Alty_Ram

If Posh field a similarly weakened side to last night then as a mindset we'd have to assume that Bolton will win fairly comfortably. Cheltenham bossed that 2nd string Peterborough team 25 shots (8 on target) to 9 shots (3 on target). Bolton would surely chew that lot up if they fielded the same team again but that's not a reason for extra pressure or worry, it is what it is. If Posh field a weakened side then a very good team in our league (Bolton) would be playing a strategically, consciously weakened opponent and you'd expect them to win. If Bolton win 10-0 it's still all in our hands. Just focus on us and get our job done and it's all academic.

But yay, we got the decision 'right' ... well possibly.. or possibly not.. assuming the line drawing is infallible which based on the pics of the Cov vs United line-drawing seems not to be. I think that fundamentally VAR delivers accuracy in the tens of centimetres at best but the modern game is asking for for decisions to be made to centimetre accuracy and I'm just not convinced that VAR can deliver that. I feel that if an instant 'that was an incorrect decision' can't be made then it should just stand and we move on. VAR officials are getting a lot of stick but they are being asked to do brain surgery in boxing gloves. It just isn't fit for purpose for a lot of these incredibly tight decisions. We can draw two lines for an offside and once that's done we can tell you 100% whether the blue line is nearer the goal than the red line as we have drawn them, but what if we simply can't assign that level of confidence with the drawing of those lines ?

I appreciate that some think VAR is a step in the right direction the above is the argument in a nutshell for me. Is the 'correct by a toenail' forensic approach worth it when it is seemingly so flawed/ambiguous on tight decisions anyway ? The original explanation/justification was that VAR was essentially there to correct big errors and injustices. I'm just not convinced 'drawing lines' on a screen and spending sometimes several minutes making at best dubiously 'accurate' decisions on the tightest of tight calls, is really addressing the problem. The crushing of the spontaneity of goal celebrations for frankly impossible to call decisions in a fast moving and highly emotional spectator sport is (IMHO) simply not worth the sacrifice as a spectacle, though I appreciate that many wouldn't agree.

I think we have to be positive and go and try and seize the game by the scruff of the neck and get our business done, then everything else elsewhere would be academic. I don't mean be utterly reckless and risk conceding soft goals but just trying to keep it super-tight and pinch a goal would just be agonising to watch. Any team can grab a goal out of nothing and this lot are no different. Ideally we'll take an early lead and push on from there and make the game safe but you can imagine what a bundle of nerves the whole place would be if it was on a knife-edge. It's times like that when the home crowd can work against you and their nervousness can get to the players. As fans, we need to do our bit and roar the players home and not convey any (well, as little as we can) of our own nerves !

They haven't exactly rolled out a welcome mat have they 😄. That's the lesson that we learned quite quickly - the idea of the 'Football Family' is a load of horse****. A call for solidarity for the sake of the fans? Good luck with that. It happens very rarely and Blackpool/Derby was one of very few examples that I can think of. Not even 100% sure that would be repeated if it was all going off now. Seems that even threats to the very existence of a club barely causes a ripple these days, so don't expect much sympathy from fans of other teams if you overspent and might go down a division, particularly if your fans were being arses last time the teams met.

Cue EFL points deduction for failing to properly segregate fans....

Gratz Pompey, that's a well-deserved promotion and title. Ultimately you've been the most consistent (and effective) side and that's what gets you promoted when the season is all done and dusted. Some thoughtful and classy responses on here too, even when everything was still very much in the balance for you. So, it's down to us to do our bit now. Hopefully we can get over the line and get that 2nd place. Nervous ? Hell yeah... 🥴💩

Bolton to win at an absolute canter IMHO. I expect us to have to win our last 2. Bolton may have had a tough game at the weekend but Shrewsbury are garbage and played a good chunk of their game on Saturday with 10 men after a sending off so will be far from fresh.. Makes it doubly frustrating when you think that we tossed away a couple of points by failing to beat them at PP a couple of months back with one of our signature sloppy late goals conceded. Ifs and buts.. I know....

My Dad was a big fan of Westerns and for my entire childhood I was convinced that a simple safe way of rendering someone unconscious was to smash a bottle over their head ! A simple tap on the head and they always obligingly explode into a million safe non-sharp fragments and the guy in the black hat just lay down for a bit. It was on the way to a football match where I saw someone hit by a bottle and there was blood everywhere and the bottle showed no sign of breaking 🤔

You could always wait until after we get inexplicably battered by Cambridge and see if there are some tickets suddenly coming available... 😩

Regardless of which division we're in, if we have a situation where Adams was our least accomplished pure footballing midfielder then it's not looking too shabby is it ? We've been crying out for some bite and physicality for years now and now some folks are worried that our defensive midfield specialist isn't also some creative genius too? It's all about a blend surely. The creative players can only flourish if we have a foothold in the game and are winning a decent proportion of midfield duels. Warne might not exactly be an advocate of total passing football but he knows that crosses don't get crossed and through balls don't get threaded through if you can't get the ball.

Well obviously you're setting this up for a fall RD because you'd find it funnier, but in all seriousness the pattern of the last few games have been a case of if you don't like the last result, just hang around, it'll all change again, triumph to despair in the space of 90 mins. It's in our hands for now at least but since when did we ever do anything easily? I'm fully expecting more twists and turns and although we've won a lot of games this season we've also had several worrying random piss poor performances against the poorer teams in this division so absolutely nobody is taking anything for granted at this stage. We'll get there if we get there and I'll worry about celebrating then if we get over the line. It might be 'just' a chance to get back in the Championship but I imagine that you'd have been cheering as loudly as the rest when Forest managed to haul themselves out of the 3rd tier. Unless they change the rules I think we're only allowed to get promoted one division at a time, so if we can see this through to a successful conclusion I'd be over the moon for now ta. As for your lot, well it's still wide open. I've maintained that you have 3 worse teams than you and I still think you'll stay up but there are some huge games coming up. Your game at Everton looks massive, particularly when Luton are home to Brentford on the same day. Even if you are in trouble after that lot though, you still have the bottom 2 teams to play in your last 3 games. Club colours aside, it's actually been a genuinely interesting PL campaign at both ends but after last weekend it looks like advantage Man City and I don't expect them to need a 2nd invitation to take advantage.

