WestMidSaint

Goal looked disappointing from my position in the Upper Holte. Couldn’t see which of the CBs it was but one has gone over and basically got in the way of the other, whilst leaving an ocean of space in the middle. Keeper was also out of position neither defending his goal deep or ever likely to get close enough to make a block or smother.

That could easily have been 9

I couldn’t believe how bad their 3 goals were. Downes losing the ball like that is criminal. Sugawara I think it was for the 2nd who could’ve had an entire marching band behind him for their second and he still wouldn’t have known given he didn’t check his shoulder once. Then the “assist” for their 3rd just to finish things off!!!😡

2 Points: Firstly, a friend made a good point the other day. It’s an established fact that as you go up the football pyramid, the higher you get, the less chances a striker needs to score on a like for like basis. Against this defence and this set up, championship strikers would need say 3-4 chances and they would score. In the prem, we’ve got essentially the same defence and style, but now the strikers only need 1-2 chances. It’s therefore obvious we will be punished loads more, yet he still walks blindly into the problem. All against the backdrop of the fact we already conceded a fair number last season and did struggle with errors. Secondly, I keep wondering whether there’s more to his instance about playing out then just the results??? If you think about it, Kompany stuck to his guns, got Burnley relegated and then was rewarded with the Bayern job. Would he have got that if he’d gone pragmatic and tried to carve out results? It’s impossible to know whether Burnley would’ve stayed up and whether VK would’ve got the job. I do though wonder whether this is RM’s attempt at insulting himself from our relegation?? Perhaps he’s resigned to us going down and looking to ensure that he comes out of it with some credit (not that he should) and for us, what will be will be??

That’s exactly the way I fear our season could go. Looked really good for most of the game, but if we play risk at the back we’ll get found out. Also, not enough upfront

If he doesn’t get us up this season he’s failed. Simple. Even if we get playoffs and go up then he’s only scraped it. If we don’t go up the difference in the team this year and next year will be stark, which makes it even more vital. Problem is, he seems to absolutely love himself. I can stand that when we’re winning, but when we’re in poor form and he’s doing things we all consider poor (team selection, tactics, interviews etc) it’s just that much more annoying. Hard to see how we get promoted from here

So soft and embarrassing. Pathetic goal from the giveaway of possession to the useless bazunu. guarantee if it was us wining the ball from a loose pass, we’d never have countered with that pace and aggression

Yes, but that’s presumably not what he was hired for. I assume the brief he was given was top 2, not the lottery of play offs. That’s 11 points off and even the biggest optimist would surely struggle to make a case for us catching up.

You’re right about not bringing sanctions against the team. I’m just being facetious with the “kicked out the league” 😂.

“Hope you die soon” was the headline at the time. Imagine that in today’s world

It’s been mentioned above, but I think it’s such a shame everyone at the club gets off so light for such a longtime. Teams like West Ham and Newcastle have made so much noise in the past and put so much pressure on the managers and owners. In Europe the fans go nuts at everyone when they aren’t happy. The players, manager and board should all be given a far tougher time. “Players are acutely aware of negativity…” GOOD. Surely they can’t think it’s acceptable what they’ve produced. If (when) we lose again at the weekend, I really hope the pressure is ratcheted up on the board. What I’d give for some old Dell fever and passion. I know things did go a bit far with the Branfoot protests (by today’s standards we’d probably be kicked out the league!!!), but at least there was some proper passion and noise.

Last season we were relegated because the board made bad decisions and then were far to slow to rectify them. This season they’ve made yet another bad decision. I hope they’ll act quickly before too much damage is done, but I don’t think they will. This joker should never have been hired. He didn’t have the credentials for the job. Now he’s shown he isn’t up to it they need to act quickly. My fear is that after they don’t, we’ll be left in a position where we finish lower mid table. We will then have the problem of not coming up quick enough whilst there’s still some money and before you know it, we’re stuck in the lower reaches. As we’ve seen before, you then run the risk of being dragged down again

Wouldn’t give him that long

Truly pathetic debut. No one should write him off based on 1 game, but many more like that and he’ll have a tough job convincing anyone. Mind boggling how bad he was

