Season finished 3 games before the end…again (well done the board)

[Shauntaylor85]

Real progress! Top six squad we were told! Progressive appointment….sorry a couple of scrappy results isn’t convincing me (and I include a 5.0 win in that which for me was almost as bad a performance as some of the others…gifted 5 goals and created little ourselves). Worried for next season, he will get the summer and first 10 games for me but I’m not convinced he is any better than LJ. 

Edited April 13 by Shauntaylor85

[Back of the Dolman]

1 minute ago, Shauntaylor85 said:

Real progress! Top six squad we were told! Progressive appointment….sorry a couple of scrappy results isn’t convincing me (and I include a 5.0 win in that which for me was almost as bad a performance as some of the others…gifted 5 goals and created little ourselves). Worried for next season, he will get the summer and first 10 games for me but I’m not convinced he is any better than LJ. 

I’d say the season was finished before just 3 games to go 

[Shauntaylor85]

Just now, Back of the Dolman said:

I’d say the season was finished before just 3 games to go 

Mathematically today. 

[Back of the Dolman]

Just now, Shauntaylor85 said:

Mathematically today. 

I get what you mean but felt like it was over a while ago 

[luke_bristol]

Season was written off in October really. Really need a good season next year to make up for it.

[Shauntaylor85]

1 minute ago, Back of the Dolman said:

I get what you mean but felt like it was over a while ago 

Well yes, even worse. Throughly depressing season, cannot wait for the summer to have a break from it all. 

[stokes7]

Season was written off in the January transfer window 

[And Its Smith]

7 minutes ago, Shauntaylor85 said:

Real progress! Top six squad we were told! Progressive appointment….sorry a couple of scrappy results isn’t convincing me (and I include a 5.0 win in that which for me was almost as bad a performance as some of the others…gifted 5 goals and created little ourselves). Worried for next season, he will get the summer and first 10 games for me but I’m not convinced he is any better than LJ. 

Last season was written off around the same time 

[milo1111]

From the moment they sacked Pearson it was only about retaining our championship status whilst our latest project found his feet.

so far I think he’s done just about ok in terms of points on the board but the entertainment is poor in the main.

Let’s see where we are in oct/november. 

[eardun]

13 minutes ago, Shauntaylor85 said:

I include a 5.0 win in that which for me was almost as bad a performance as some of the others

Seriously?

[Silvio Dante]

I’ll go the earliest of anyone and say the season was over when we sold our best player and out of pure spite and dislike to the manager didn’t make funds available for a replacement.

Notably, those funds became magically available in January via the bid for Azaz and signing of Twine.

So, in hindsight, August.

Edited April 13 by Silvio Dante

[mozo]

3 minutes ago, Silvio Dante said:

I’ll go the earliest of anyone and say the season was over when we sold our best player and out of pure spite and dislike to the manager didn’t make funds available for a replacement.

Notably, those funds became magically available in January via the bid for Azaz and signing of Twine.

So, in hindsight, August.

Yeah agree mate. 

Nige/Manning/whoever wouldn't have got us top 6 without adequate investment and SL decided against that. Our fate was sealed and we've achieved precisely what I and many others predicted.

[W-S-M Seagull]

2 hours ago, And Its Smith said:

Last season was written off around the same time 

Context.

This season was the season where everyone expected progression. 

We've regressed. 

[W-S-M Seagull]

2 hours ago, mozo said:

Yeah agree mate. 

Nige/Manning/whoever wouldn't have got us top 6 without adequate investment and SL decided against that. Our fate was sealed and we've achieved precisely what I and many others predicted.

So you don't think we could have beaten Huddersfield x2 +4 points

QPR x2 +5 points

Cardiff x2 +6 points

Without adequate investment? Beating just those 3 teams twice would now see us sitting comfortably in the play offs. 

I can list many other other games where we could and should have got more than we got. 

Whilst I think we should have signed 1-2 more in the summer, we have enough to have done better than we've got. 

Blaming it on 'investment' is just you doubling down. 

 

[Super]

7 hours ago, luke_bristol said:

Season was written off in October really. Really need a good season next year to make up for it.

