Ted Bates Statue

Sat in the Chapel for the first time this season and although Derby were noisy next to me throughout, I thought the rest of the stadium was quiet beyond the 20 or 30 supporters trying to make some noise in my block. I did suspect the wind might have been affecting what could be heard at the other end of the ground, so I'm glad your post confirmed my theory as it would be a shame for the atmosphere to fall flat after the excitement we've had of beating Arsenal and finally climbing into the playoff places.

I reckon he was good for us overall, but eventually everyone had enough of the constant trumpeting of his own achievements combined with the bullshit over signings via friendly journalists. It got to the point where being quoted as "relaxed" about a key contract situation meant the individual, whether it be Virgil or Koeman was probably on his way out. Things really did start to go wrong on the playing side when Gao took over in summer 2017 but surely if Reed was struggling with getting permissions from Gao later he would have GTFO before the shit hit the fan or given one of his journo pals a juicy story. Also, Martin Semmens is on record after saying Gao was a silent owner who left him to it. So did things change, or is Reed making excuses knowing that Gao isn't going to pop up and correct the record? I think Reed has misremembered some aspects, e.g. Coutinho's potential transfer fee - maybe try £5M rather than £0.5M, and a lot of people are latching onto the Adkins decision but I always suspected it might have been made around November as he says. The key aspect is that very few people would have known before the trigger was pulled publically and to bring in Poch. The black box finally debunked. Also, funny how signings tended to be heavily based around players the managers knew well. All in all, I see him a bit like Lowe - someone who did plenty of good for the club but so obviously obsessed with PR to the point that it tarnishes the individual and if anything only serves to highlight the negative aspects of their times at the club. I will never forget this gem:

I've been very doom and gloom on the last couple of occasions that I've provided updates so it's only fair that I acknowledge that after matchday 38 against Norwich, in achieving 60 points we managed to draw level with the 2006/07 points tally at the same stage. https://www.11v11.com/league-tables/league-championship/14-march-2007/ https://www.11v11.com/league-tables/league-championship/18-march-2026/ Following Tuesday's match against Wrexham, we pulled ahead by 3 points. This possibly says more about our patchy form 19 years ago, when we had a very ropey March, where out of five matches we won just the once: the 0-6 demolition of Wolves featuring Marek Saganowski's hat-trick. I didn't want to jinx the match against Derby by posting this early so held off until after we beat them... so as of today, we're up to 69 points after 41 matches and we remain ahead of the 06-07 season by 3 points and I feel reasonably confident that we'll beat 75 points. With 5 matches remaining, back then we lost against Birmingham City and Sunderland who went up automatically, and had to beat Norwich, and the already-relegated Leeds and Southend to earn 6th place ahead of Preston and Stoke. https://www.11v11.com/league-tables/league-championship/07-april-2007/ https://www.11v11.com/league-tables/league-championship/12-april-2026/ On a final note, didn't expect there would be much comparison worth noting from the 11-12 season but we're just 10 points off at the same stage and as our record then was also W3 L2 for the remaining games, we could well end up finishing closer to that season's total than we might have expected.

I think we can definitely be cut some slack for the last few strikers we've signed. Larin follows illustrious names like Mara, Archer, Brereton, Downs... based on that and the glowing references from Larin's recent clubs, nobody was expecting Sports Republic to sign a decent striker. It's not just our fan base either. Bristol City were vociferously singing "Struber's Cider Army" until about ten minutes into their match against Charlton when they took the lead, when it became "Hodgson's Cider Army". All part of the fun. It's nice to be riding the crest of a wave for once in a long time... let's enjoy it!

yes, and Wrexham can stick it in their documentary

Come on, at least wait for us to be 4 or 5 up before making bold claims like that

That's an awful turn of events for anyone let alone a young lad, hope you manage to sort tickets and then it's up to Tonda to complete the job and put a smile back on his face

Leeds take the lead against West Ham. Just a thought, but if we do get to play the winner of this tie, Russell Martin managed to get the better of Farke on three occasions. On that basis, I would fancy Tonda Eckert's chances.

Thanks, I'll make sure to download this as an mp3 for my collection If anyone is able to do the same for the video that would be appreciated.

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.