trousers

Wouldn't it be cleverer to ignore the sub-intellectual pond life rather than respond in the way they want you to....?

Yes.... obviously....

I don't think you'll get too many people disagreeing with that synopsis FF. Over the next c.5 years it wouldn't surprise me if we evolve into another QPR/Reading/Stoke/West Brom/Middlesboro kinda club.... i.e. spending most of our time as a mid-table Championship side, occasionally flirting with promotion in good years and likewise relegation in not so good years. The one silver lining is that I don't think we'll end up as woeful as that tinpot outfit down the road.... (famous last words...!)

I'm not sure I would label the anecdotal feedback of one supporter "proof" per se. I remember there were plenty of Pompey fans that were waxing lyrical about him and sorry to see him go (wasn't Bazunu their player of the season or did I imagine that...?) I'm not writing this to defend Bazunu - he has obvious flaws - but its a fair leap of logic to equate one piece of fan feedback to us doing "zero scouting" on him. All that said, you could well be right (that Shields brought him in without any second opinion/peer review), I'm just saying that we don't have any tangible proof of that, just anecdotal 'evidence'.

## whisper ## Please sign a clinical centre forward... Pass it on. Sssshhhhhhh

Brother

That last 5 years flew by... Only seems like a few weeks ago....

Just sign a clinical striker FFS (Can't remember if I've come up with this earth-shattering idea before, so apologies for any repetition)

I've been highlighting this for years. It seems we're the only team in the land that doesn't hound the ref over debatable decisions. Name another team that doesn't do this? I'm not saying I like it... In fact, quite the opposite - I wish refs would book every player who confronts him (other than the captains who are the only players on the pitch entitled to do so?) - but given every team does it, why not us? I do have a vague memory of Ralph saying once upon a time that he doesn't like his players confronting the referee and explicitly instructed them not to do so. However, you'd have thought Jones would be the type of manager to instill the opposite behaviour in is players given I believe he's intimated that he wants to make us a more 'nastier' side? Maybe being 'too nice' is so engrained in our players' behaviour that they can't easily change? I also appreciate there's an argument which says that getting in the refs face doesn't actually influence their decision making nor alter the course of the game, but given the refs are human (well, most of them...) I would argue that they are open to persuasion, subconsciously or otherwise.

If we'd have taken all of our chances this season we'd be top 6...

FFS Ferdinand... Shut the f*** up... You haven't a clue how VAR is supposed to work.

Nutshell 👍

Yep, a manager who's almost as predictable as some posters on here...

Looked decent tonight I thought

Largely anonymous unfortunately

Dear Sport Republic, Buy. A. Clinical. Striker. FFS. That is all. Thanks, Trousers (Lord)

Perfect result. Last thing we wanted was Newcastle needing to come out on the front foot at SJP....

Both VAR decisions correct IMO

Bugger. Defo handball

Gooooaaaallll!

There's the Newcastle goal we need so that they get complacent in the second leg...

Yep, we definitely don't need a clinical goalscorer this window....

Good to see us mixing up the corner takers though.

A Che Adams special there from Joelinton

FFS. Sky still banging on about the disallowed goal.