To make up for the past few seasons.

[Engvall’s Splinter]

14 minutes ago, Super said:

To make up for the past few seasons.

To make up for the past few seasons where we’ve managed an FFP tightrope. 

[Sir Geoff]

8 hours ago, stokes7 said:

Season was written off in the January transfer window 

Summer transfer window.

[Silvio Dante]

5 hours ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

So you don't think we could have beaten Huddersfield x2 +4 points

QPR x2 +5 points

Cardiff x2 +6 points

Without adequate investment? Beating just those 3 teams twice would now see us sitting comfortably in the play offs. 

I can list many other other games where we could and should have got more than we got. 

Whilst I think we should have signed 1-2 more in the summer, we have enough to have done better than we've got. 

Blaming it on 'investment' is just you doubling down. 

 

To be fair, you highlight Cardiff there and one of the two losses was under Nige. We were on fumes that game so saying we could have been plus 3 points without investment from that game is bonkers - the exact problem is we didn’t have resource.

Start of the season I thought keep or adequately replace Scott we had a chance of top six - a punchers chance, but a chance. Not doing so made mid table my expectation. It’s a broader problem that I think we’ve regressed under Liam (and how that bodes for trajectory), but dispassionately he’s going to achieve what I pretty much expected without investment day one.

The fault in performance as ever lies with the board - both for not investing in the summer and for the statements/actions in October. Liam in no way gets a pass but I’d say he’s delivered (positionally) on realistic minimum expectations. Debate/discuss how likely it is he can progress (regress) us further or how he’s got us to those points - and that’s where his issues lie.

[Sir Geoff]

Will wait until the end of the season BUT......we were 11th in the league when Manning took over and the board spouted all the bull rubbish about progression, top end, top 10 budget blah blah blah.

Now we're 12th.

Progress, what progress.

Split the fan base, lost the trust of thousands.

Half empty stadium due to the most boring football ever witnessed at the Gate.

Season ticket sales in decline.

Well done John boy and snake. You sure know how to ruin a football club.

[And Its Smith]

The same stuff being posted over and over and over again! 

[Shauntaylor85]

8 hours ago, eardun said:

Seriously?

Yes I am being very serious and I note others on here have said the same. That Blackburn win was the least exciting 5.0 in the club history, we were average and gifted the game through error after error from them. Majority of second half was fall asleep mode. We’ve played much better this season like Stoke at home under Nige where we played them off the park and somehow lost. 

[FNQ]

6 minutes ago, And Its Smith said:

The same stuff being posted over and over and over again! 

Thing is there’s nothing much different being dished up on the pitch week on week, we’re watching the same dross over and over and over again.. there’s nothing being offered by the club performance wise to change the narrative. And if the changes to the squad over the summer are modest as we are being led to believe and not wholesale, why should we remotely believe LM will be able to deliver anything different next term? It’s friggin depressing, I can’t get why you don’t see that?

[Bris Red]

9 hours ago, luke_bristol said:

Season was written off in October really. Really need a good season next year to make up for it.

Indeed. I would go even further to say that the board effectively wrote the season off in the summer by not giving Nige the proper funding that was clearly needed.

Manning has done enough (results wise at least) to be properly backed in the summer. Give him the tools that are needed and then we can properly judge IMO.

[And Its Smith]

1 minute ago, FNQ said:

Thing is there’s nothing much different being dished up on the pitch week on week, we’re watching the same dross over and over and over again.. there’s nothing being offered by the club performance wise to change the narrative. And if the changes to the squad over the summer are modest as we are being led to believe and not wholesale, why should we remotely believe LM will be able to deliver anything different next term? It’s friggin depressing, I can’t get why you don’t see that?

The last 5 games we are top of the form table. That is remarkably different to the previous 5 games. We’ve just won 5-0 which wasn’t dross and nor was the Leicester game.  It’s up to you how you want to view it all.  Is it ideal? No. But I prefer to see the glimmers of hope than wallow and keep repeating the same stuff about top 6 squad etc. I work hard all week so prefer to try to find the positives in a football match, a string of results, a good 45 mins etc. 

