Ted Bates Statue

According to @Pilchards Ankerson has always been keen on Carrick, or at least he was a couple of years ago when we were looking to replace Nathan Jones. Wonder if that will put everyone here off Carrick now 🤣

KO at 2pm today.

I think it's a lot easier to fake a muscle injury or the like as opposed to some kind of sickness, so it probably is legit on this occasion. That said, of them certainly should feel sick after yesterday

I told myself I'd hold off a comparison until we passed the quarter-season point. The time has now come but I'm not doing a game-by-game comparison. Instead, here are our performances in comparable EFL Championship seasons after 12 games. 2005-06 17 points (W3 D8 L1) 2007-08 16 points (W5 D1 L6) 2008-09 12 points (W3 D3 L6) 2012-13 26 points (W8 D2 L2) 2023-24 20 points (W6 D2 L4) 2025-26 12 points (W2 D6 L4) Repeating Lowe's Dutch Total Football points tally with a mega budget was not on my bingo list this season. Before the match I was expecting we would be on 13 points, embarrassing either way, but Still is far from the only scapegoat for this fiasco. It's Sport Republic that I'm really losing confidence in. Silver lining, at least Minsk doesn't have to put up with this nonsense any more.

Hate to say it, but I think our unbeaten run is about to come to an end.

Well, he knows that his former assistant is no longer interested...

Thought he had a stand-out performance in the derby, and not in a good way. I got the impression from Brentford supporters that he was seen as a bit of a weak link towards the end of his time there, only getting on the pitch when better players were out injured. Too bad we let James Bree leave to accommodate him.

It's not like Maccabi supporters to engage in antics like this. I reckon this has been engineered by Brummies infiltrating Tel Aviv to give those poor innocent Maccabi fans a bad name.

I mostly agree with you except here. We're still left with a heavily bloated squad and having to completely sideline players like Aribo and Edozie is ridiculous for a team in the EFL. For me it's a warning sign that we're not being run properly, and that's before we consider that our biggest goal threat in Ross Stewart is out injured again.

I don't quite understand it really. In 2005-06 our average attendance was 23k. We only had one attendance above 30k, against Leeds when we lost 3-4. Even under Adkins our league average was 26k. How is it that we are so accepting as a fanbase? Blind loyalty or a sign of changing demographics?

I was thinking there already was, and then I realised you were talking about Palestinian bodies... this aspect has been very much kept quiet. The tank method sounds a bit Tiananmen Square. Similar bizarre attitudes over Maccabi fans getting banned from Aston Villa following their actions in Amsterdam last year. For all the instances over the years that a team's support gets punished due to hooliganism, it's only on this occasion that both our PM and Leader of the Opposition choose to weigh in and say they should be allowed to attend regardless of their past actions. Nobody really bats an eye over bans for 'tragedy chanting' so I'm amazed at the level of support for teams from a certain country to be allowed to do it.

In his defence, nobody won or lost games on the basis of their press conferences. Apart from the odd snippet of interest, it's literally a pointless exercise.

On the face of it, it's a baffling story, so this must be the sound of him and his agent activating the Alderweireld ejector seat button. "who gives a shit if Saints are interested, find me a better club to sign a contract with"

You could say that again. Reims aren't in Ligue 1 this season. I clearly meant to refer to Lens - shame you were totally incapable of reading between the lines. I look forward to my propaganda being dredged up and mocked in a few months' time, because it would mean that we'd be doing well. In the meantime, forgive some of us for expressing an opinion on a poxy corner of the internet. It's not as if Sport Republic is listening to us anyway.

That Wednesday team was essentially a League One side and he got them into top half as a basket-case club. If he goes to Rangers and sorts them out, it'll be a bit tragic for us given we've known about him for donkey's years but always gone for other options instead. The timing might not have been quite right this summer but this season is beginning to feel like a missed opportunity for us as we drift in mid-table. I don't really know what is so special about what Will Still achievements with the sides that he managed in France. His points average for both clubs over there is below 1.5 points a game, a trend which is continuing with us. At Reims he was apparently given decent funds to compete to qualify for Europe and he fell short. To compare with other managers in our history, I'd had next to zero knowledge of Adkins or Martin but putting aside any of their eventual shortcomings, the logic was clear that both had done well at their previous clubs and this translated into some degree of success for us. As a club, I accept that we are never going to compete at the top level without getting the most out of our limitations. I find it incredibly ironic that it still rings true despite being several years into the SR era where we have thrown away money like never before, in lame attempts to make our problems go away.