Stud mark of doom

That’s the second reference to shearers debut against Chelsea - surely it was against Arsenal when he scored a hat-trick? (Or is it a came on as sub/full debut thing) I think on the stream they said the last double against Chelsea was in the season he made his debut. anyway - great result!!

I wonder if Leeds might have taken an unexpected firm stance on the wording of their contract, with a view to making it financially unattractive for Marsch to take over (at one of their relegation rivals)? Otherwise, it does seem odd that this would only have been thought about at the 11th hour.

Agreed - very sad and a great place for fantastic beer pre match. is there anywhere else near the ground that is even close to being as good? In contrast, the official SFC ale remains the worst beer I’ve ever tasted!

Oh when the saints go Marschin’ in…

Isn’t the whole moneyball thing all about getting some metrics to measure performance which enable you to find some unappreciated talents everyone is missing. Of course, it does rather depend on getting the right metrics. On managers, it looks like they might have failed to include some crucial aspects such as something to measure - ability to motivate and inspire premiership level players - basic post match interview performance not leading to further alienating players and fans

If only Dyche had been available when we were looking for a new manager…..

Bree?

21 for me - funny enough I either knew them or had virtually no recollection of them. Far fewer “I can’t quite remember his name” than I was expecting.

Wasn’t the JWP Saha thing before the red - actually leading to the red - which is all part of the game and probably related to a weakness identified in Saha, whereas the Murphy incident was after the card was shown and the player was leaving the field?

Barry Manolo Gabbiadini

Weird decision to start a thread on this - I thought he did pretty well today. Most of the team played well and he did too.

Jones now 6th favourite for the chop - joint with Klopp. corner well and truly turned.

One of only two star players I can remember us actually holding on to through a transfer window - the other being VVD. Needless to say Bale was brilliant until he actually left, and almost helped us up.

Tbf it was covering the last 2 games - the first of which was possibly the worst performance since the Branfoot days. I thought the tone was about right.

I think generally when that type of goal goes in, one of the attackers almost gets something on it. We had no-one near it!

A couple of things came back to me as I watched the latest instalment of our slow motion car crash last night. 1) something looked up even before we kicked off against Lincoln. I couldn’t really put my finger on it but perhaps there was not the usual well drilled prep going on on the pitch. It looked like the players were just milling about and not getting the expected instruction from the training bods. No organised routines. It had a touch of a Sunday league pre match atmosphere about it. 2) in one of the interviews at the time of restart Jones made a big play of having “done is homework” by watching 5 (maybe it was 6) of our previous matches on video. I’m not familiar with professional sport but this was after a 5 week break and my thought was - surely he should not have only watched every single game, but also with colleagues done quite a lot of analysis on all that play. The Premier league is about eking out that 1pc advantage over highly competitive opponents. This guy has to go asap.

Amazing- other than Ings (and, of course, the manager) I might stick my neck out and say that on paper that side looks weaker than our side last night. Such a pity the moneyball geniuses running the club forgot that scoring goals is quite important.

On this day two years ago we were involved in another 1-0 home fixture. We beat Liverpool 1-0 with an early goal. We were also 4 point adrift - but of first place rather than safety. Mismanagement of the highest order. Nice light show though.

Really worrying. Are there any managers with a track record of keeping a threadbare squad up? Let’s not rule anyone out. Premiership experience essential. Have to have done it three or four times recently.

He’s done the right thing, moving from a team packed full of superstars, at Saints, to one further down the league where he might get some game time.

Thanks

What’s happened to the new big screens we bought for the start of last season? last I heard they needed to do repair work as it had rained on the roof since the stadium was built, so they missed the target of the start of last season. But still no sign of them yesterday.

All five of the new signings look good and possibly significant improvements. After years of more epic fails than hits in the transfer market that’s a real step in the right direction, both immediately and with the prospect of future transfer window choices. If we had started with those five playing we’d have strolled it. Ralph cost us 2 points with that team selection.

I agree Rory wasn’t a record signing sort of player - but that was more to do with our spending rather than any problem on his part. It was pretty much the going rate for a solid reasonable proven premiership player who still had age on his side. Exactly the sort of player we rarely sign because they are too expensive for us. I think we got what we paid for. Probably doesn’t even come close to any list of our worst record signings.

Big Lawrie used to say a good team was made up of the right mix of “roadsweepers and lead violinists”. Shane falls in the first category, but is one of the best.