[Bris Red]

9 minutes ago, FNQ said:

Thing is there’s nothing much different being dished up on the pitch week on week, we’re watching the same dross over and over and over again.. there’s nothing being offered by the club performance wise to change the narrative. And if the changes to the squad over the summer are modest as we are being led to believe and not wholesale, why should we remotely believe LM will be able to deliver anything different next term? It’s friggin depressing, I can’t get why you don’t see that?

Harsh, especially off the back of winning 5-0 at home (did we EVER batter a team at home like that under Pearson?) and solid albeit battling at time performances against Plymouth and Leicester.. 

I loved Pearson and was gutted to see him go as much as the next person but recent results and performances have given me hope that Manning can get things right. I've gone from fully wanting the bloke gone to being able to rationally look at it now and see small glimpses that he could be on to something.

Certainly not ideal though but it would be foolish to not remember that we were horrendously inconsistent under Pearson.

[luke_bristol]

10 minutes ago, Bris Red said:

Indeed. I would go even further to say that the board effectively wrote the season off in the summer by not giving Nige the proper funding that was clearly needed.

Manning has done enough (results wise at least) to be properly backed in the summer. Give him the tools that are needed and then we can properly judge IMO.

Agreed, the worst thing we can do is try to play safe and just give him pennies in case it doesn’t work out.

They should go all in Manning, but the board should stake their futures on him. If it’s a disaster then they should go as well.

 

E2A: I don’t think with the right backing he will be a disaster, but it’s far too cosy as it stands. 

Edited April 14 by luke_bristol

[redkev]

I like most give him the first 10-12 games to give us some sort of game plan ( which at the moment is giving us average to ok points return ) however the style of football really has to improve .

He needs a decent window and our business has to be done early , another big worry for me is that our so say ones for the future Bird / Murphy / Stokes are currently not even playing for there respective clubs , 2 injured and the other regularly on the bench atm 

[FNQ]

5 minutes ago, And Its Smith said:

The last 5 games we are top of the form table. That is remarkably different to the previous 5 games. We’ve just won 5-0 which wasn’t dross and nor was the Leicester game.  It’s up to you how you want to view it all.  Is it ideal? No. But I prefer to see the glimmers of hope than wallow and keep repeating the same stuff about top 6 squad etc. I work hard all week so prefer to try to find the positives in a football match, a string of results, a good 45 mins etc. 

We support the same club and ultimately want the same thing… however  the Sunderland game a few days before the extraordinary Blackburn game and yesterday a few days later were frankly very, very poor performances . Beating Swansea in another low quality game and Plymouth may have assisted putting us top of a form table.. but you can’t unsee the performances, people are entitled to be offside. We all want to see the green shoots that you mention, and I know I’m going over it again, but ironically that was exactly what a lot of the us were beginning to see at the start of this season and then for reasons most of us will never understand it all changed.

[And Its Smith]

4 minutes ago, FNQ said:

We support the same club and ultimately want the same thing… however  the Sunderland game a few days before the extraordinary Blackburn game and yesterday a few days later were frankly very, very poor performances . Beating Swansea in another low quality game and Plymouth may have assisted putting us top of a form table.. but you can’t unsee the performances, people are entitled to be offside. We all want to see the green shoots that you mention, and I know I’m going over it again, but ironically that was exactly what a lot of the us were beginning to see at the start of this season and then for reasons most of us will never understand it all changed.

Everyone will get over that at different points, I get that.  In this league nobody plays well every game and we are poor and draw then it’s not all bad is it.  Everyone needs next season to start well to help people move on and make this forum less of a shit show than it is at the moment 

[Sir Geoff]

37 minutes ago, Bris Red said:

Harsh, especially off the back of winning 5-0 at home (did we EVER batter a team at home like that under Pearson?) and solid albeit battling at time performances against Plymouth and Leicester.. 

I loved Pearson and was gutted to see him go as much as the next person but recent results and performances have given me hope that Manning can get things right. I've gone from fully wanting the bloke gone to being able to rationally look at it now and see small glimpses that he could be on to something.

Certainly not ideal though but it would be foolish to not remember that we were horrendously inconsistent under Pearson.

