Live football thread.

[Gee SCREAMER !!]

2 hours ago, TigerTedd said:

So they’re going to get more than 11pts, but is there half a chance they might take a few of our other records. They’ve got to be doing well on the goals conceded front now. That’s 4 home games in a row they’ve lost by 5 or more. No one has ever done that before. Not even us. I thought Wilder was supposed to improve them?

still can’t believe they beat Luton, that was a double whammy kick in the teeth. Stopped Luton catching Forest, and took United over 11pts. 

Edit: Genuinely thought 5-0 was a full time score. Thought aresenal must have calmed down a bit after the first 15 minutes. But wow! Half time. 

Think the goal difference we had was -69.  Thought that one might be going depending one who they have to play for a while.

[Gee SCREAMER !!]

5 minutes ago, Jourdan said:

I don’t recall us losing 8-0 or conceding 5 in one half. I also don’t recall mass walkouts by our fans. If we were that bad, the fans wouldn’t have stayed with the team as they did.

We were just so used to losing and could always find a way. I actually think at times we were unlucky and victim to fine margins.

Off the top of my head, We conceded late goals v Bolton, Sunderland, Newcastle, Wigan and Liverpool which cost us six points. We missed a penalty at 1-0 up v Blackburn which had we scored, we might have got at least a point perhaps more.

We were desperately unlucky to finish on 11 points. It’s not much but we were deserving of 15-20 points. 

The last two months of the season we were that bad. Still kept with them though.  A fit Giles Barnes and VAR we'd certainly have a fair few more points.  We were robbed of at least 5.

[Bris Vegas]

7 hours ago, Rammy03 said:

We can all see what a special goal it is from watching it. We don't need to be fed meaningless stats.

xG isn’t any more of a meaningless stat that attendance figures.

Yet fans in England harp about about attendances as if it were trophies.

[Crewton]

8 hours ago, Jourdan said:

I don’t recall us losing 8-0 or conceding 5 in one half. I also don’t recall mass walkouts by our fans. If we were that bad, the fans wouldn’t have stayed with the team as they did.

We were just so used to losing and could always find a way. I actually think at times we were unlucky and victim to fine margins.

Off the top of my head, we conceded late goals v Bolton, Sunderland, Newcastle, Wigan and Liverpool which cost us six points. We missed a penalty at 1-0 up v Blackburn which had we scored, we might have got at least a point perhaps more.

We were desperately unlucky to finish on 11 points. It’s not much but we were deserving of 15-20 points. 

I agree. The only dodgy decision that I remember we got in our favour was a Sunderland goal that got ruled out incorrectly for offside at PP. Had VAR existed, and been applied correctly, we would have avoided the points record comfortably and some heavy defeats would have been far less so. Giles Barnes was a terrible loss and Billy Davies' war with the Board cost us dearly at times. Had GSE come in and decided that preserving funds for a promotion challenge was the right strategy, the following years may have turned out very differently.

[Ram-Alf]

9 hours ago, uttoxram75 said:

Sheffield United fans were flooding out very early, not for the first time this season.

I know the old grey matter can play me up at times but i can't remember Pride Park emptying that early during that season.

I can 30th December 2007, Derby 1 Blackburn 2 attendance 30,048, It was announced over the tannoy that Derby City Council had twinned with Rotherham City Council 😁 

[JfR]

I think the other thing with our points tally in that season is that the other teams in the league were generally strong. You look at the other teams near the bottom that season, there's Reading that finished 8th the season prior, Fulham that finished 7th the following season and were Europa League runners up the season after, Bolton that had been a 6th-8th place team for 4 seasons prior. We were rubbish, but also, importantly, much more rubbish than even the second most rubbish team in the league that season. Might just be opinion, but there's some pretty naff teams in the Premier League this season.

[ap04]

11 hours ago, Comrade 86 said:

I'd say that they are objectively the worst side I've ever seen in the top flight.

19% possession in a 100 minute game and not a single SoT all night!

But I thought only points mattered to you?

Or you sometimes care about other stuff too?

