Ambitious

5 hours ago, Crewton said:

It wasn't only Warne who thought he'd be a great signing

At the same time, I’m not employed by the club in a full time role to vet players before they’re signed on million pound deals. I have access to the website, look at a players CV and make a judgment. Up until this season, to my knowledge, I had never seen Bradley play a 90 minute game. I’d hope there was more to it than that for actual decision-makers of the club. 

This the sort of ‘right character’ Warne insisted we needed at the club. 

A marquee summer signing that’s struggled to hold down a place, been more detrimental than positive when he has played and is in all likelihood probably the highest paid defender in the league. 

A true leader knowing we’re down to our last three centre backs, in a huge promotion run-in, slaps his daft head on another player because of his own inadequacies. Any chance we can get out from under his contract his summer needs to be explored.

16 minutes ago, Crewton said:

You should read their forum, then you might have a different view. Some of their posters hate Critchley's football as much as some of ours hate Warne's and even our performance yesterday hasn't turned them into raging optimists.

There's still a win here for us if we defend well.

There absolutely is and with Nelson and Cashin we have an opportunity to keep it nil in any game, at this level, but without NML we lose a lot going forward. CBT has an opportunity. I just hated what I saw from Derby yesterday, as I said in the matchday chat, the first 30mins was like a bad Sunday league game. Mansfield and Colchester were on Sky before our game started and it was night and day between what both Northampton and Derby produced.

My problem under Warne is that there has never been any control to what we’re doing. It’s all forced, erratic football. He made the point that the championship is easier to manage in because it’s all coached, League One throws up different challenges. My opinion would be to at least try and offer some controlled possession to our play and not always play the percentages. 

If it was me, I’d try and get Dej back from his loan and start him in this game. He comes in with a bit of form, energy and excitement then it may rub off on others - god knows the other strikers available to us aren’t going to do that.

Wildsmith

Nelson
Cashin
Elder

Ward
Smith
Adams
Thompson
Sibley

Brown
CBT 

Blackpool will come and pass us off the park, my only hope is that we can pack the defence, midfield and hope for a lucky 1-0 win.

My expectation is that this will lead to a significant home loss that will turn 30,000 supporters into executioners.

3 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

You'll have to let us know how much you win. I assume you will be lumping on all 3 teams to win all of their games, safe in the knowledge only 1 would need to do it to net you a very tidy profit.

I was able to jump on the betfair exchange and lay (bet against) Derby getting promoted £133 returns £240 profit. I bet against Derby every game anyway, but I lost £80 on the Bolton game alone so this just seems like a more stable way of monetising my depression.

5 minutes ago, JuanFloEvraTheCocu'sNesta said:

We will have a tiny budget by Championship standards, so what will he do differently this time?

I doubt we would, there’d be no reason to spend £6-8m on a category one academy if the plan was to short change the first team. 

He’s dropped off massively since the start of the season, think he’s come to terms with retirement at the end of the season but also lost his hunger for the game. He’s going through the motions. I can’t blame him, honestly I’d imagine 95% of players in the same boat would do the same, but Warne needs to leave him out for the good of the team. 

26 minutes ago, Finch said:

Bradley reincarnation of ClaudeDavies. Possibly worse. 

At least Davis was up against the likes of Anelka and Torres. Bradley is up against.. Sam Hoskins. 

Mendez-Laing potentially done for the season too? outstanding. 

I struggle to remember a time I’ve been so incensed by a performance or a result. I feel absolutely conned for finally allowing myself to believe in Derby County in their current form. I felt physically sick at the performance from the first 30 minutes that I just wanted to remove myself from watching the game. It was a disgusting display. A horrible game. I watched the Mansfield and Colchester game before hand and both of them were MILES ahead of what I had to endure in that first half. 

Warne fell upon a system with Gayle upfront and it all started to click, when you see the performance today it’s apparent that he knows what he wants to achieve but doesn’t have a plan on how to achieve it. Gayle was an easy solution at the time, I’m sure all things being well that he wouldn’t have signed him. Today really played out all my worst fears - I’m just glad that I was able to monetise us not winning promotion whilst we sat in our best situation. I have absolutely no faith in this team and less so in the manager to find a solution. 

I like him as a person, I even find his management and coaching not without merit, but why waste the best part of £10m on keeping an category one academy when you have such a short-sighted approach in the first team. It makes no sense to me. If we fail this season, there is absolutely not way he can remain as the Derby County manager for the next rebuild. Get him gone. 

10 years, wow. One of my favourite games and one where you just saw a very highly capable team absolutely purring and putting in one of the best performances I’ve seen live.

13 hours ago, eddielewis said:

Northampton have lost Tony Springett to Ireland under 21's and their striker Kieron Bowie to Scotland Under 21's. So bare bones up front for them on Saturday.

I've also seen they're missing almost every full-back at the club too, so will be down to playing back-up centre backs out of position. You would have to think that Warne & Co are aware, because this could be a perfect platform for CBT to come into the team and have an impact and a platform for the following 6 games. 

NML will be a problem for Northampton on Saturday - if you want a 'first goalscorer' bet. 

1 hour ago, The Scarlet Pimpernel said:

I mentioned elsewhere that on the news last night it said the government football regulator will be able to take the decision about financial distribution of funds away from the Premier League.

How do you force limited companies to share revenues with other limited companies? It's another voice at the table, ultimately a powerful one, but there is going to be a long-drawn out war before anything is decided. 