Unfortunately I agree. I just think there are 3 poorer teams who will wrap up those relegation spots. The bottom 2 are all but gone (Sheff Utd are barely half a point a game and Burnley not much better). I just don't see Luton winning many games and as you say, they have squandered some good opportunities. The only slight wildcard is the form of the likes of Brentford, Palace and Everton. Brentford are 1 win in 11 and Palace are 1 win in 9 and that was against Burnley. Everton is 1 win in 11 and that was narrow scratchy victory against Burnley. With both Forest and Luton bagging a recent 3 points, any kind of win for the next couple of games for either Forest of Luton would make the rest of that lot seriously twitchy, given that they are in pretty desperate form.

Well, true ! But obvs I meant in the sense that he seems like he'd be able to play high intensity football once he'd understood what Warne needs from him to help the team. He seems to be getting there now and hopefully the timing will help us get over the line. We can't win every game by simply outplaying the opposition so we need players who can win games with a moment of trickery. We don't have an enormous number of those so we don't want it all to be just about NML or Wilson. The more potential headaches the opposition have, the better really.

Regardless of his patchy start, he has all the raw materials for what we need - plenty of pace, some trickery, and a willingness to run at people and pull defences about. A major worry this year has been 'What happens if NML breaks down or badly loses form?' Apart from NML we don't have many options that can really scare defences with their direct running so it was good to see CBT put in a good effective shift against the best team in the division. He's an athlete and of the right age profile. Hopefully bodes well for the future.

Hopefully we can find enough fit players to fill the bench ! Having a 'mare with injuries.

In terms of the wider debate, I'm pretty 'meh' about Reading. As with us, much of their situation was self inflicted and they were pushing their luck with the loans even as it was starting to disintegrate around them, but regardless, I certainly wouldn't want them to go out of business - we've stared down that particular barrel and almost lost our club. Their fans are just fans at the end of the day though and just want to have a club left to support. Perhaps some of them will be a little less judgemental in the future if they can get through this. Couhig however is a piece of work who (based on that sign off) seems to actually enjoy the opportunities he has to screw other clubs up, so I can't help but naturally come down on the side of anyone who has a problem with him. I'll file him under 'Birmingham City & other evil entities'.

That still rankles with me now and I (like many) said at the time that if other clubs got in trouble that we'd like to think that we wouldn't stoop to that sort of stuff. I still stand by that, apart from the obvious and IMHO necessary exception of Birmingham City who didn't just do it, they took absolute delight in it when we were about to slip under. At that time were looked utterly screwed and they loved every minute of it....... 96th minute.. f*** you...

And surely also needs sponsorship by a fancy high-end foreign holiday firm targeting wealthy footballers ? 😉

Of home games I managed to only miss.... Newcastle... *sigh* you couldn't make it up. When we went into the next season, I remember it dawning on me that despite being an ST holder that I hadn't seen us win in well over a year. Jesus wept, what a time that was to endure being a Derby fan ! I climbed out of the East Stand at the final whistle on the final day and watched some lads unfurl a banner with 'Thank f*** that's over' written on it. Quality ! Summed it up perfectly!

That first 45 was carnage. Every time they attacked it looked like they'd score. Sheff Utd can barely hold the ball for more than a few seconds before they are crowded out and then spend the next couple of minutes just chasing shadows before winning the ball back for a few seconds and then lose it again. The Blades are simply being bullied and it's pretty dispiriting stuff even for a neutral. You'd think a 5-0 at half time would be entertaining but it like watching Barca against a pub team or a cat playing with a mouse. We may be in a rubbish league but at least our games are competitive.

Quit with the calm analysis and reflection nonsense LCR, it's time to massively over-react and have a complete meltdown about sinister forces, a power grab and a grand plan that 'they' have been building up to, and/or a lone wolf power grab by a single evil genius. Not sure which of those it is yet but its bound to be really bad and the important thing is to lose your s*** and shoot the plan down before it's even got off the ground. Now get with the programme! 😉

Boo ! Boo ! I didn't vote for you, you don't speak for me ! Boo!!! BOOOO!!! You're just in it for yourself. You can't possibly be doing it for the right reasons so I reserve the right to respond with irrational foaming-at-the-mouth negativity and vitriol regardless of who applies and what they plan to do.... er... BOOO!!! Down with this sort of thing !

Formation ? Names in a hat.. Result ? No bloody idea. That's not being negative, I genuinely have no clue. Bounce-back victory and comfortable win or back to dross again, or anywhere in between. Whatever else we need a formation where the players understand what they are doing and for several players to significantly raise their game. Oh and don't hand the opposition soft goals... oh and score some... er.. sorted.. possibly

Feels like it at times ! They partly rebuilt our market next to the old site and turned the old building into a Bier Keller style eatery and drinks hall with different businesses with serving counters looking out onto the main hall. You order whatever sort of drink you want from the relevant serving hatch and likewise food so you can grab a pizza (proper pizza oven) and a glass of wine if that's your thing and sit down next to a mate who opted for a locally made pie and pint from regional and often local breweries. It's amazingly successful but it's crazy busy at weekends so in truth I don't go very often! My excellent local is only 5 mins walk away so don't tend to get past that very often. I believe the market redevelopment won national awards as a redevelopment project.