Lord Duckhunter

Both pundits on MoTD didn’t think it was a foul.

From what I could see from my restricted view was the centre halves were bullied, I thought all 3 had their poorest game since the last manager left. Adam Armstrong is just fucking pony. Bree did ok, but is clearly a limited player. KWP was decent, very good first half. Diblin showed signs of shaking off his average form lately, tall Paul was pretty ineffective, but didn’t really get great service as our crossing was woeful. I thought MF was our best player, although it look like him that chested the ball down for the second goal. The first goal was a mess, Ramsdale too weak, probably expected to get the foul which would have been given 9 times out of 10. Against it’s this ridiculous “clear and obvious” that’s caused the issue. That and the VAR sticking up for his mate. First half showed the continued improvement in looking like a proper team with proper tactics. Second half when chasing the game we reverted to Lego ball. Too many safe passes, too many sideways and backwards and too one paced plodding football. No urgency and no pace. Palace were stronger, fitter and better than us. The last one is acceptable, but the first two aren’t.

I’ll be amazed if he gets a bigger job than that.

How long are you going to keep blaming Truss? This government inherited a lot of problems and seem to have made them worse. The economy was growing when Sunak left office and it’s now stalled. The CBI survey reported in the guardian found private sector businesses across all industries expected a "steep decline in activity" in the first three months in 2025, so as Neil pointed out ‘25 doesn’t look any better. That’s before it dawns on people that they were sold a pup with this “smash the gangs pony”. As Diane Abbott recently said Starmer has shown poor political judgement and doesn’t have a feel for politics. This is only headed one way…..

It’s not only possible, it’s a requirement in the modern game. All this pony about MLT or some other bloke who smoked a pack of rothmans & sank 3 glasses of brandy pre match and went out to score a hatrick is jumpers for goalposts stuff. About as relevant to the modern game as the keeper picking up pass backs and managers sat in the stand. Matt wouldn’t have made an impact in the modern game, unless he had modern levels of fitness and conditioning. In the old days you could have one or the other, now you need both. For a variety of reasons, pitches, rule changes, etc players have never been so skilful, and they’ve never been so fit (apart from the purveyors of Lego ball)

He’s a fraud for more than that. The worse permanent manager in premier league history, his treatment of TP, playing the likes of BBD and Adam Armstrong over him this season, is just one of his many shortcomings….

Andrew Neil predicting an awful year ahead for this hopeless Government & PM. ”Our benighted Labour government, barely half a year old, already has a well-established and well-deserved reputation for making everything it touches worse (and much of what it inherited from the Tories wasn't in great shape in the first place). Expect more of the same in 2025. Far from faster growth, it's more likely we'll start the new year in recession — or close to it. The economy failed to grow at all in the third quarter of 2024 and the signs are that it was even more comatose in the fourth quarter just ending, after Chancellor Rachel Reeves's October Budget went down like a lead balloon with business and consumers. The public spending splurge she foolishly unveiled is expected to pep up growth a little in 2025. But that will be short-lived. As long as business and consumer confidence remain shot to hell there can be no sustained recovery — and Reeves has nothing in her tool box to revive our economy's animal spirits. Negative or very slow growth, rising inflation, higher than necessary interest rates, a continued squeeze on living standards — we face Liz Truss-levels of economic incompetence in 2025 under the Starmer-Reeves ascendancy, whose dead hand will deliver another year of relative economic decline. Add in the inevitable unravelling of Ed Miliband's fantastical net zero ambitions and you have the perfect storm of economic stupidity.”

Understandable that you’d want to move on, seeing as you were constantly defending him.Every single discussion does come back to him, because this season is entirely down to him, players fitness, league position and inevitable relegation. The worst top flight manager we’ve had in anyone’s lifetime, you can’t just erase and move on.

He’s directly quoted in the echo, looks like that’s down to the arrogance of Lego as well. “SAINTS forward Paul Onuachu admitted he "wanted to leave" in the summer as he felt he would not receive a chance under former boss Russell Martin.” Martin clearly didn’t fancy him as a player, so it’s weird you’re still defending the fraud.

My fav is Wizard “I wish it could be Christmas every day” Closely followed by Slade. Third place is John & Yoko. Don’t seem to have heard as many this year. Xmas Carols seem to be getting heard less and less as well. Perhaps it’s just me misremembering, but I defo didn’t hear many this year.