[ap04]

10 hours ago, Jourdan said:

I actually think at times we were unlucky and victim to fine margins.

Off the top of my head, we conceded late goals v Bolton, Sunderland, Newcastle, Wigan and Liverpool which cost us six points. We missed a penalty at 1-0 up v Blackburn which had we scored, we might have got at least a point perhaps more.

We were desperately unlucky to finish on 11 points. It’s not much but we were deserving of 15-20 points. 

This may or not be true, however coming from you who amidst our freak early Feb run of 4 wins in 4 even games was bragging about points streaks and form and describing it as anything but "luck" it's not going to wash. Also late goals conceded are not especially "unlucky", nor does a missed penalty mean we deserved something from a game.

[FlyBritishMidland]

3 hours ago, JfR said:

I think the other thing with our points tally in that season is that the other teams in the league were generally strong. You look at the other teams near the bottom that season, there's Reading that finished 8th the season prior, Fulham that finished 7th the following season and were Europa League runners up the season after, Bolton that had been a 6th-8th place team for 4 seasons prior. We were rubbish, but also, importantly, much more rubbish than even the second most rubbish team in the league that season. Might just be opinion, but there's some pretty naff teams in the Premier League this season.

Exactly that.  We were by far the worst.  We’d just stayed up in the Championship the season before and had only just got rid of the 3 Amigo’s.  The other 2 promoted teams went straight back up after relegation.  We were very much an outlier.

This season, Burnley bounced straight back up and both Sheff Utd and Luton had been in the play-offs the season before promotion.  As a collective they are poor, but not one is singularly worse than the other.  They were always going to take points off each other, plus a few off some of the other weaker teams, such as Forest 😉 and they were all likely to beat 11 points.

[Will the Ram]

17 hours ago, Crewton said:

I agree. The only dodgy decision that I remember we got in our favour was a Sunderland goal that got ruled out incorrectly for offside at PP. Had VAR existed, and been applied correctly, we would have avoided the points record comfortably and some heavy defeats would have been far less so. Giles Barnes was a terrible loss and Billy Davies' war with the Board cost us dearly at times. Had GSE come in and decided that preserving funds for a promotion challenge was the right strategy, the following years may have turned out very differently.

It also didn’t help that Jewell sold the spine of our attack in Oakley & Howard (to Leicester) and brought in Savage & Villa who were inferior,

[SKRam]

This Mikey Johnston has scored belters! On loan from Celtic and in the blink of an eye WBA ahead! 

[ram59]

Did anyone else see the brilliant 'hand of god' save by the Albion defender on the line?

It happened so fast in real time that I and many others thought that it was a brilliant save by the keeper, even when the tv analysed the incident after the game, it showed that only one QPR player making a half hearted appeal and even though it was right in front of the QPR fans who were right on top of the pitch, they didn't seem to notice.

It could prove to be a decision that sends QPR down.

[Premier ram]

3 minutes ago, ram59 said:

Did anyone else see the brilliant 'hand of god' save by the Albion defender on the line?

It happened so fast in real time that I and many others thought that it was a brilliant save by the keeper, even when the tv analysed the incident after the game, it showed that only one QPR player making a half hearted appeal and even though it was right in front of the QPR fans who were right on top of the pitch, they didn't seem to notice.

It could prove to be a decision that sends QPR down.

 

                        

[TigerTedd]

6 hours ago, Premier ram said:

 

                        

I must admit I get a sense of enjoyment when bad things happen to bad people. It’d be nice if they were relegated on merit, but it would be hilarious if they’re relegated on a dodgy refs decision or technicality. 

[Gee SCREAMER !!]

On 06/03/2024 at 01:49, Will the Ram said:

It also didn’t help that Jewell sold the spine of our attack in Oakley & Howard (to Leicester) and brought in Savage & Villa who were inferior,

Howard was a million miles out of his depth at top level.  Oakley and Jones, who had a fair few prem years after he left, were bad sales.  Oakley had said he wanted out when Davies went but I don't think he was pushed to stay.   I don't think it helped when he started doing double training sessions for a squad who were seriously struggling for any cohesion or character.  They were just knacked and ripe for obliteration for two months. I don't know why Earnshaw only got 10 minutes here and there as we weren't blessed with pace with Barnes missing most of the season.  We bought him then replaced him with Miller after three games. 

