Worcester Owl

Hear hear. Given the way some of the players messed about on the pitch last season, can't begrudge the owners having some fun!

Lol is that for real, R1 Rovers? Never heard of them. Great name!

Absolutely nothing wrong with Route 1 football. Ideally of course you want a mix of attacking styles, but Liverpool's first against Leicester last night started with a long ball up the middle.

I doner who was offended but I thought it was quite funny. There's a thyme and a plaice for jokes and we all need a laugh.

Had he been half as shrewd a businessman as was often claimed, one might have expected him to have negotiated the last few years rather better than he did. As Glossop says, bullet dodged.

I don't agree about the cup competitions - are you telling me that beating Liverpool wasn't unbelievably exciting? And Fulham? What about boring play-off matches, plenty of those. With 3 rather than 2 points for a win, mid table teams who go on a run can easily move rapidly up the league table, especially if teams above are drawing/losing. A season like this one, with Wrexham and Notts County streets ahead of the rest, is exceptional.

100%. Play-offs undermine the entire point of a league, as we found out in 86/87 and as Notts County hopefully will not experience this time. As you say, they'll never be scrapped now, it's all about money. Before somebody says how exciting play-offs are/can be, so are plenty of games across a league season. If you want one-off dramas, there's the League Cup and FA Cup.

Isn’t it more expensive though to have to maintain additional threads? Not sure this one is needed. Going off topic is a proud owtb tradition!

I’d like to think if I was up close and personal with Kaley Cuoco I’d have momentum. Just a thought.

Good to see the Monty positivity boat is steaming ahead

Trust me, he got that one wrong - or you have

Well I recognise the gerund there (from Queror, Queri = to complain) but I think that translates as "Now one must grumble" - you need a negative in there! Maybe Non Est Querundum?

I guess it’s Hobson’s choice.

I would have thought City's latest run is momentum with bells on.

Commiserations. Mind you, what would we give to be kicking off in L1 next season.........

I may be biased, but Latics fans are quality. Not only have we supported our club through thin and thinner over more years than I care to remember, some even get up in the wee small hours to catch a glimpse of the Northern Lights. Outstanding dedication. You deserve a lie in !

Sorry for your loss, BP. At times like this football can seem pretty trivial. I hope in due course good, not sad memories of your brother will remain, and that next season brings better times.

I'm with @Dave_Og and @TheBigDog on this. I simply don't understand wanting Rochdale to fail and drop another league. How does that help us? Don't we want local derbies against fierce rivals, with the grounds packed to bursting and a tribal atmosphere. When you consider the way the "Premier" League has siphoned off so much money from the national game, to the immense detriment of teams like Oldham and Rochdale (RIP Bury), it's actually pointless and silly wanting to see a local rival decline further. If some of their fans were delighted to see us drop out of the league, well they're short-sighted as well, we don't have to copy them. I haven't been to Spotland often, but I do remember going with my brother and his mates at the end of the 1968/69 season when they got promoted to Div.3 (it may even have been the game that clinched promotion). We were behind one goal and the stand was absolutely packed, great atmosphere. We were just pleased for a local team. I'll be very happy if we stuff them home and away next season, but I hope they get promoted back after we finish as champions.

If they stick with the club long-term, don't do anything silly and continue to come across as genuinely committed and responsible owners, then good luck to them.

The Marsh/Ramsey version is supposed to be true but who knows. I can't remember the details - was Marsh messing about in an England training session? So Alf threatened him and said, if you play like that tomorrow night, Marsh, I will pull you off at half-time. Marsh grinned and said, Christ Alf, at City we only get oranges at half-time. Not sure what Ramsey's response was but somehow I doubt he found it funny!

There is a fine line between bravery and recklessness!

Ah, the old Rodney Marsh/Sir Alf line.

A big part of the problem is that nobody is allowed to criticise the NHS - it's a sacred cow. Whether successive governments, management, or front line staff are to blame - sometimes all three - it's not working at its best and I agree simply throwing more money at it/the medics will not per se solve the problems. I just wish somebody would look at other health services around the world and come up with a plan to cherry pick the best-working features but maybe that's too simplistic. It will probably need a Labour rather than Tory Health Secretary to carry out major reform of the NHS, and Wes Streeting has been making some very interesting statements, but I wonder if Starmer would have the cojones to see through a reform programme. Getting back to football (!), I agree with @Dave_Og and others that morale is critically important. Unlike (usually) health workers, footballers can be sacked/demoted and surely nobody can deny that the Lemsagam regime had a ruinous effect on player confidence. To blame Wellens for the L1 relegation is very short sighted.

It might be just as simple as, HV got fed up with us/being loaned out and now his confidence has been boosted by a great opportunity at a Championship side where he's surrounded by better players, and his motivation has rocketed. Of course we want any Latics player to be motivated when they put the shirt on, but at the end of the day they're only human. He's still a kid and it's easy to imagine that at one point he might have wondered if he'd make it, which in turn may have led the coaches to wonder if he had it in him. Now he's got a great chance with a free start and good luck to him.

Yes, great statement from the board there.