S-Clarke

To be fair to him, he did get injured towards the end of his loan - so it was cut short so he could rehab here. But that loan was a bit naff all told. He only ended up there because they were managed by his former Man City youth coach.

Those sorts of tweets are so transparent, because it's building the narrative out there that he'd be 'Fine' as permanent and they don't need to go and get anyone better in the summer. We saw exactly this with Tonda. It's so obviously club planting seeds.

It's absolutely anti football, propaganda football you could call it. It's not just us who do it, all these low-calibre managers instruct it because it makes them look better than they are and incorrectly inflates statistics and 'data'. I think it was all borne out of the tika-taka Barca days, clubs trying to be the next Barca/Man City, managers trying to be the next pep (it's all about possession football). That's one part of it, and they ignored the fact that Pep had some of the best players in the world at his instruction to implement it. Try the same with fricking Downes and Manning and you get what we've got. I think you have to ensure any team trying to play 'catch up' with the big clubs is full of pace and power, lots of energy and use that to press hard and counter on the 'better sides'. That's what makes these teams uncomfortable, if you try to copy them (which is what too many teams are doing) then they will sit back, wait for you to get bored and just pounce - and football then becomes boring, predictable and full of false platitudes. (like Pep coming out and praising us, after thumping us 4-0)

I saw those stats, to those at the club they are sadly evidence that everything is fine. They're doing it right etc. But those sorts of stats are stats without context, because when you watch it with your own eyes the passing sequences, possession etc happens between the centre backs, GK and full backs. That's where the stats get the tick up, of course oppos are happy for us to do it there. I'd be interested to see our possession stats in the final third, rather than an overall. I'd predict it would be very low.

There was definitely a contract offer on the table for Bazunu, I trust who told me that. So I do somewhat believe he either stalled on it or turned it down outright. Why he'd stall or turn down a contract offer from us is beyond me, he's fortunate he's been at our level for as long as he has. Stealing a living comes to mind. Why we even thought it was sensible to offer him a contract is crazy though, and shows that even after being loaned out their judgement hasn't really improved - because they'd have happily kept him had he signed, ala Stephens. They're just protecting investment as much as they can at this point.

I read that he's actually appeared in all their squads this season, he's only played 10-11 games, but he's been available which is positive for him. Probably puts our fitness department into question as they could never get him fit, although I personally still don't believe he's conditioned for the rigours of high level English football and never will be. I think he was always technically competent and had a good character, but you can't coach your physical structure.

I think they're complacent, I don't think they're happy about the mess they've created - but I think they are complacent enough to think 'everything is ok really, we've got Ross back now, it will come good eventually'.

But but but, he put money into the club etc. Yeah, that's worn thin now. Any credit he had has been extinguished for me whilst he presides over the chaos that ensues.

Not sure if that's said in jest, but we've shown nothing - all season - to suggest we can 'win' most of our games. Where we are is pretty much where I predict we'll stay. Wobbling between 12th-15th.

That's the frustrating thing for me, in the 'modern times' we genuinely had a once in a generation 'purple patch' during 2010-2016 where we were in a bit of a successful bubble, good players, good managers, good team, European football - it all lined up. But we have nothing to show for it. Not even League Titles in L1 or the Championship FFS. Blackburn had the league, Leicester had the league and FA Cup wins, Skates had the FA Cup, Swansea had the league cup, so did Bolton, Palace got an FA Cup, Birmingham won a league cup, Newcastle won a league cup etc etc. It's just so infuriating why we couldn't. We had better teams during that period than a lot of the above as well, but this is how we role isn't it. The perennial also-ran, outsider, continuing to celebrate, and profit, off of a cup win from 50 years ago rather than striving or trying to do it again. 'Happy to just exist' sums us up so well. Martin Semmens somewhat hammered that into the fans when he started saying we should be grateful to be in the Premier League - and as soon as that chat starts, standards slip, ambition drains and mediocrity reigns.

He may go on and be a huge success at Chelsea, but logic dictates that he won't. He hasn't helped himself by talking nonsense though. Going into a Chelsea press conference and saying that 'I'm good at what I do' isn't confidence from his perspective, it's setting yourself up to fail. Speaking waffle like above isn't confidence, it's setting yourself up to fail. Of course Jose came in and proclaimed he was the special one, but he had league Trophies, Champions League Trophies behind him to somewhat give his confidence a bit of credibility. This guy failed at Hull - a squad including Delap, Carvalho, Giles, Twine, Philogene, Zaourey, Greaves, Seri should not have finished outside the playoffs. He then took Strasbourg to mid-table in France, nothing to shout about either. What he's achieved does not give him any edge to start shouting about like he is. There were genuine links to him in the summer, I think we'd have grabbed him if he was obtainable - but I never rated him. He's another modern philosophy-driven manager, who talks corporate guff to appease the people who actually make the decisions above him.

