Twisbrogan

3 hours ago, simplythemostimportantkick said:

 Please ask AL on behalf of the fans to stop bringing in these Johnny Foreigner Jokers. Thanks. 

Jesus

8 minutes ago, Midsblue said:

 

Depends on money available.

 

Personally I'd get the pitch sorted once and for all.  As we're effectively tenants, isn't that now Blitz's responsibility?

 

From there we've always succeeded with attacking, cavalier play with a manager who's attack-minded.  If money was there - Cowley brothers or someone who's succeeding at L2 level and knows that league and leagues below.  Alternatively I'd go with Scholes with an experienced assistant - he'd be an inspiration coaching, won't be asking a fortune and could get us some quality kids from Championship and Prem plus tap into his mates at Salford who know the non-league market.

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.

56 minutes ago, bozman said:

The change to a less cavalier approach seemed  to coincide with Jewell's appointment. 

But Wellens was asked this in an interview  for  last week's match programme and he said he changed style because of pitches deteriorating when winter set in.

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.

19 minutes ago, Smiler13 said:

Even though you have made mistakes in trying to rewrite the article the context of the article is obviously a destabilising technique to get at our manager and team before Saturday. Come on you blues you can stuff Northampton if you all concentrate on your football and not on such f-Ing articles in the press or should I say shitty gutter press.

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

13 minutes ago, Smiler13 said:

 

I do'nt think its the manager because if it was AL would see to it that he never works again in football 

 

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.

1 hour ago, Lee Sinnott said:

Far be it from me to point the finger, but this has all the hallmarks of a disgruntled manager, who knows he is being binned off, tipping off a journalist...

1 hour ago, Ryan said:

I know it’s cynical but my initial thought was it’s Wellens getting his excuses in early 

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.

1 minute ago, mcfluff1985 said:

Was just hoping you'd been told more 

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

20 minutes ago, mcfluff1985 said:

Arguments about what? Which other players? What was the outcome?

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.

58 minutes ago, Gary1906 said:

 

The club needs some stability and continuity.

 

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.

45 minutes ago, boundaryblue80 said:

 

Players available??? So 2nd top scorer Davies injured (not fully fit if returns tomorrow), Gerrard playing when clearly still carrying an injury, Miombe (our best player since January) suspended, Bryan (one of the players of the season) out for the season. That's before we talk about others injured like McLaughlin, Wilson and Dummigan. The players available are either missing some huge key players from the season so far or are playing half injured. 

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.

21 minutes ago, boundaryblue80 said:

 

I've read some nonsense on here but this is the fucking daddy 

 

So an incoming manager with 4 games to oversee and who would probably want to gut the side and make many changes would be given the chop after 4 games. 

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.

1 minute ago, Lee Sinnott said:

 

Shite from Keegan. We all agree that this idiot should not have been on the pitch (nope, not Pringle), but to say he attacked the referee is sensationalism at its finest. 

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.

33 minutes ago, Magic Mikey said:

The ref was desparate to be the centre of attention, blowing up for every contact. Petty sums him up pretty well. Where did he find seven minutes of stoppage time?

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

1 hour ago, JoeP said:

Jonny, Gardner, Edmundson and Duckens played well.

 

Would rather have Byrne than not - he's always likely to create something.  Anger is an energy, but he just needs to channel it correctly..

 

Doyle wasn't allowed to get involved due to being asked to compete against the entire defence virtually on his own.

 

Gills, on the beach or otherwise, were better than us and possibly even wanted it more.  If we play like that in our next two games we'll go down.

 

That said, it was ultimately the referee that cost us.  What happened at half-time that made him suddenly want to be the centre of attention?  The penalty could be one of the most costly decisions in the club's history.  Gillingham's player didn't even appeal for it, which I think is telling...

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. 

12 hours ago, whittles left foot said:

Most on here would have Ripley,

Ripley isn't their player.

40 minutes ago, Smiler13 said:

The weather has been exceptionally bad and the worst winter for many years. The pitch has suffered and therefore our passing game could not continue on such a bad surface. Matches where postponed due to the weather and international call ups and we have no place to train properly like some other clubs eg Fleetwood/Bury. So we play one week and find the next it’s postponed. Therefore we loose continuity. 

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.

2 minutes ago, BP1960 said:

 

I bet no player in a top Premiership team calls the manager by his first name. 

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.