I wouldn’t say it’s obvious at all. He’s looked more dangerous than Armstrong & BBD every day of the week. His build up and hold up play is far superior to Archers. Nobody knows if he’ll get on a scoring run once one goes in. The jury is still out, because of Lego ball he’s never been given a decent run.

How can suggesting he’ll score goals in the championship be a “gross rewriting of history”, because of the managers ego, there is no history. He’s looked more of a threat in a 1 premier league 90mins than Adam fucking Armstrong has in 80 odd games. Disrespectful, yes. He’s fucking done nothing except run around, giving the ball away and being offside. It’s hard to respect those skills, especially when we’ve got so many points less than fucking Ipswich. .

My daughter has been married to a bloke 2 years, he’s played in NL South & NL during that time. He’s trained both Xmas days they’ve been together. 2 different teams, 2 different levels (both way below Premier league) and they’ve trained. Absolutely unbelievable that ours were given day off, a damning indictment of the previous manager

Bizarre that he wasn’t used in the Championship. He’s quite good at getting hold of the ball and laying it off, so would have fitted into a possession based system, as well as giving us the option to knock it long occasionally. Good option defending set pieces as well. I’m sure Lego’s out of control ego stoped him using TP.

It’s all a load of pony. Acknowledge the support, wave maybe, but to clap them is pony. I’m in the jimmy Greaves camp on this one. When asked about players clapping the fans, replied “I didn’t clap them, they clapped me”.

I see Blackmore and Tessem putting the boot into Lego ball now, fucking pathetic. Blackmore spent weeks sucking up to Lego, now “today was the first time we’ve looked like a premier league team”. True, but they’re a bit late on parade. Two faced cock Womble.

FFS, he probably pulled a hammy getting out of his seat.

I’d rather play Oscar Pistorius, he may not be as quick as in his prime, but his ball control would be fucking better. How anyone can watch that embarrassing performance today and think he deserves another chance is beyond me. Absolutely abysmal, and that’s and understatement.

Good today. Unbelievable that the Lego headed cock didn’t use him in the championship. Would have frightened sides to death & bagged as many goals as Adam fucking Armstrong, no bother. He’d then hit the ground running this season, instead of playing catch up at Xmas. Mismanagement at its finest… Here’s the thing though, had TP been banging them in during August or had lego done his fucking job and picked him, would we have signed The glass man? We basically loaned him out and signed Ross Stewart. Ffs….

Lego ball result, but far far more exciting & rewarding watch. Big Les played well, KWP was back to his best, TP good as an outlet, needs one off his arse to get him rolling, but good he did a 90. Suga, average, I thought wood struggled a bit as well, poor with the flick on that fell to Bowen. AA, really winding me up now, fucking waste of space. Subs were average, Aribo must have missed Lego checking out, Dibling really poor and Sulemana, fuck me he was in Ali Dia territory. We are always going to struggle, but a proper manager set up a team to deliver a proper performance. Let’s hope he’ll stick around after the inevitable happens and we can build a proper premier league side.

TP is making Lego look a bit of a cock for not playing him more , but big Les is making Lego look a massive cock for freezing him out. Fucking Will Smallbone 😂😂😂. Les is different gravy… Best half of the season bar none. We’d have 5 or 6 more points had we sacked Lego in July. Anybody still defending him ?

Have never watched it. The snap dragon’s favourite show, so it must be shite as the only thing she’s got decent taste in is blokes. Whilst she watched it I watched the peerless Phoenix Nights, followed by The Hairy bikers “you’ll never ride alone” …….Agree with Turkish, Xmas tv is shite. Is pretty poor most of the year, but the schedulers excel themselves at Xmas by reaching peak ponyness.

Given Legos apparent lackadaisical approach to players fitness and training, maybe the new regime can make inroads and get this bloke fully fit. There appears to be a difference between being Martin fit and premier league fit. How many muscle injuries are caused by not being at absolute peak fitness.

My son in law plays in the national league and they trained Xmas morning so for Martin to give the players the day off is beyond belief. That on it’s own should put potential employers off, before you factor in all the other bullshit that comes with him. Clearly it’s going to take Ivan a few weeks to get this lot battle hardened and fully premier league fit, but let’s see some aggression and positivity today. Hopefully we can pinch a result.

But we wouldn’t have done. Like Newcastle, Villa, Wolves and countless other games, we’d have given them a goal or two and lost.