rudemedic

Following update

Unless someone is injured or otherwise unavailable I think DU has to pick the same starting XI. However, based on last season where Timmy gave them more than they could handle I'd have Reid and/or Willoughby ready to come on because their defence couldn't handle pace but could cope with Nuttall and Fondop's physicality.

Just because I found it funny… https://x.com/jdgefc/status/1689736363308916736?s=61&t=QJd5i4Srur3A9h3awhcDsA

Curious if your views have now changed?

We got 61 points last season, if we don't get 65 points this season Unsworth won't be our manager in April.

It's not the individual wages it's the total wage and I'd fancy Willoughby, Lundstram and Ward are not on massive wages given where they've come from. Our budget is likely bigger than Cheltenham's (we probably have double their average attendance) and Southend's budget is effectively 0. So we probably only had to match what Cheltenham and Southend were paying Raglan and Hobson. We've had Leutweiler, Clarke J and P, Francis-Angol, Maynard, Stobbs, Porter, Burgess, Sambou, Windass, Abraham, Luamba, Da Silva, Chapman and Yarney all leave. Some of them will have been on reasonable money. I can see how all of them add up to the ones you mentioned (plus Dickenson). That's 15 out and 7 in plus Rooney likely out the door soon. Also we had more players be on our books for a few months on top too. Season tickets were more expensive this year and we've sold a similar number. We've had some more money in from Harry Vaughan and a lad from the academy. So I can see how our budget this season is similar to what it was late last season.

I don't think we've doubled the budget. We've got rid of a lot more than we added. I doubt Chris Porter was on peanuts for example and we don't have the squad numbers we did have. The players we added, Norwood and Raglan aside, won't be massive earners either.

The traffic flows OK but there is only one entrance and exit so a queue forms pretty quickly. If someone is coming into the car park then the traffic doesn't flow as well Also the parking on the road up to the exit can also affect the traffic flow. It is double yellow lines but that doesn't stop people parking there.

To be fair to Unsworth, you couldn't pay me enough money to be that close to someone known to recently have COVID-19 for a quick 5 minute interview for a football club's media content.

Codswallop. Seriously this is so disingenuous I would have thought Detective Shitpeas had found himself a new role. They had those seats blocked off well over 2 weeks ago. They knew that really only us in this league would need the extra seats so they’ve tried to pin it on the National League implementing a new rule (or changing their guidelines slightly). They want our money and know we will be able to provide it. They didn’t want the fuss over them selling Season Tickets at standard price to a stand they knew their home fans wouldn’t be able to use for 23 games. When we did something similar those fans got a reduced rate. I bet we don’t get 15% of the capacity at some other games.

They can do. It will all depend on a lot of things, for example the hamstrings are 3 different muscles all doing slightly different things. So a hamstring injury doesn’t give enough detail, and I’m not going looking for the detail. Trauma from a strong challenge can cause any affected muscle to strain, it will depend on the mechanism of the injury, again I’m not looking for detail. You might expect a more severe muscle strain as a result of trauma and the indication is mild, but who’s to say the indication is right. Im fairly certain there have been cases of footballers getting muscle strains getting out of chairs and the like, the list of people who know the actual cause of a muscle strain in a footballer could be 0.

Whereas I think 5 strikers is probably about right, if not the bare minimum. We have 5 central midfielders, 2 are out for a while - Lundstram and Ward, 1 is (perpetually) coming back from injury - Gardner, so that leaves 2 plus Dickenson who can presumably play there. I think Unsworth likes to have 2 forwards on the bench. So we need 4, then it is quite likely 1 will be suspended or injured, so there's your 5. Plus Hope, who can play there. Football is a squad game and our squad is one of the reasons why I'm still a bit zen regarding our prospects this season.

And both Nigeria and Niger take their name from it.

Yes and No. Changing anything you've been doing for a prolonged period will always take time. The changes were likely on the horizon for a while but weren't confirmed until quite late on prior to the season starting. Other teams have also taken time to adapt as there were a LOT of bookings across the EFL and National League at the weekend. Sutton's red card and a few of our yellows were not affected by the change of emphasis in the laws though.

I'm fairly certain it isn't even that many. IIRC it's 5 yellows. I think the punishments may increase with more cards too.

Tranmere and Grimsby were both in similar states to us when they got relegated out of the football league too. I think we will have a couple more years, including this one, to get out otherwise we may be looking at Wrexham's 15 years.

Didn't Curle try Hope at RWB or am I misremembering things?

Well it's a good job I know a few psychiatrists then...

I take it you think Southgate is one of the best coaches we've had too? As we played 3-5-2 in Russia 2018. If more teams played different formations at youth level I think every professional club in the country would have the ability to play 3-5-2. 4-4-2 is not nor will it ever be a panacea for football.

I like 3-5-2 / 5-3-2 as a formation, I have ever since England got to the semi-finals of WC 90 and Euro 96 playing it. With the right players it can work. But Sutton as the RWB is not the right player and playing Sheron and Shelton in the midfield 3 doesn't work either. As that in effect gives us 7 defensive outfield players on the pitch, which is at least 1 too many. If he plays 3-5-2 / 5-3-2 against Aldershot I would hope he plays either Sheron or Shelton at RWB (or Green if fit) and then Dickenson and 2 others in midfield, one of which may have to be Sheron or Shelton. Unless we sign a RB or a right midfielder (not necessarily a right winger) who can play as RWB I would be disappointed if he plays 3-5-2 in the majority of our games.

Apart from not win games. I don't think AL would have sacked him but as Scholes only won 1 game, his first with essentially Pete Wild's team I wasn't exactly that bothered he left. After he left Pete Wild won the next 3 games and was unbeaten in 6.

I think we were joint top scorers with Exeter, who caught us on the last day. I followed a tip from a poster and had few quid on us to be top scorers (no e/w available). I was more than a bit miffed.

I don't think Manchester North End would have ended up in the National League, which is the best the 3 clubs can do at the moment.

Did you go to Dorking as we dominated that game for most of it? OK their defence was shit, but we outclassed them, and I think had some hand in their defence being shit. It is my understanding that we dominated the game at Yeovil too and possibly a few other games in the second half of last season. We could end up absolutely battering Southend, we could end up sneaking a victory or even something worse. I feel Southend's situation has the air of Bolton's a few years ago. They lost a lot of their fixtures in August but their opening fixture was tight until the 2nd half. But their other league losses in August were by 5 goals.

Every service industry in the developed world has capacity restrictions. If a building can only hold 600 you can't have any more even if they are queuing round the block. Listening to the podcast it sounds like Southend has structural issues in their away end so while the end may have held 2000 in recent past it can't hold that much now. If it wasn't the first game of the season would we be taking more than our allocation to Southend? We hadn't in recent years even with our decent support in the big smoke.