Midfield_General

Brilliant finish Azaz 1-0

Manning gets done, got lucky there

It’s not just the red and white vs pink that clashes - both sides are wearing dark shorts as well. Weird decision.

Is it just my eyes or is it quite hard to tell the teams apart? Edit: Not just me then

Honour the glory days of the 80s with a triumvirate of Gary Coleman, Mr T and ALF.

His record (including cup games in brackets) is W W W W L W W L D L D D L (W) L W D W W W (W) D. So putting performances aside and focusing purely on the nitty gritty of results, with a priority given to league results, his form table so far is basically an incredible start, a very poor middle, and now really gathering momentum again. All in all, in the simple terms of games won vs. games played, he's done pretty well. However the argument will continue as to whether with the players and resources we have at our disposal at this level, he should still have done better. Or, whether another realistic managerial appointment would have done better. I'm doing a @trousers at the moment and am on the fence. We've just been very inconsistent and streaky. Great one game, rubbish the next and almost impossible to predict which version will turn up. If he can find a way to grind out some consistency for the run-in and keep this current momentum going, then it could look like a pretty impressive record for a first job by the end of the season, but I'm reserving judgement until then. Or he could just go and win the Cup in which case who cares, he's an instant legend.

Poo Stain Knob End

Leicester a goal down after four minutes Strollin' Joe on the bench They are bang in trouble

Schmeichel having a complete Baz against Stuttgart in the week:

Wow, they've really turned on him. I thought he might have a bit more credit in the bank after doing very well to get them promoted last season, but it would appear that as well as the poor results they have also grown sick of his antics and demeanour in the way that everyone does sooner or later. To the point that some on that thread seem keen on the idea of replacing him with Martin - that's the only fanbase I've seen that doesn't just reject the idea of him out of hand. Not sure his ego would allow him to take over there though, as he probably thinks he's still a level above Charlton, and to be fair to him he's probably right. Now the Leicester job's taken (for the next six months at least), I think he'll pitch up at West Brom eventually, if he doesn't go abroad.

Absolutely priceless. There is a scenario here where if they just accepted the 6 point deduction (that was generally thought, not least by their own fans, to be pretty lenient) they could stay up at the end of the season. But now they are appealing, they could lose the appeal, the deduction could get increased and they could get relegated as a direct consequence of not just shutting up and taking the original soft punishment. Appealing it is such a mad, high-risk, high-stakes gamble. If it was any other club I'd think that they've probably got something in their back pocket which means they are confident of winning the appeal, but with them, I think it's more likely just to be a fit of pique from their nepo baby owner who's never been stood up to by anyone in his life and simply can't handle it. Then separately, the Premier League have also now said they're not happy that the six point deduction was sufficient, and they want at least one more point taken off. So they are appealing as well. Popcorn at the ready, this is going to be interesting

Excellent. I accept. My first act will be to abolish any future democratic processes, eliminate all potential rivals, install myself as dictator Supreme Glorious Leader of the FAB, establish a reign of terror that will last a thousand years, and run a feasibility study for a limited trial of pre-poured drinks at half time at the Chapel end Now kneel before your God or I'll have you shot

Can we have a vote on here for the poster who we would most like to represent us on the FAB? Then once we've held our primaries and have got our nomination, we can go all out with a campaign to get them elected. The whole shebang: T-shirts, an open-topped battle bus through Shirley and a major - and I mean major - leaflet campaign 'Get FAB done', 'Make FAB great again' - I mean, it writes itself

Yes, we'd noticed that

Boro pull one back. 2-1. Cov could still spunk this after being 2-0 up and looking comfortable. Edit: Targett immediately gives away a penalty to Cov, 17 seconds later. Wright scores it for his hat-trick. 3-1.

Gary Rowett. Most recent managerial record - sacked by Oxford United after 1 win in 10 games. He'll probably do enough to keep them up by the skin of their teeth but christ, how the mighty have fallen.

2-0 Cov. Proper Wimbledon-style route one goal. Keeper boots it into the opposing penalty area, Wright bangs it in.

Rangers 2-2 Hearts before half-time in the top of the table game up there. Fantastic match.

Or - we had to sign the replacements and start playing 17 year-old Shaw because in the first four games it became clear that those players weren’t good enough 🤣

Davis, Fox and Hooiveld all started the season as first choice - all three of them started the first four games of that season. Then when we got off to a terrible start he realised they weren't good enough and started to change it. Davis played 10 games that season, Fox played 21 games that season, Hooiveld played 25. Boruc didn't join until the end of September. Gazzaniga played a few in between. That's my point - after a terrible start, he dropped those players who had got us promoted, and replaced them with better ones, and as a result he slowly started to turn it around. When he was sacked in January he had got us outside the relegation places by 3 points. But his goose was cooked by then. Cortese wanted an upgrade, and to be fair to him, he went out and got one.

Yeah. Under Adkins we were poor when we first went up, as he showed too much loyalty to the championship standard players who had got us up but who clearly weren’t good enough for the top flight (Kelv, Fox, Hooiveld etc), but he looked like he was just starting to steady the ship and get things under control when Poch came in, and when he got canned it felt quite out of the blue. With hindsight it was absolutely the right call, but it felt very harsh at the time. I don’t think he’d have done as well as Poch, but I think he probably would have kept us up.

Parker’s an Interesting one. People tend to scoff at him a bit but he has got three different clubs promoted to the Premier League. He gets a bit found out once he’s there, but he is a decent manager in the overall scheme of things. The Adam Armstrong of managers.

Sounds like he was very close to joining Rangers on loan in January. If that fell through at the last minute it may well have affected him mentally. Tonda alluded to it after the game in the week when he defended him in the press conference afterwards.

Yep. In the same way that Liz Truss can always say she was a Prime Minister, Russ can say he was a Premier League manager. Truss-ell Martin, if you will

Plus playing with ten men for a bit, just for a laugh