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Just had a look at Dale’s recent form, 7 points from 7 games. They’ve had 5 home games and drawn 4 and lost 1. Slightly better than our 6 point from 7 games. We are limping along and like I said in another thread if we stay up it’ll be by default. No doubt Hill will fire his players up and will probably do a better job of it than RW. I just hope Charlton arrive at spotland fired up too knowing a playoff spot is at stake.

Can’t have helped things not having TP around seeing as there is no official assistant manager. His suspension couldn’t have come at a worse time.

I don’t disagree with you. I think relegation would be disastrous for the club and I don’t think we’d necessarily bounce back from it either. The cloth would be cut yet again like it was in 1994 and in 1997.

I am genuinely worried about this team though. It looks like if we do stay up it’s more likely to be a case of avoiding relegation by default rather than us going for the jugular and going for a win.

Somebody called Billy.

Who Wellens? Or Darren Ferguson?

Probably on a par with the view from the top row of the lower tier in the Anfield road end at Liverpool. Unless you can hire a cherry picker for the day and park it on the hill.

Charlton will need to to get a positive result at Dale too as their playoff spot is far from guaranteed, certainly if results in the midweek games go against them.

Walsall a goal up

I’ve never known us to give teams 1 and 2 nil head starts within the first 15 to 20 minutes of a game so many times in one season before. When Shez was here at the start of the season I put it down to the inept goalkeepers, Wilson and Ruddy. But worryingly this has continued during Wellens’ tenure and could ultimately cost us our league one status.

Couldn’t we have just played with fly goalie?

Would rather stick with RW than take a punt on him, unless AL wants mid table stability in league two.

There’s at least a dozen clubs in league two who would bring barely a hundred fans too in what is a league dominated by southern clubs. The playing budget would take a massive hit, unless AL was prepared to do what Donny did last season and try to maintain status quo by keeping a similar budget.

In addition to the solidarity payments, the basic award that clubs receive from the football league would drop by about £200k too. So you’re looking at a drop of around £400k before a ball has been kicked. I hope AL has got deep pockets if he’s planning on staying around for a stint in league two.

Had Corney stood by that trio for the sake of stability there’s a good chance we’d be in league two now or even worse. I know he appointed some duffers but Corney did know when the time was right to pull the trigger. If he’d have stood by them and given them more time then fans would have protested, created a toxic atmosphere or simply voted with their feet. I don’t recall people defending Robbo, Dunn, Kelly, Dickov, Penney etc and saying they should have been kept on for the sake of stability at the time of their dismissals. I think most fans agreed that the game was up for them. Hopefully Richie will keep us up and get chance to have a preseason with the squad and make some more signings of his own but the jury is still out for me. Obviously survival is the most important aim for the club in the short term.

Lol, I presume that is tongue in cheek.

Pretty sure it was on here and in the MEN at the time that we’d offered him £600-£650 a week till the end of the season. Wellens wanted a grand a week but Shrewsbury then came in and offered him more than double what we were and gave him an 18 month deal. A no brainer for a player in the twilight of his career. Incidentally Shrewsbury released him 6 months later.

Hopefully if that happens again the board will tell whichever club is sniffing around to do one. I also hope that they don’t panic and wave the white flag if there’s a remote chance we could get promoted. Who knows though as we still don’t know what AL’s plan/vision is.

That’s what I’m hoping too as Walsall are one of the potential teams we need to overtake. Somebody said on here recently that Shez’s teams take the foot off the peddle once they’re safe, easing off on training sessions etc. Hopefully this will give their players more of an incentive to impress and the game will be taken more seriously.

Don’t think Ripley has played for them since their defeat to Dale a couple of weeks back.

Franchise now 2-1 down to donny. Sorry, beaten to it.

Yes

Or is he kipping on the sofa at Dan Gardner’s?

A blow for the club if true. He’s been a good servant of the club and always seemed a friendly bloke but who knows what happens behind closed doors. It can’t be condoned if true though.

Since that target was set, we’ve won 4, drawn 4 and lost two. Off the opening poster’s hit list we drew against bury and Walsall but we did get a bonus win at scunny.