There won't be any panic, to them nothing is wrong or needs an urgent fix - and this is why we find ourselves where we are. We all know how it plays out - 'Ross Stewart is like a new signing' articles popping up everywhere during the closure of the window, then promptly gets injured during the start of Feb. The club don't feel the urgency we do as they genuinely don't see any problems. 'The club are relaxed and calm about the situation' will be in an article somewhere between now and Feb.

Definitely some parallels there, and it really does show that no matter how hopeful and positive you are...if the ownership is not aligned with the club and the fanbase, then at best you're treading water for many many years. The Venky's were bat-shit crazy from the start, making big publicity stunts trying to get Ronaldinho if I recall correctly. And as all these crazy owners like to do - be clever with managers. They sacked Allardyce and appointed Steve Kean as 'interim', only to make him permanent. The fans hated him, but he stuck to it for 2 years before relegating them in his second season. He's not been seen in England since. This is why myself and others feel that removing SR is simply the only way to reset the trajectory. Continuing with them in charge will only lead to us becoming a Blackburn, Stoke, Swansea - once a PL side, challenging in the PL, to now a middle of the road and occasional Championship struggler. Quite alarmingly you'd have to say that's not even our current trajectory, that's where we live today. Does it get worse?

The club missed the boat on that one, he's already signed as loan manager at Strasbourg. Maybe a glorious return for Nathan Redmond instead?

It was one of many daft decisions in that summer, Edoze, Mara and Larios being another couple of examples. Lavia was the only success, but he's very injury prone. That's 4 players there who'd only ever played a limited amount of pro games at a low level or came direct from kids football, they were thrust straight into the PL. At least we managed to add the experience of Aribo and AMN to the group though.

They always gamble, it's what they 'do'. Could Pretez be decent? Possibly, too early to say - but his time in Israel was very good, some strong performances which prompted Bayern to buy him. We needed to shift on Bazunu either way though, so it's got to be a positive. This new guy is going to have to be Ali Dia to not be any better than Bazunu, so I have some confidence he's going to be an improvement!

He isn't wrong, and for Hull to think they can come here and have too much for us in 2026 is a damming sum up of the entire SR reign.

Joel Piroe is the sensible shout, but I expect he'll have more attractive options than ourselves. Are you the former daveinsweeden out of interest? Haven't seen him around for a while, so wondering if you're back!

Crazy, they're talking about the sweeper keeper stuff as a negative - that's his best and only measurable attribute, you can't deny that. He can't do anything else other than be a sweeper keeper and pass the ball, so they're in for a rude awakening if they expect command and shot stopping.

Those poor Stoke fans have got their head in the sand over this guy. I know some players just fit 'better' at some clubs than others, but this guy can't actually perform his profession so he's not going to suddenly become a goalkeeper.

Our Leicester league match was postponed, so we could play Leicester.

Yeah that's a strange %, not sure where that's come from. There isn't a single person I talk to who wants them to stay. Even people who were supportive and somewhat on the fence a few months ago have now entirely flipped, which I expect goes for a good % of the fanbase tbh. This isn't just the 'lunatic fringe', I'm sure of that.

I think all clubs go through cycles like this, certainly at our level. We dined at the 'top table' in the European convo for 2 seasons which for us is somewhat unique, so we were performing outside of our norms! Certainly the last time it felt aligned from the top down to the manager was during those Adkins > Poch > Koeman years, but in the 2nd Koeman year it started to go a bit sour as that alignment started to drift I felt. The club started to get a bit too big for it's boots, thought it had cracked football, took it's foot off the gas and therein lies the drift we see ourselves in today. What happened then isn't directly correlated to where we are today, as we have gone through 2 entirely different ownership models - but I think it just stresses how important it is to have alignment down from the ownership, management, players and fans - then the whole club pulls through. When that slips, everything erodes and it's not always immediate. Man Utd are a 'larger' example of that.

Can I just slightly calm down the 'bankrolled astronomical funds part? We have mainly recouped what we've sold if we're talking about transfers. So we've reinvested what we brought back in. Over 4 years we have actually brought in more than we've spent, not by much, we've pretty much broke even. They have put money in, absolutely, but let's not allow it to get out of hand by describing it as astronomical investment. It's nowhere near that, we've just re-invested what we've sold in the main - and they've allowed us to do that.

Added an extra 100 to that for some reason, yes - almost 100 apps for us.