Ted Bates Statue

In comparison, Jack Stephens got sent off for basically stroking Cucurella's hair

Usually someone like @supertadic21 would have given us an idea of what it's going to be, first time in a while it looks like we have no hints at this stage. Anyone?

Not another thread about the women's team FFS

That's a shame, I was thinking of buying a couple of memberships and then at least clawing back some discount

Somehow you managed to choose the sole known instance of Russell Martin doing his homework... the playoff semifinal v West Brom

In fairness, most people on here were suggesting very early into the 23-24 season that even if we were to achieve promotion, we'd go straight down if we were to attempt the same tactics in the PL.

I'd argue that both punishments of low fines or points deductions in recent seasons send out the same message to ask forgiveness later and cut as many corners as you like to achieve your aims. According to the BBC, Boehly cut £150M from the purchase price to deal with the fallout from all this which tells you how softly Chelsea's wrist has been slapped here. Compare and contrast to when Luton got hit with a -10 points penalty by the FA for a total -30 to send them into the Conference despite a new ownership that was entirely innocent of any wrongdoing - and blew the whistle on themselves. I don't really know enough exactly what Chelsea have done but wonder what the equivalent penalty would be. If the powers that be were serious about stamping down on infractions or selling training grounds and women's teams to themselves, they would just do it. Just need the Man City icing on the cake now to devalue the competition further. Edit - looks like someone did the maths already:

With a bit more context, what he says actually makes some sense. He's obviously on the job hunt again and he might well end up convincing someone else to hire him as their manager... before proceeding to blithely ignore all the so-called "lessons learned" as soon as he's appointed: I think this is the closest you'd ever get to an admission that he should have toned down Martin-ball.

On the basis of this showing, fair play to Rob Edwards for turning AA into a PL goal-scoring threat. Not just talking about the goal itself but also the effort which ends up hitting the post. As others have said, looks like it was a win-win for everyone involved but I think it's a shame we never got to see this player performing like this in the prem.

"Closely monitoring..." In January he was in danger of getting sacked before the end of the season.

Agreed, our forwards aren't clinical enough. Yesterday gave us the perfect result without giving everyone cause to be over-optimistic. There is definitely room for improvement up front.

I don't wish to be a killjoy, but on multiple occasions I have heard us en masse singing that we are by far the greatest team the world has ever seen. Despite joining in enthusiastically whenever I'm there, I'm not entirely sure there's any truth in the statement.

Roerslev was not premier league standard when we signed him and on the basis of his performances prior to his injury, not Championship standard either.

While appreciating our good form as we attempt to salvage something out of our season, it's been posted on Twitter that THB is Sports Republic's top scoring signing, as the first player to reach ten goals. Slightly more encouragingly, Finn Azaz is currently on nine, and hopefully Larin/Stewart can get their shooting boots on as it would be nice of them to help out our goal-scoring defenders with a few to secure a spot in the playoffs.

Wolves supporters online seem pretty happy with him. Looks like it turning out as a rare win-win deal for both clubs

The trouble is how the teams that we need to overhaul are still very closely matching our form since Tonda started managing us. Beat Wrexham at the Racecourse Ground and it could be the defining moment of our turnaround, but that is the must-win for me (along with all the other must-win matches). Otherwise we're hoping for Millwall/Hull/Wrexham to shoot themselves in the foot like Stoke did in 06-07. https://www.twtd.co.uk/league-tables/competition:championship/form/matches:21/type:home-and-away/ This season is a great opportunity to get promotion as every team has been dropping points and the totals required will end up being lower than normal, trouble is I think we left it slightly too late to really capitalise.

That was meant to be my punchline

Behind every great manager is a great backroom staff. Who is their DoF anyway and CHDAJFU?

Yes, think I was being a bit hopeful. There's very little leeway to drop points now as we would need to get about 9 wins from 13 and possibly draw the other 4. More likely to anticipate that others would start dropping off, but we've only gained one point over Wrexham in the last 20 matches, and after yesterday it's hard to argue against Wrexham finishing above us.

It is not over FFS. Nobody really thought we would win all our games. There are going to be speed bumps, just as Wrexham had theirs on Tuedsay. We're still in decent overall form to reach about 75 points. We just need to be there or thereabouts for now picking up wins regularly, and then turn it up for the six-pointers when it really matters during the end of season run-in. For what it's worth, I think we will get undone by injuries (some might say we already have been) and we'll end up 7th or 8th. But this is a damn sight more bearable than 21st under Still at the beginning of November.

Bit of understatement. More likely that only a couple of starters from Tuesday's match will also start this game.

I like your way of thinking. In addition, it probably helps that a lot of the teams we're competing have to play each other and they will drop points too. In this part of the table teams aren't going to show a relentlessness similar to Huddersfield in 09-10. As long as we get around 10 wins we should be there or thereabouts and other teams will fall away gradually. The trouble is whether we can set the pace and avoid pratfalls and banana skins against teams we should be beating.

My stance on this is we are still 14th. Not even top half yet. But let's have a bit of fun and dream. So what would our route into the play-offs look like? ok we are currently still last in our mini-league of 9. But we've beaten Stoke and Watford in the last week so that's a good start. We have five more six-pointers starting with QPR coming up soon. The next four come in our last six matches of the season: Wrexham, Derby, Bristol City and finally Preston away on the last day. I'd say all are must-wins but Wrexham away is the biggest as it stands and we've only gained one point on them since Tonda's appointment. We have eight fixtures remaining against the current bottom nine sides. The bottom five - West Brom, Leicester, Blackburn, Oxford, Wednesday should all be beatable although sides like these can always spring results towards the end of the season, especially if they have a sniff of survival. We're not great away so I could see us dropping points against West Brom and Swansea. Norwich have also been in very good form since Clement took over. Apart from that, Coventry and Ipswich would be bonuses, confidence-boosters if we get results off them especially if they fail to secure automatic promotion and we face them in the play-offs. So to summarise, there are five specific fixtures that I'd consider to be must-wins, and then beat a good proportion of the lower-table sides to get around 30-35 points and get into the top 6, by winning 5 of the last 7 as we did in 06-07. It's a lot to ask as I think we're about 7 points behind where we need to be right now. We could easily draw a few, lose a couple, some first XI injuries in a long season and suddenly it's season over before the end of April. We are in decent form and with a settled side, let's see about getting into the top ten first and see where things take us.

I make it 4th, equal with Cov. I'm pleasantly surprised though and our new back five gives me encouragement that we can have a good end to the season, even if I think we're ultimately too far back to reach the playoffs. https://www.twtd.co.uk/league-tables/competition:championship/daterange/fromdate:2025-Nov-03/todate:2026-Feb-10/type:home-and-away/