Gloucester Saint

They have a lot to prove, not least to Will Still, let alone us, and have backed themselves into a very tight corner time-wise. Hope they aren’t fixed on getting their 8 hours sleep every night - needs to be 5-6 incomings and 8-9 outgoings one way or another, hopefully more on the outgoings even if the club has the pay most or all of the wages to get them out of the environment for 12 months.

Onachu didn’t want to play in the Championship and wasn’t a Still player at all. Although not sure who would be today? Big wages. But, yes 💯 agree on Downs, seemed a very odd signing in the context of only needing players who would be natural starters this season in ability. Ditto Quarshie although his recovery pace is at least one point of difference.

It’s getting the balance and the context. Downs and Quarshie are the type of signings you make as a gamble post-parachute payments to a solid but uninspired Championship core if you stay down. You never add them as gambles to make a few quid on top of a large and hugely failed squad. It is basic business common sense. Lowe signed Morgan in 08/09 - didn’t stop us going bust and down, but he was a young and inexpensive asset to build on. That’s not where we are yet, although the next week will tell us if we are heading there again. We need another 5-6 like the Brentford right back, probably a blend of loans and permanents, who start the next league game. Some of the forward players with PTSD from last season need to go out in loan with us paying nearly all of the wages for their sake as much as ours - BBD, possibly AA, perhaps Stewart.

Stoke are quite lively away, saw a documentary years ago where they were playing at the City Ground and the police were kettling them into a pub. Their ‘Naughty Forty’ tried to ignite the pub. The camera crew were quite shocked but the football intelligence officer shrugged and said ‘they try this regularly’. Their rendition of Delilah is marvellous. But it does sound like the atmosphere is turning sour again at home games like 2007-9 did and the club had really better make sure they win the Pompey game or it really will turn toxic and unpleasant.

My guess is sub-20 starts and 3 goals this season.

Downs - early days but his first touch is even worse than Carlton Palmer’s. Which I didn’t think was possible in the major top two divisions. Stewart - remind me of his fitness record again? And he’s only started THIRTEEN games at this level.

Back to the bad days of 08/09, that happened several times notably in the Doncaster home game where proper punches were traded. Football is never worth getting to that stage of disagreement about but SR’s player trading-driven model where the profits on individual transactions trump the health of the club and what is on the pitch was always going to be highly divisive. Unfortunately, there is always supporters who defend the club blindly and others who become too confrontationsl and water/electricity meets.

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It’s the same for Dibling, was for Lavia and will be for Fernandes too. Can’t wait until SR and the last vestiges of the Semmens era are wholesale gone out of the club and happy to drop down the leagues again to achieve that. The club having a heart and soul, even a pulse, is worth more than anything,

100% this. If next week doesn’t go really well with 4-5 starting players coming in and we lose at home to Pompey, that’s it for SR and probably Still as well. Pity there’s the cup game in the way really.

Yes, 100%. We needed new signings who were better than what was already there in a very large squad and they haven’t been. The right back is much more the type of signing needed, eg ready to come in. The two cheap projects from Germany are not what was required. You can tell Still is getting frustrated too.

Charlie Taylor staying then.

He needs resting when he comes out of the oven. The potatoes and veg are coming on nicely though.

In which case he needs to be video calling Spors early tomorrow to say ‘what is the progress in the new additions in the positions Will has asked for? Are they going to land before the close of the window?’ The reality is high fives about the Dibling sale and Fernandes one to come. Don’t think they are remotely interested on the SR board about performances or squad cohesion.

Same lack of any on-pitch awareness, but an even worse first touch. If you were a fellow player, you would sigh if either appeared on a team sheet, even on the bench.

Needs to be far more than one or two. Must be a pipeline really.

Very likely looking at the player’s career journey. Which begs the question - what IS Spors doing? I wondered with that picture of them last season whether Rasmus might play politics and push Johannes out of direct communication with Dragan, very slippery customer.

Not a year for balancing the books, need to spend right up to what PSR allows to the last penny. Rotten decisions need writing off in businesses.

Still tries to evade the question but fails, and the understandable frustration with Spors and Solak comes out. Neither of Spors’s 99p Bundesliga 2 specials started today or have looked any good for a so-called promotion chasing side.

Read between the lines in his comments on today ‘this is what we need and how long it is taking’.

Bit late for that now old bean unless they really pull it out of the bag this week and the starting line-up looks radically different.

In which case he is really is on shaky ground. Still sounded quite irritated just now about the shocking lack of progress on incomings for wide players and 10s. Wouldn’t be surprised if he walked shortly. His stock is relatively high, the club’s is not. Wouldn’t blame him either. If Ankerson is in charge of sales, that would explain why they been so turgid after the early Sulemana success (from his own recruitment fuck up). Rasmus will have a good old naked wank in the mirror about the Dibling fee though. Several TEDTalks from that. Fraud.

He is NOT happy with Johannes Spors. That sounds like someone who might walk before the derby if Spors and Solak don’t pull their fingers out this week.

Watch the Wrexham game back. Should score the rebound from Robinson hitting the post, and had another 3-4 very good chances where the keeper isn’t worked. Today, not sitters like the Wrexham game but should still be on target. Granted, he looks world class compared to fucking Downs and Stewart.

AA new contract was Martin’s doing, and we can see from Rangers what that looks like (again). Downs - to me, that has to be a dismissal of the scout who recommended him, or Spors if it was his doing. Might as well do a KLF and burn £8m on a Scottish island. Can’t hold up, can’t control a football, can’t run, can’t head it, and can’t kick it. As someone else observed, the players don’t want to pass to him either as he’s clearly no better in training. Needs to be told on Monday he’s being loaned out to League 1 or 2 to get some experience and Dragan will have bail Spors out on the wages. Plymouth and Cheltenham urgently need strikers for example and will take him on if he isn’t costing them much. AA has done it for us before but he’s not a striker through the middle. How many fucking times do managers need to be told this by the fans? You’re the professionals FFS. BBD - subsidised loan, confidence totally gone. Needs a new environment.