Beat Hull 5-0 weimann hat trick

Plymouth 4-1

[Shauntaylor85]

7 minutes ago, Sir Geoff said:

Beat Hull 5-0 weimann hat trick

Plymouth 4-1

Exactly this and those wins were both thrilling and we created numerous chances. Unlike the Blackburn game. 

46 minutes ago, Bris Red said:

Harsh, especially off the back of winning 5-0 at home (did we EVER batter a team at home like that under Pearson?) and solid albeit battling at time performances against Plymouth and Leicester.. 

I loved Pearson and was gutted to see him go as much as the next person but recent results and performances have given me hope that Manning can get things right. I've gone from fully wanting the bloke gone to being able to rationally look at it now and see small glimpses that he could be on to something.

Certainly not ideal though but it would be foolish to not remember that we were horrendously inconsistent under Pearson.

Performances and results? Are you joking? It’s been dire and scrappy! 

[Lack of Action Man]

10 hours ago, stokes7 said:

Season was written off in the January transfer window 

This 100%.
 

Signing players in the January window that won’t be available until the following season? Yeah, that really inspires the fan base that were a dynamic and ambitious club (not).

[mozo]

8 hours ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

So you don't think we could have beaten Huddersfield x2 +4 points

QPR x2 +5 points

Cardiff x2 +6 points

Without adequate investment? Beating just those 3 teams twice would now see us sitting comfortably in the play offs. 

I can list many other other games where we could and should have got more than we got. 

Whilst I think we should have signed 1-2 more in the summer, we have enough to have done better than we've got. 

Blaming it on 'investment' is just you doubling down. 

 

Yes, but every other team between ourselves and they playoffs also failed to win 6 games that they would hope to win, so they would like to rewrite history too. The reality is that football is not as simple as you win all the games you're supposed to win, unless you've got a superior (Premier League quality) team, which I think most of us agree, we do not.

Edited April 14 by mozo

[mozo]

58 minutes ago, Shauntaylor85 said:

Exactly this and those wins were both thrilling and we created numerous chances. Unlike the Blackburn game. 

Performances and results? Are you joking? It’s been dire and scrappy! 

We conceded numerous chances in the Plymouth 4-1, which we didn't in the Blackburn game (if we're applying your logic)

[pillred]

8 hours ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

Context.

This season was the season where everyone expected progression. 

We've regressed. 

Not as far as league position or points though, I think you are looking at the past through rose-tinted specs, I would on average say we are no better or worse than we were under Pearson. I see signs of improvement albeit yesterday was pretty disappointing, as I said to you in another post 5 games unbeaten 1 goal conceded I can't prove it but I bet that record under the previous manager would have you saying what a good job he was doing.

[Super]

2 hours ago, And Its Smith said:

The same stuff being posted over and over and over again! 

From the same people who only show when we don't win. Embarrassing 

[Super]

1 hour ago, Shauntaylor85 said:

Exactly this and those wins were both thrilling and we created numerous chances. Unlike the Blackburn game. 

Performances and results? Are you joking? It’s been dire and scrappy! 

Yes the battle for 17th place against Hull. Thrilling stuff

[Shauntaylor85]

7 minutes ago, Super said:

Yes the battle for 17th place against Hull. Thrilling stuff

With no money to spend. 

[Mr Popodopolous]

1 hour ago, Lack of Action Man said:

This 100%.
 

Signing players in the January window that won’t be available until the following season? Yeah, that really inspires the fan base that were a dynamic and ambitious club (not).

Tbh in the case of Bird, Derby were clearly driving a hard bargain and are past their existential financial crisis..buying and loaning back for half a season isn't altogether uncommon.

Stokes wouldn't be ready to step up this year, who knows if next year. Aldershot are National League aren't they?

Edited April 14 by Mr Popodopolous

[Shauntaylor85]

32 minutes ago, mozo said:

We conceded numerous chances in the Plymouth 4-1, which we didn't in the Blackburn game (if we're applying your logic)

Pearson is better than Manning, end of. No argument on this, Manning’s best achievement is the sack at MK Dons 

[Lack of Action Man]

Just now, Mr Popodopolous said:

Tbh in the case of Bird, Derby were clearly driving a hard bargain and are past their existential financial crisis..buying and loaning back for half a season isn't altogether uncommon.