For what it's worth, I can see why we would want to upgrade the goalkeeper position ahead of next season. Wildsmith has been good for us, often very good, but Vickers is clearly the number two in mind and had the number one shirt prior to his injury. It's not uncommon for teams, especially after promotion to League One, to upgrade their goalkeeper. Ipswich did it last season, where Christian Walton was outstanding - 23 clean sheets, 35 goals conceded in 46 games.... he hasn't started a league game this season. 

Wildsmith was beyond excellent in our biggest game of the season, he deserves all the credit, but he's not been faultless this season.

1 hour ago, angieram said:

Well said.

We were told not to record or anything last night, as the Club would be putting out the full video today.

I was therefore a bit disappointed to find out that Dietrich was live tweeting, but putting out his own slant on what was said. His headline on X 

Fallout? Hardly, and the subtext makes it sound like Brown has left as well as Fleming.

Just slightly seedy and not at all a reflection of the mood of the room last night.

'hear the fallout' - doesn't actually mean hear about a fall out.. it just means hear about the points raised/discussed from the fan forum lol. 

11 minutes ago, jimbobram said:

he looked really good. I think Brentford highly rate him though. 

I understand that we were in for him at the same time as Bolton, in fairness it sounds like we were in the right ball park for players in January but couldn’t get them over the line. 

Lang has been a difference-maker for Portsmouth too. 

Yeah, Rowett will make sure Birmingham are safe. All said and done, he's a good manager - at the very least he can organise a side and make them compete as a unit. 

I'd like to see Stoke relegated anyway (providing we're promoted).

1 hour ago, Ghost of Clough said:

A coincidence? Who was Bird partnered with in midfield, which forwards could he link with, etc...?

Bird and Waghorn have only started a single game together all season (a win)
He then only had 2 games with Gayle, losing the first (Gayle's first start since November) and winning the 2nd.
He also only had 7 games with Adams as a midfield partner. We lost 2 of those games but didn't have a CF in one of them, and the other was Gayle's first start

I'd say a coincidence, but I'm just playing devil's advocate. 

As technically good of a player as Bird is, I do wonder how much he moves the needle (so to speak) in terms of our performances. In terms of impact on our team, performances, etc. 

If you offered me Bird to play in all seven remaining games, but it meant we had Adams in three of the remaining seven OR you said Bird wouldn't play in any of the remaining seven games but we could ensure the latter available then I'd 100% take the second option as I imagine 90% of supporters would. 

Ahead of his move to Bristol City, I thought it would be interesting to note that Bird has not played in 10 games this season and we’ve won 8, drawn 1 (Portsmouth) and lost 1 (Bolton). 

Northampton are pretty poor form: three losses in their last four. The only point was against a dire Cambridge side who are currently on the worst run of form in the league. 

A win will see us climb to seven points ahead of third, albeit artificially with a game in hand, but the points on the board can induce panic in others. Every win is going to be significant but this could be huge for the mindset of others. 

With the injuries, we really could do with him stepping up now. Leyton Orient, Blackpool, Wycombe, Carlisle & Cambridge are all teams he's had goals/assists against this season, so we could do with him reproducing that going forward. 

I’d be embarrassed about being a Bolton fan coming on here talking about how they battered us: xG was 0.46 to 0.49. 

They were unlucky not to get a draw, but sideways passing between the centre backs, occasionally rotating into midfield and back to the centre backs, isn’t exactly the ‘battering’ you think it might be. 

I was on cloud 9 after the win yesterday, it was really gritty and everyone played their part. I really feared the worse when Gayle went off as I don’t think Waghorn is looking as sharp as he did earlier in the season and understood why Warne went with Smith,  although it was an eyebrow raiser at the time, it sent a message to graft and not lose the game. It’s something that we will need to manage going forward, assuming Gayle is out for a while (or for the season) we are going to need find a solution for the remaining part of the season. 

In terms of quality football, it was a typical League One game. Bolton played the ball between both centre backs and Sheehan (who Warne was absolutely right to make life difficult) but they were unwilling to really throw men forward and honestly I think they froze in the big moment. Up against a team who they needed to beat, who had no striker on the pitch, they couldn’t find a solution. Nelson, Forsyth and Cashin gave them nothing. Aside from the header in the first half, they really didn’t create anything clear cut either. A few potshots, but the xG tells the story that neither team really could’ve complained with a draw or losing. 

A proper job, Warne deserves a lot of credit for navigating the team through it after Gayle went down. We do need to find a solution for the remaining games, if Gayle is done, Waghorn hopefully can start against Northampton and do a job. Collins will hopefully be back for the run in against Wycombe, Leyton Orient, Cambridge & Carlisle. I do worry about going in undercooked against Blackpool and Portsmouth, though. 

They will look to starve us of the ball, for sure, but I do wonder how high their back line will be - I’d suspect a mid-low block and a lot of emphasis on Sheehan (their DM) to play through the lines and control the space between midfield and defence. I’d like to see us get a man on him whenever they have the ball, make them play longer passes. 

Of course that all changes if they play with a high line but I just don’t see them doing that with Barkhuizen, NML and Gayle upfront. A huge risk that they don’t need to really take. 

I read somewhere Couhig is looking for an exit strategy from Wycombe, this is a method whereby he adds a fairly significant asset to the book value of the club he's looking to sell and also removes a fairly significant asset away from a much bigger club within a similar location who could attract potential buyers. It's a no brainer for someone who is strictly business driven. 

This is a huge blow for Reading, though, who will undoubtedly see their academy picked apart and dismantled soon. I'd be surprised if they're able to avoid liquidation and don't have to start again. They don't see 160 years of trading IMO.