VectisSaint

That report was 2 months ago, in it Martin says he will be off his crutches pretty soon, I would think 'pretty soon' would be less than 2 months, so unless there has been a setback (possible) he probably should be back in light training pretty soon if not already.

Last update was "probably" won't see him again this season, but suggested he might be ready for last 3 or 4 weeks, but that we probably wouldn't risk him unless it is desparate, rather give him a full pre-season. So we're not too far off last 3 or 4 weeks so would be of some interest to know if he is progressing.

If KWP and Bree are fit I would agree with you, but they haven't been. Bree came back against Liverpool and he clearly wasn't 100% from the way he was blowing out of his arse when he was subbed. Also agree that playing THB on the right wasn't a good idea, Taylor is normally calm and totally reliable but he had his worst game for us, lost his head against Sunderland, I still can't figure out what the mad 15 minutes was all about, why did everyone go into panic mode? By the way it was Huddersfield that first showed how to attack us not Brizzle, remember they were 2-0 and 3-1 up before we pulled back to win 5-3, this from a team we expected to beat easily. I don't see how you can say Stephens didn't contribute much to the 7 games after his return, 232 minutes is roughly 35% (2.5 full games). Much bigger problem to me is Manning, would play Bree over him every time, or even Meghoma for that matter (I see Juan Larios is not far off returning, another opportunity to leave Manning on the bench, but I suspect it won't happen.

Read second sentence again.

I:m slightly bemused where this sudden love in for NT has come from. Don't get me wrong, I really rated the guy and wish him all the success he deserves. But the facts are that so far for Leverkusen he has started 4 League matches (stats actually say 3 but that looks wrong), has played 90 minutes once only in the League and has 2 assists in all competitions. I get that he has scored 4 in the Bundesliga, but to be frank he has hardly broken through as yet, and he will do well to do so with Frimpong ahead of him. It is great that he will likely pick up a Bundesliga winners medal, but the hype seems a bit over the top at the moment. Just an observation.

Probably something to do with the fact they were the inconvenienced team having already travelled down to Southampton last week, then being asked to travel down again "today" and then to Plymouth on Saturday. I know we didn't start the fire on purpose (well I assume), it would have been pretty rough on PNE, not to mention their supporters. Its a long way from Preston to Southampton (twice) and Plymouth.

This is simply.and demonstrably not true. He came into the team just before Xmas and we won 5 and drew 2 (not all starts), 3.goals.conceded in that run. Then he was out for Rotherham, Huddersfield and Bristol City, we conceded 6 in those latter 2 games, that's when the problems started. Came back in and we won 2-0 (WBA). The defensive issues have started when teams decided to attack us and showed up defensive frailities that were hidden before, as well as injuries to Manning, Bree, KWP and Downes (protection for the defence). By the way I don't think Bree is fully fit yet.

You missed Sulemana running back to his own goal having picked it up from Manning's give away and then giving it away to the scorer, that was actually the costliest error in a catalogue of errors, Bednarek's initial clearance also pathetic (doesn't show up on the highlights). Big problem was though not the particular errors that ended up with the 1st goal, but that the whole back 5 went into panic mode and continued for about 10 minutes, they all lost their head, THB in particular went from his usual super cool, calm and efficient to headless chicken, I don't really know why they do this.

It wasn't, he was clearly trying to get out of the way of the shot and didn't turn his back, he was side on, not trying to block it at all. Gav probably had it covered, unfortunately the slight nick off Stephens deflected it in. The goal was primarily the fault of Manning initially, losing the ball and Sulemana running back toward goal and then giving it away. The finish from the Sunderland player was actually a decent strike. Manning was crap again yesterday, not just for their first goal, but also for the earlier chance where he set up Ba, who fluffed his lines. Still he did win the penalty so something good came from him being on the pitch (but nothing defensively).