I’ve said it before, but Swansea fans we met on holiday immediately sited his teams pathetic defending as a major problem. This was from season ticket holders at Swansea. They said he’d actually cost them the play offs with it. Commentator said the top 6 last season all had the 6th best defensive records. If we’re non in that group we have zero chance of top 2 and will be making top 6 a difficult thing to achieve

Great to grind out another late win. We definitely deserved it. Plymouth were really poor. Their passing was dire at points and they panicked like anything at the back when playing out. They had the freedom to waltz through our non existent centre midfield and couldn’t take advantage of it. Great finish by Tella. Also Bazunu did the business at the end with the high balls in the box. Their goal was so poor. Manning too slow getting back after the slip, to slow getting across to stop the cross and then no one dealing with the striker’s run across goal to the near post. There was a theme of being too slow. Too slow to pressure the GK and defenders when then had the ball at their feet and too slow to stop crosses-even at the death. Think we desperately need a CM or 2 and obviously a CB. Great we got another win and some momentum with a strong start to build on, but I do think we were lucky to be playing such a poor team.

Met a family of season ticket holders on holiday last month. Their take was that he will score you goals, but not really give you much else.

He couldn’t play in the midfield of either of my kid’s teams! The logic of suggesting that a player who is not good enough is his chosen position that’s he’s played for years can suddenly play in a new one??!!

Can you not see the huge difference between the two players??? Merson was a huge addict for whom football was likely about having a good time and not getting in the way of his addictions. I’m not having a dig at him having addictions at all, it’s just that pushing himself to play at the highest level and achieve the most he could in the pitch, were likely not a priority for him. JWP (from what I can see) could not be more different. I’m sure he loves his family and plays a lot of golf, but he’s a consummate professional. For him I suspect footballing success is paramount and he does everything he can to be as good as he can. I can’t imagine he lets much get in his way and I can see how it would annoy him not being at the highest standard he reasonably could expect to be. Merson might’ve found it fun in a way that a lad playing with his pals below his natural level does on a Sunday, but I don’t think JWP is in it for a laugh. I’m disappointed he’s going and don’t actually think it will end up going too well there. I think they will struggle in the league again with Europa on a Thursday and I think the fans will be underwhelmed by him. That said, I fully understand him moving. Anyone who doesn’t is blinkered by our love of the club

Absolutely deluded. How arrogant is he to even think there’s a conversation to have??? He’s done absolutely nothing to legitimately think he would be hanging around. To think he deserves anything blows my mind. If I was him I’d 100% assume I’d be leaving at the end of the contract and would thank my lucky stars I ever got a job I was clearly not up to. communicate with him???? 😂😂😂😂😂😂 Also, he’s had respect in that he’s not been hounded out like the midget before and wasn’t sacked the minute we were relegated (the point at which his failure was confirmed). I’ve got no time for this massive fraud and he needs to keep his head down and just be grateful that he’s stolen a living for however many moths it’s now been

I wouldn’t sign him to either. Nice guy, presentable and probably intelligent. Terrible manager in the premier league and not sure he could manage a busy drive through queue on a Friday evening

More mid week games. I did love the fact that when we had a bad result we didn’t necessarily have to wait until the following weekend to play again. Works the same way with the positivity of a win. They get out quicker and hopefully keep it going.

That’s a sad read. I remember being so happy and proud. You can feel it when you read back. All that hard work then and over the following 4-5 years has been completely trashed. I honestly can’t get across how angry I am.

I was surprised there wasn’t more booing at full time. I think we’re all just completely resigned, deflated and finished with this rubbish

It’s an absolute joke. We had the chance to strengthen and buy players who would help us avoid the drop and apparently none of them are good enough! It’s a double whammy as not only do we seemingly have players they don’t fancy, but we’re back to the position of a bloated and expensive squad. All the years where we couldn’t invest cos we had a string of expensive flops on the books, and we’re gonna be back there again. The team we are fielding today is 100% championship, with the exception of 4 players