Whether it is common or not, that type of transfer activity doesn’t inspire much confidence to the fans that the club are/were giving this season “a real go”. 
 

 

[Mr Popodopolous]

2 minutes ago, Lack of Action Man said:

Whether it is common or not, that type of transfer activity doesn’t inspire much confidence to the fans that the club are/were giving this season “a real go”. 
 

 

Next year could be a better go for it year in respect of who goes up, who comes down. FFP position seeing £28.5m pre tax loss drop off the cycle.

Anyway I would argue that if we didn't agree to it, Derby may have kept and looked to go to Tribunal in summer to settle fee. Stokes clearly wouldn't be ready right now.

I don't especially like it, NP never should've been sacked, he merited a new deal and 2 or 3 players perhaps in the Summer post Scott sale.

[Bris Red]

1 hour ago, Shauntaylor85 said:

Exactly this and those wins were both thrilling and we created numerous chances. Unlike the Blackburn game. 

Performances and results? Are you joking? It’s been dire and scrappy! 

Blackburn at Home was 'dire' was it? fair enough if you think it was but our definition of the word is obviously miles apart. Again Plymouth away was a hard fought victory where we were by far the better team for large periods and deservedly won. We got lucky against Leicester granted but we still won the game.

Look im by far the biggest fan of Manning and the absolute disgraceful way that Nige was treated but lets look objectively at recent results and give Manning some credit.

Edited April 14 by Bris Red

[reddogkev]

You say "well done the board (in jest)", but funny thing is we don't have a board!  It's just two men who know almost nothing about running a succesful club and an owner who doesn't seem to care anymore, even though his name's on the bloody biggest stand!

Personally I'd like to see a board made up with OTIB members, for me I'd go for Exiled Ajax,DaveF and Silvio Dante join the board, with Mr Pop running the finance side! Come on guys, make it happen!

[eardun]

2 hours ago, Shauntaylor85 said:

Yes I am being very serious and I note others on here have said the same. That Blackburn win was the least exciting 5.0 in the club history, we were average and gifted the game through error after error from them. Majority of second half was fall asleep mode. We’ve played much better this season like Stoke at home under Nige where we played them off the park and somehow lost. 

But I was commenting on your post that said the 5-0 win was “was almost as bad a performance as some of the others”. It was much better than most other performances under Manning and indeed better than most performances this season (even better than v Plymouth under Pearson I would argue given the chances we conceded in that game plus the team that Plymouth put out). Plus our own play forced errors - and indeed most goals scored involve some form of error from the opponent - so I don’t buy the argument that a goal that involves an error does not count. 

[Super]

23 minutes ago, Shauntaylor85 said:

Pearson is better than Manning, end of. No argument on this, Manning’s best achievement is the sack at MK Dons 

Pearson is gone move on ffs.

[Davefevs]

27 minutes ago, Super said:

Pearson is gone move on ffs.

I agree.

[Mendip City]

Here’s a thought…. When was the last truly meaningful league game we played? I really can’t think…. Wasn’t there a season under LJ where, in theory, we could have made the play-offs with a win and other results going our way? It’s just been season after season finished with dead-rubbers for the last couple of months. Not even a relegation battle! 

[W-S-M Seagull]

4 hours ago, Silvio Dante said:

To be fair, you highlight Cardiff there and one of the two losses was under Nige. We were on fumes that game so saying we could have been plus 3 points without investment from that game is bonkers - the exact problem is we didn’t have resource.

Start of the season I thought keep or adequately replace Scott we had a chance of top six - a punchers chance, but a chance. Not doing so made mid table my expectation. It’s a broader problem that I think we’ve regressed under Liam (and how that bodes for trajectory), but dispassionately he’s going to achieve what I pretty much expected without investment day one.

The fault in performance as ever lies with the board - both for not investing in the summer and for the statements/actions in October. Liam in no way gets a pass but I’d say he’s delivered (positionally) on realistic minimum expectations. Debate/discuss how likely it is he can progress (regress) us further or how he’s got us to those points - and that’s where his issues lie.

