Twisbrogan

Jesus

I'd rather go with whichever hitherto unknown coach that Lemsagam has got in mind because, if we don't, we'll be stuck in this ridiculous halfway house of two groups of players... Some for the manager, some for the owner and endless excuses as to why the club doesn't work.

Which pretty much 80% of the crowd could have told him was about to happen. If we don't get the pitch relaid in the close season, then we need to fill the squad with players that are better suited to playing on poor surfaces.

Wellens explained most of this in his Sun newspaper article last week.

Talked a good game and his interviews were decent. However, the initial successes of his team as an attractive passing outfit were always likely to fall by the wayside when the pitches (especially ours) turned to shit. Why this is never part of a managers' plan, I don't know. Also, we should never appoint a mate of the car dealer again (not that we will be doing, surely). Whinging gobshites.

Which bits of it don't ring true and who does it serve best ( to get these excuses in early)?

How? ...but then regardless of that, managers use 'friendly journalists' all the time to leak stories that will further their cause at either their current club to get them to another one.

I started to think this before I was half-way through it. There were no surprises in there (just bits that had already been rumoured or were common knowledge) and the only one not being blamed was the manager who would be the only one to gain from it. I've been thinking all week that our team selection, tactics & support tomorrow is utterly irrelevant - our league position will be decided elsewhere.

Oh. Was just thinking what I'd been to told was relevant to the topic.

Don't know, I wasn't there ( see the word 'apparently' ). Just something I was told before the game yesterday.

There were big rows yesterday morning between Wellens, Fane & some players apparently. Fane's not injured.

We've won three league games since mid-December. I'm not sure continuity is that appealing.

Benyu was OK in the second half which was a surprise given how much off the pace he was on the first (though having not played for so long, that's understandable). Even though Doncaster looked barely interested, Hamer and Edmundson will deserve huge credit if we stay up for their roles in a couple of clean sheets when we need them. Don't think Fane was injured at all... Not sure it matters what team we put out next week. I don't see how a team that has won 3 league games since we played Northampton in the reverse fixture will be able to suddenly do what is needed to grab a win. The more relevant match will be at Rochdale with Charlton hopefully still needing to go all guns blazing.

It'll be about 4k. I don't see swathes of people wanting to see this one on the back of 5 draws and a 0-3 defeat in the last home game.

There's been a culture of losing and expecting defeat for many years now similar to the one that has taken hold at Sunderland. In that respect, the last thing I'm in favour of is continuity.

Yes, the players available (not sure why the players unavailable have been listed but never mind) should be more than enough to get a minimum of 6 points from the games we have left and not doing so from this point would be a failure.

Absolutely. Given the fixtures left and the players available (not sure why you assume they'd want to 'gut' the side), it'd be a failure not to see us safe.

Hasn't the great start he had been undone somewhat by not maintaing it? I know people are pointing to other circumstances being to blame for the do in performances and form but I also think there was an element of us being 'found out' by opposing teams and we haven't been able to adapt to that. I think he's great value in interviews and would like him to turn in round but I'm not wholly confident even though the task in hand should be more than straightforward. If we were to appoint a new manager today, I would expect him to be fired for failing to get enough points from these four games. If Wellens keeps us up then great and it might mean that he gets a crack for next season but some of the talk I've seen in places about him remaining as manager of we go down, baffles me. I think the truth of the matter will be that the new owner will want his own guy in to follow through with whatever he has planned, regardless of where we finish.

To be fair to him, Keegan only says that Gerrard prevented the ref from being attacked - he won't have had anything to do with the headline that says differently. A muppet running on to try to grab the ref in an EFL game is newsworthy although I'm surprised it's headline stuff.

Because there were a lot of stoppages for fouls. Vicious circle.

Can agree with it all apart from the last paragraph. The ref didn't cost us, we lost two points all by ourselves. It was the assistant ref that saw the incident and obviously felt that it warranted punishment so the ref can only go of what he gets told. That the offence is something as lame as hair pulling only makes it more unprofessional from our perspective. All that is if you think the incident was absolutely pivotal in deciding the result when, as you allude to, or performance in the previous ninety minutes just wasn't good enough.

Ripley isn't their player.

I can agree that the recent breaks due weather have made that we've lost any rhythm we may have had during February (I'd say we played poorly in all of our fixtures during March, including Scunthrope) but the Winter/ Spring deterioration of the playing surface at BP is a given and can't be a excuse for any manager.

I reckon all of them call Guardiola by his first name. More worrying for me were RW's comments about squad players not coming to see him when they've not been involved. There seems to be a lot of disinterested players on the pitch so if the ones that aren't playing aren't bothered either then I'm not sure where the fight will come from.

On Placide, there does look to have been a shift in his body language in recent weeks before, after & during games. He doesn't seem as vocal and generally not as bubbly around the warm up as he was a few months ago. I know its not been the best year for him personally and there's always the possibility that he's been affected in someway.