He was studying for his Law degree in 2014 way before he joined us, he was doing it through the Open University and expected to complete in 6 years (he was already doing his 2nd year), so probably completed a few years ago now, unless of course he found he had less spare time when he joined Celtic and then Saints. Report here from 2014: https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/dundee-uniteds-stuart-armstrong-reveals-3338131. Looks like he graduated by 2020.

Based on current positions and how we have fared against the other teams it would probably make more sense to finish 4th and play West Brom than finish 3rd and play Hull.

Meghoma injury is not good news.

Fire - Crazy World of Arthur Brown Smoke on the Water

Always thought 'assists' were originally a thing in ice hockey, long before they were ever a thing in association football.

Manning missing on the left of defence as usual. Nowhere to be seen.

Where on earth do you get that Charles gets an easy ride. He has been slated on here since that start of the season, some of it justifiably. Seems to have redeemed himself a bit in the last couple of weeks. He is actually a very good player, or will be, but his confidence was shattered early in the season, made too many basic mistakes that cost us. He is still very young, needs a consistent run in MF (not as a CB) and he will turn out great.

No it didn't. He had been back 'in contention' and in the team for 7 matches where we conceded a total of 3 goals and was on the bench (unused sub) for Rotherham, Huddersfield and Brizzle, which is when it went wrong, so there is a better argument that it went wrong when he was benched (I don'subscribe to that view but it is more logical than what you wrote).

There's an article today (in the Sun) speculating that Leicester might face penalties next year if they get promoted, because their losses are expected to be more than £105m over the last 2 seasons. So question is, won't that apply to us as well? From what I can see our losses.over 3 seasons are £108m. Am I missing something?

Whether or not Manning is out of position due to Martin's tactics, the bottom line is that he is not a very good defender. Even when "in position" he is easily beaten, and does not have enough pace to match wide players and is lacking in positional sense. In addition, he is also caught "out of position" whenever we get a corner, because in the same way as Bertrand used to he takes corners from the diametrically opposite corner from where he is supposed to defend. This means whenever a corner attack breaks down he is so far away from being able to defend that we are left hopelessly exposed. This would be OK if he was actually really good at corners, but either his corners are not very good or we are not very good at attacking from corners, or more likely both. Whatever way you dress it up at the moment Ryan is the weakest link in the team, and is costing us goals. On Saturday I wasn't surprised to see Manning start. I don't think Bree was an option, anyone who saw him subbed off against Liverpool would have noticed he was absolutely out on his feet, looked completely exhausted, unsurprisingly first game back since a lay-off. Pretty sure if he had been fit he would have played on the right anyway in place of KWP (possibly with Stephens on the left, but not sure). Much as I would like to see it I don't think Martin has enough faith in Meghoma yet, which I can sort of understand when you have a misfiring defensive group and you are trying to shore it up, but struggling because of injuries. Hopefully for PNE KWP will be back, Bree will be fit and we will see a back 4 of KWP, THB, Bednarek and Bree (but I won't hold my breath).

8 of last 9 league games in that run were wins, 6 out of 22 altogether were draws. We didn't draw LOTS of matches, we won lots and drew a few, mostly away from home.

Think he's a bit more than that, 10 in 13 in the Championship and 9 in 40 in the SPL (for an unfashionable club) shows he can hack it at a slightly higher level than League One, he really only played one season in that League.

2 assists (and yes they were both assists in the true sense), involved in the build up for a 3rd, two (at least) shots on target, directly involved in getting the Brum player red-carded by his direct run towards the box. Man of the Match. Yes, sure he was peripheral to the game.

Assists have been recorded in he World Cup since 1954, Pele holds the record (10). In our day we used to say a player "made" a goal (but I'm sure they didn't record "makes").

We scored from a corner today, surely that's an improvement. It was also to the back post, so surely that shows variety. Then there were short corners. I'm sure one or two on here just post something without reference to the game.

'On here' is social media. Some of the stuff written on here is as bad as stuff on X at times (though I think the comments about WS were more extremely disgusting).