I must admit I wrote that post after a few beers and had completely forgot about the depleted team that faced Cardiff that day. 

But you can easily replace that Cardiff game with Blackburn away or Sheff Wed away and my point will still stand. 

We have no given right to win those games but going into those games at the time we all considered us to have enough to have beaten those teams. 

 

 

[RedorDead BCFC]

15 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

I agree.

Watching FBC podcast, you’re on a roll of agreeing today mate 

[Davefevs]

6 minutes ago, RedorDead BCFC said:

Watching FBC podcast, you’re on a roll of agreeing today mate 

That’s because they didn’t spend much time talking about the match!!!

[ashton_fan]

If we manage to stay in the top half this will be our best season since LJ left, so not quite so dismal as some making out, and that's after we sold our two best players from last season.

[TV Tom]

25 minutes ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

I must admit I wrote that post after a few beers and had completely forgot about the depleted team that faced Cardiff that day. 

But you can easily replace that Cardiff game with Blackburn away or Sheff Wed away and my point will still stand. 

We have no given right to win those games but going into those games at the time we all considered us to have enough to have beaten those teams. 

 

 

I suspect Leicester and Leeds fans were saying the same thing in the past 48 hours

[Davefevs]

8 minutes ago, ashton_fan said:

and that's after we sold our two best players from last season.

Two players who started just 10/46 league games together last season.

[W-S-M Seagull]

1 minute ago, TV Tom said:

I suspect Leicester and Leeds fans were saying the same thing in the past 48 hours

Stop deflecting. 

Hope you enjoyed my company yesterday. 

[mozo]

45 minutes ago, Shauntaylor85 said:

Pearson is better than Manning, end of. No argument on this, Manning’s best achievement is the sack at MK Dons 

Pearson is the first manager we'd had for donkey's years who had top flight experience, promotion success and tons of football common-sense, there's no disputing that.

Whether we would have picked up more points with Nige still here is a total mystery, however.

[ashton_fan]

32 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Two players who started just 10/46 league games together last season.

Scotty made 42 league appearances and Semenyo 23 so a significant number, your stat may be correct but gives a biased opinion on the effect those players had on the team

[Big C]

We finished 14th last season with 59 points. We are currently 12th with 58 points with 3 games left. Progression!

[W-S-M Seagull]

14 minutes ago, Big C said:

We finished 14th last season with 59 points. We are currently 12th with 58 points with 3 games left. Progression!

Is it? When the gap to the play offs has so far got wider? 

[Big C]

5 minutes ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

Is it? When the gap to the play offs has so far got wider? 

Yep, higher position and probably more points. 

[ExiledAjax]

3 minutes ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

Is it? When the gap to the play offs has so far got wider? 

I'd say yes.

The number of points achieved by the team in 6th is something outside of our control. Next season it could be 68, maybe one season it might be 75. I don't think it's the best yardstick to use to measure year on year progress.

What is in our control - so far as it can be when we play other teams who have their own ideas - is our own points tally.

That's probably going to very slightly improve on last season. So yeh it can be argued to be progress in terms of raw points output.

The more interesting discussion is around the reasons for that very slight improvement.

[W-S-M Seagull]

3 minutes ago, Big C said:

Yep, higher position and probably more points. 

 

2 minutes ago, ExiledAjax said:

I'd say yes.

The number of points achieved by the team in 6th is something outside of our control. Next season it could be 68, maybe one season it might be 75. I don't think it's the best yardstick to use to measure year on year progress.

What is in our control - so far as it can be when we play other teams who have their own ideas - is our own points tally.

That's probably going to very slightly improve on last season. So yeh it can be argued to be progress in terms of raw points output.

The more interesting discussion is around the reasons for that very slight improvement.

It's like saying Mercedes have got faster this year so thats progression. 

When the reality is Red Bull have got even faster. 

 

[ExiledAjax]

1 minute ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

It's like saying Mercedes have got faster this year so thats progression. 

When the reality is Red Bull have got even faster. 