[Will the Ram]

5 hours ago, Gee SCREAMER !! said:

Howard was a million miles out of his depth at top level.  Oakley and Jones, who had a fair few prem years after he left, were bad sales.  Oakley had said he wanted out when Davies went but I don't think he was pushed to stay.   I don't think it helped when he started doing double training sessions for a squad who were seriously struggling for any cohesion or character.  They were just knacked and ripe for obliteration for two months. I don't know why Earnshaw only got 10 minutes here and there as we weren't blessed with pace with Barnes missing most of the season.  We bought him then replaced him with Miller after three games. 

Howard wasn't good enough for the PL but Villa was a terrible buy. We’d have been better keeping Howard imo. He proved that he could still do a job in the championship with Leicester even a couple of years after he left us.

Everyone knew we were going down (it was obvious even in mid August after we were thrashed by Tottenham). Jewell wasted money that we didn’t need to spend. We should’ve learnt after Billy spent the PL money making the team worse in the January of the promotion season (with the exception of Jones & Mears who were decent).

Earnshaw is an interesting one. Maybe something was going on behind the scenes (I heard rumours but I don’t know if they were true).

 

Edited March 7 by Will the Ram

[Gaspode]

6 hours ago, Will the Ram said:

.....Earnshaw is an interesting one. Maybe something was going on behind the scenes (I heard rumours but I don’t know if they were true).

 

I've posted this before, but worth repeating:

I was working in Norwich while Earnshaw was playing for them and for a while he was at the same hotel I used to stay at - a more arrogant and unpleasant character you'd be hard pressed to find....

He had a huge Humvee which he used to either park on the double-yellow lines directly outside the entrance (which got in pretty much everybody's way) or else he'd park it across two of the disabled spaces - never in the (huge) main carpark. He also used to march about as if he owned the place and expected the staff to treat him as some sort of royalty - conversations I had with a number of the reception staff suggested he wasn't well liked. If his behaviour there was an indication of his 'normal' character then I'd not be surprised if he fell out with a number of folk at PP....

[G STAR RAM]

7 hours ago, Will the Ram said:

Howard wasn't good enough for the PL but Villa was a terrible buy. We’d have been better keeping Howard imo. He proved that he could still do a job in the championship with Leicester even a couple of years after he left us.

Everyone knew we were going down (it was obvious even in mid August after we were thrashed by Tottenham). Jewell wasted money that we didn’t need to spend. We should’ve learnt after Billy spent the PL money making the team worse in the January of the promotion season (with the exception of Jones & Mears who were decent).

Earnshaw is an interesting one. Maybe something was going on behind the scenes (I heard rumours but I don’t know if they were true).

 

From memory, Tottenham was our 3rd league game after a draw against Pompey and narrow defeat against Man City.

We have a win and a draw in September, sandwiched by heavy defeats to Liverpool and Arsenal.

I don't think it was until the stuffing from West Ham that it became apparent how bad we were. 

[G STAR RAM]

43 minutes ago, Gaspode said:

I've posted this before, but worth repeating:

I was working in Norwich while Earnshaw was playing for them and for a while he was at the same hotel I used to stay at - a more arrogant and unpleasant character you'd be hard pressed to find....

He had a huge Humvee which he used to either park on the double-yellow lines directly outside the entrance (which got in pretty much everybody's way) or else he'd park it across two of the disabled spaces - never in the (huge) main carpark. He also used to march about as if he owned the place and expected the staff to treat him as some sort of royalty - conversations I had with a number of the reception staff suggested he wasn't well liked. If his behaviour there was an indication of his 'normal' character then I'd not be surprised if he fell out with a number of folk at PP....

Weren't there rumours that he also liked a drink?

[Will the Ram]

8 hours ago, G STAR RAM said:

Weren't there rumours that he also liked a drink?

Yes that’s what I heard.

Edited March 8 by Will the Ram