Sheaf Saint

Just checked and that's our biggest league win since we won by the same scoreline at Sunderland a couple of weeks before the EFL Cup final - nearly 7 years ago!

You could argue he was a bit lucky that his failure to hold the shot from the free kick didn't present a clear chance to the onrushing attacker, but he recovered well and got away with it. Overall a good game though.

This is the crux. Russball is all about being patient in possession until gaps appear, rather than taking unnecessary risks and losing the ball. The quality of the opposition defence obviously plays a large part in how successful that is. In the games where we've appeared to be more front-footed (Leeds, Birmingham, Cardiff, Blackburn), the way I see it is they were just more accommodating/naive in allowing us those gaps to play into. Other teams have been more savvy and restricted those opportunities, which then makes it look like we're not playing with the same intensity and results in a frustrating performance where we're not able to convert our dominance in possession into clear cut chances/goals.

I imagine that Russ, like most football managers, won't care a jot what other teams' fans think of him. He's shown that he's stubborn enough to stick to his own philosophy regardless of the opinions of his own fans, let alone others. He's out to try and win games and promotion, not a popularity contest.

OK, hatred was the wrong word. There's definitely an undercurrent of negativity towards him from some quarters though. He's a young lad who's only been this side of the world for less than a year, and he's still very much a work in progress. I thought he played very well today, if we can forgive that horrific penalty attempt. Like Mara, there is definitely still more to come from him.

14 games unbeaten, 5 home wins in a row, and we're STILL 10 points off second.

Nice one Charly! Really don't get the hatred for him.

Leeds v Cov has finished 1-1 Watford have won 5-1 away at Preston!

It would have done, yeah.

Really? Penalty miss aside, I think he's done well since he came on.

Stu's best game for us in a very long time, probably since before he had Covid that seemed to knock the stuffing out of him. MOTM for me.

I'm never comfortable with triple subs cos more often than not they just disrupt the balance of the team. But surely with a 2-0 lead against 10 men we can't fuck this up, can we? Good to see Stephens back.

It should be, but when was the last time we won against 10 men?

Aw man, my stream froze. What happened for the red card?

I just really hope we don't try and sit on this lead now, cos that never works.

Shocking refereeing. Absolute stonewall penalty. Who's still missing VAR?

Looks like we already have.

Well that's weird. My stream froze for a moment and then when it restarted I had the Blackburn comms team, and now it's back to Deano.

I think he plays for Blackbone

You can say that again.

what is fx trading? how to invest in forex? - Enjoy HD (hdenjoy.xyz) Ignore what it says in the link. It's a decent stream, and is usually very reliable.

I just hope he has a cracker of a game.

Russ has seen sense and dropped Manning then. Thank fuck for that. Serious question marks were emerging over his judgement about that.

Another hugely frustrating game that was there for the taking. Far too slow and ponderous in our attacking build up, as usual. When we did create chances, AA had an off-night. We miss Downes. Midfield looks much less organised without him. I can't for the life of me work out why Bree was dropped for Manning, who is a very poor defender.