Ted Bates Statue

I hadn't looked into the circumstances into his departure much, beyond a glance at the table. When I first read the above, my first thought went "what kind of PL tactics could they have been? Kick ball in opposition goal, stop ball from going into own goal" and then it occurred to me that you might be alluding to parallels with our present-day situation that I hadn't yet considered. Some good quotes below this article which support the wikipedia comment: https://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/sport/sportlatest/23970537.mark-hughes-breaks-silence-bradford-city-sacking/ "I liked Hughes he is a gent but the way he had us playing nearly sent me to sleep" "Terrible to watch week after week playing with 1 striker up front and the defence playing keep ball passing from one to another in their own half" "The nonsensical change to three at the back, which simply confused virtually every player... meant his sacking was, reluctantly, deserved" ...I think I get it now.

I think you've got a point there, although it's a bit chicken and egg now that we are a yo-yo club. If we could appoint Moyes we would have done so already. The other thing is we had someone since Mark Hughes who was a fairly big name in terms of his CV. it was Ralph Hasenhuttl and he managed to get Vestergaard playing to a level whereby we were able to recover about 75% of his transfer fee. And meanwhile Hughes went sliding down the EFL in an attempt to demonstrate he wasn't completely washed-up. I think it's really damning how Leicester signed some of our rejects in Vestergaard, Bertrand and Puel (harshly treated by us, but that's another conversation) and those defenders in particular were derided as some of their worst ever signings. Should have been a major warning as to how far behind our first XI really was.

From what I've seen on youtube of him, he still sings reasonably well, and as you say he doesn't seem to rely on assisted vocals as much as other artists can. Had a look for tickets at the O2 recently but seems my best chance of catching him live is if he performs at Hyde Park. Think he's done it a few times before so I'm hoping he'll play there again one day. Otherwise, I'll have to console myself with at least having overheard his 'secret' London 2012 soundcheck.

At a glance, one of the few sensible posts on this thread was written weeks ago in October, but Nathan Jones is still being comfortably outshined by his successor Ruben Selles who is operating on a shoestring budget to get Reading into the playoff places. One of these managers will be managing in a higher division than League One sooner or later. Here's a hint: It is not going to be Nathan Fucking Jones. [edit - didn't realise my words would actually come true this afternoon 🤣]

From what I've seen of them, I thought Tortoise Media had a decent reputation for journalism, so what's to be concerned? Far better than some overseas billionaire getting their grubby mitts onto it like Murdoch, Rothermere or Lord Siberia. Oh and I'm onto you btw. It looked innocent enough on the face of it, but you've managed a very good yield so far.

Never mind the injury nonsense. Russell's probably worried that Paul's head is in the clouds after being nominated for the Puskas award. Good to see him being taken down a peg or ten, by being left out of the squad entirely.

Between Larios, Manning and Taylor, we have three LBs at the club who are kept out of the side by our best RB. Meanwhile one of our better academy players of late, Jayden Meghoma, ditched us to go to Brentford and I reckon he could be getting PL experience towards the end of this season. No surprise that he would have felt his prospects of breaking into the first team were low, being behind that lot in the pecking order. I think most of those remaining LBs were free transfers so at least we haven't spent loads, but it's still not a good look for the club to stockpile defenders in this manner while overlooking our internal up-and-coming talent.

Second time in a month Millwall get to sing "No-one lights us"

Better get used to it for next season

I so wish we were Leicester. Stop being so precious over a jokey comment and get over yourself. Vardy's very good but better than Rooney and Kane, that's a bit of a stretch.

I'd like to think we've moved on from the likes of Jhon Viafara.

Would have thought Jones/Selles did worse. Also how did Sturrock compare with Wigley? His record seemed ok on paper, but generally considered to be totally out of his depth.

It's because we're a team of soft pony son-in-laws. We need a big meanie like Roy Keane to come in and put a stop to all that.

Due to SR's sluggishness it looks like we might now sadly miss out on Frank Lampard with Coventry beating us to his signature.

Oh Christ, that took way too long for me to figure out. You know we're in trouble when Jonathan Fulthorpe's name gets dredged up. https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/2300339.no-substance-to-takeover-talk/

He turned down Brentford, not the other way around. Really doesn't seem to care for the limelight.

I get what you're saying although I think apathy will surely set in around Xmas when everyone's wallets feel the pinch. A 3rd round FA Cup match against Palace or Liverpool will not get most supporters out of the house. To me, it's mad that it would take even that long but I guess others have more patience. Also, the players will raise their performances enough during this upcoming tough run of games to give signs of improvement and glimmers of hope, while delivering fuck-all in terms of actual points towards survival. It's standard relegation team fare. They need to think about their summer moves, after all.

He won't be so cheerful when he realises there's no communion wine

I was thinking about giving Minsk's thread a miss this season as it doesn't deserve to be sullied by our current form. Says a lot that we are comparing ourselves to Derby in this thread but that's not the fault of us fans. In our last PL season, 12 points out of our 25-point total came from Leicester and Chelsea. Happy times!

It's hard enough keeping track of managerial comings and goings that I can scarcely be bothered to keep up, but didn't Cooper get the call from Leicester back in the summer?

I have heard similar being said about us. Utter storm in a teacup. If anything, shows Liverpool get away with awful behaviour that is left totally unpunished.

"The West Ham Story" It's been going on for years

Blinded by the idea that donkey's years ago, he used to manage Man City and he got Stoke into the top 10 repeatedly while having to rely on dross like Begovic, Moses, Crouch, Shaqiri, Arnautovic. I'd think Pearson, Adkins and Puel are well ahead of him in the very hypothetical queue to manage us again.

It's just someone flicking the floodlights on and off loads of times. Seems a bit outdated really, considering I remember being genuinely impressed by laser shows in the 90s. I like the comments though: Having said that, they beat Leeds that evening so it must have helped. Whatever gets everyone riled up.