But, to use your analogy, next season Red Bull may well be slower. 

So, if we just keep getting faster ourselves, then eventually one season, we'll be fast enough to beat them.

The average for 6th place is what about 73? So just concentrate on getting closer to that and we'll get our chance at some point.

[Big C]

9 minutes ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

 

It's like saying Mercedes have got faster this year so thats progression. 

When the reality is Red Bull have got even faster. 

 

Exactly Mercedes have got faster and progressed. 

We are not talking about other teams progression just City's

Edited April 14 by Big C

[MarcusX]

12 hours ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

So you don't think we could have beaten Huddersfield x2 +4 points

QPR x2 +5 points

Cardiff x2 +6 points

Without adequate investment? Beating just those 3 teams twice would now see us sitting comfortably in the play offs. 

I can list many other other games where we could and should have got more than we got. 

Whilst I think we should have signed 1-2 more in the summer, we have enough to have done better than we've got. 

Blaming it on 'investment' is just you doubling down. 

 

That’s not how football works, win one of those and everything else changes afterwards. It’s not as simple as you’ve made it.

[Davefevs]

1 hour ago, ashton_fan said:

Scotty made 42 league appearances and Semenyo 23 so a significant number, your stat may be correct but gives a biased opinion on the effect those players had on the team

It’s not biased, people are trying to give a view that we had BOTH Scott and Semenyo ALL last season as a comparison to this season.  The fact (a real one, not an opinion) is Antoine was injured early season, and left in January 2023.  At best we had Antoine for half a season.  All I’m adding is that they only started 10 league games together.  My opinion is that Antoine struggled for form when he came back, and that meant he started considerably less than the 23 he appeared in, so we did quite benefit from Antoine being at full tilt.  That’s all.

 

[cidercity1987]

2 hours ago, Mendip City said:

Here’s a thought…. When was the last truly meaningful league game we played? I really can’t think…. Wasn’t there a season under LJ where, in theory, we could have made the play-offs with a win and other results going our way? It’s just been season after season finished with dead-rubbers for the last couple of months. Not even a relegation battle! 

Truly meaningful, Birmingham and Millwall this season. We went into them in good form and on the cusp of the play offs. Failed to put them away and drifted down the table.

I had a feeling at the time our season might pan out more successfully if we'd managed to crack the top six and prove we could play against the low block

[Cov 77]

6 hours ago, Shauntaylor85 said:

Yes I am being very serious and I note others on here have said the same. That Blackburn win was the least exciting 5.0 in the club history, we were average and gifted the game through error after error from them. Majority of second half was fall asleep mode. We’ve played much better this season like Stoke at home under Nige where we played them off the park and somehow lost. 

God honestly you will say anything to justify your agenda , yes they made mistakes but we pressed them from the off excellently and took our chances , we were very good , inconsistency I will give you but behave 

[REDOXO]

15 hours ago, Shauntaylor85 said:

Real progress! Top six squad we were told! Progressive appointment….sorry a couple of scrappy results isn’t convincing me (and I include a 5.0 win in that which for me was almost as bad a performance as some of the others…gifted 5 goals and created little ourselves). Worried for next season, he will get the summer and first 10 games for me but I’m not convinced he is any better than LJ. 

I do see some signs of progress with the Manning way…Sometimes. 
 

However yesterday was rubbish and I do share your misgivings about Blackburn. They were utter nonsense all over the park. Yes we pressured them but honestly they were so garbage their manager hooked four off at ht. Everything you need to know right there. 
 

Where we have real signs of progress is consistent clean sheets. However is that progress from the beginning of the Manning era or across the season? 
 

Mr Manning is facing his first proper injury crisis, however the week Lansdown junior and Tinnion sacked Pearson we had seven (7) U18/U21s in the squad. 

I’ll take a point at home against second bottom if I have to but I’m not down wiv the cult of Liam quite yet.

Hopefully  will be one day!

[Northern Red]

Fair play, I didnt think "only beat West Ham because they had a man sent off" and "only beat Southampton because Downes was missing" could be topped for idiocy, but the OP has managed it.

Tedious waste of bandwidth, and now going on ignore.