going to be a much bigger draw for players at this level than 90% of the opposition, and will be able to afford to pay them more too. In the Championship where we still have restrictions, I think we'd really struggle to build a squad and pick up results at the same time. I hope that just one more season at this level will set us up to have a much stronger future than a season of probably scrapping to stay up.
- Experience at this level. The novelty will have worn off a little, for us, and for the opposition, the first trips are mostly out of the way. We can learn from naivety, errors and mistakes made this season where we've dropped silly points. Wigan, Reading and Blackpool shouldn't pose as much of a challenge, the competition this year has been fierce. Wednesday getting 96 points and only finishing 3rd is crazy, the top 3 in League 1 are far stronger than the bottom 3 in the Championship this season in my opinion.
It's naturally disappointing to miss out however it happens, but I'm already looking forward to a busy summer and August rolling around again. It's been a long time since we've finished higher than 3rd in any division, wouldn't it be nice if this time next year that changes.

I’d like Warne to be successful and I think he’s a decent person.
We can debate formations and players all day long but I think the difference between us being in the playoffs or not is this “always try to win” mentality.
How many goals have we conceded on the counter attack?
if you are top 2 material then Klopp style all out attack works but, if you are merely a top third-ish of the table outfit, the occasional point on the road, by shutting up shop at better teams, comes in handy at the end of season.
 

1) Take my money!! 

Some horrible tweets going Curtis' way I can see.
If any of you are doing that then stop it. Consider doing something constructive instead, like throwing yourself in to the sea.