S-Clarke

If they try and bundle in any add-ons for 'surviving relegation', then we've had our pants pulled down.

In probably one of the most socking and unexpected bits of news in football, Watford have just sacked their manager. I think he was their 50365030530th in 4 years.

Sheffield Wednesday are using this window to clear their decks and save as much money as they can. No real news on any takeover that I can read, sad times for them. I can't see how they win another game this season.

Ademola Lookman is closing in on a move to Atletico Madrid. The final details of a deal to sign him from Atalanta are being sorted and he is waiting to travel for a medical. A fee of £30m (€35m) plus £4.3m (€5m) in add-ons has been agreed in principle between the clubs. This guy is another of those footballing transfer anomalies, like Joao Felix, Morta etc. They keep getting moves to big clubs for huge dollar every time, yet never really do anything, then warrant another huge transfer fee. Lookman has been a bit part at Atalanta this season.

Absolutely how I'm seeing it as well, sadly. We'll see...but I've seen this movie a thousand times at this club.

That save in the first half, top corner, was the sort of goal we've been letting in most weeks. Pertez has much better positioning and more of a spring in and strength in his wrists, basically he has the physical attributes you expect a GK to have. Still a little bit flappy, I think he always will be - but he's a character and I think he's added some personality to our backline.

That was as comfortable a game as we've had all season, we strolled through that. There wasn't a moment from the first half through to the second half that I was uneasy, and that is a huge thing to say based on how the last two years have gone. We exploited the space, which Stoke seemed to be allowing. This aids players like Azaz and he is very intelligent in picking up the space between the lines, which he did excellently today. It's the 'setup' we've all been crying out for, and you can immediately tell how easier it is for the players. Having Fellows hugging the touchline gives us a great out, as we saw time and time again in the first half particularly. Bree and Welington were able to concentrate on defending, which they were both very solid at to their credit. Special mention to Welington in particular who had his best game for us I felt. It does just play into what we've always said though - Leo and Fellows out wide, Azaz in the 10 and a 'presence' up top. Let the full backs defend and the wingers attack. It's not rocket science and it's no surprise that we look more comfortable playing this way. Not a spectacular performance, but solid and controlled in a way we haven't seen this season.

Wasn't that the same window where we tried really hard for Andy Reid at the time? I remember it being close at one point, so it all feel a little underwhelming when we added Prutton instead.

I remember that January, to be fair I think the fanbase was somewhat lifted at that point. Burley was in, we were adding players (Rasiak at that point was a prolific player at this level). I think the general consensus in the Jan window of 2006 was of positivity for the following season, in the sense something was being built. In many respects it was, as we ended the season strongly and came out the following season as one of the Top 6 - but what was being built was on very fragile financial foundations, we basically gambled on that playoff season. That 06/07 season (and the back end of the 05/06) wasn't terrible by any stretch, quite enjoyable in some aspects with the breakthrough of Bale added to it. Miles better feeling than we're at now.

The rather scary thing here is that we needed a striker with Downs gone, that was somewhat non-negotiable. (but they were playing on the Stewart back fit angle again, as predicted). But the rather worrying narrative is being put out in the media that we're 'desperately' looking for a striker in the wake of Armstrong's interest - hang on a second, they should have been 'desperately' looking for a striker since before January. But seemingly we need to lose two from our paper thin number 9 force in order to 'add'. Memories of the David McGoldrick striker log-jam days.

But would you spent big, just to position us to make a late charge into what is in effect 3 games of lottery? I'd just stick to loans, they will be out there - if our recruitment is half decent.

To be totally honest with you, this is probably the worst time to be looking at building your own gaming PC (you may have already done it though!). RAM/SSD/GPU shortages have ramped the prices up, RAM its's self has gone up 150% in some cases compared to last year. Pre-builds are better value as some of those companies have residual stock, but these are still creeping up in price compared to a year ago. I'd say give it a few months and check the market, maybe late spring/early summer. Avoid any PC World nonsense, look at places like PC Specialist or overlockers. I've used PC Specialist in the past and they're very good. Depends what you're looking for gaming wise/what games you play when it comes to the spec, but budget for 1.5-2.5k for something that will last 5-10 years. As long as your PC can keep ahead of the consoles (future proof when you spec it) then they'll have no issues with the latest games for years.

I hate playing Stoke, always the same. Crappy, scrappy games we often lose. Home or away. One of those genuine teams we never seem to win against.

He was probably on a 'list', I don't truly believe we interviewed him though. The club were live interviewing Tonda for weeks, so any other links were just tabloid filler as the club had already made their choice. It was probably made in the summer tbh, but acted on sooner than they envisaged - but Tonda's trajectory was decided the moment he was made U21 manager.

I'd say it's mainly due to this season being done, so there's very little point in spending anything at this juncture. It's one of the few times I'd agree with this approach, what would we gain from a splurge at this point? A late, but ultimately failed attempt at the playoffs? And then a pretty bleak financial picture (if it isn't bleak enough already) to broach in the summer. Clever loans are the way to go at this point, then re-asses in the summer. My genuine concern (and likelihood tbh) is that they'll reassess in the summer with the wrong people in charge (again), so it'll just be like groundhog day.

A good battling effort, can't fault the commitment - but I still feel pretty frustrated. We were brought down to their level in that 2nd half, and we didn't get going. I don't think we ever had total control and we let the long-ball, scrappy game take over - which is exactly what they wanted in the 2nd half. Once again I have serious concerns about Tondas ability (or lack of) to influence a game with substitutes, we conspired to get so much worse when he made those changes. In contrast, the skate changes actually improved them and their tactical shift changed their grip on the game. We didn't really do anything to regain any control after that, and those final 15 mins were pretty horrific from us. We shouldn't be 'holding out' against that lot. Good effort and all, but once again we've come up against a depleted (and already poor quality) Championship side, and are scrapping around trying not to lose. I just want this season to end now, not that it ever truly started.

It's not true, it's a thigh injury. Interesting he gets an injury as soon as he gets there, is it our conditioning? They might train a bit harder there, no idea. I notice Smallbone has been out for ages at Milwall too.

In terms of Armstrong, I think we should have moved him on in the summer and gone out and bought a proper number 9 in that void. That would have been my call. Not because he's not effective at this level, he clearly is, but I think his time has run out here. It can't have been easy mentally to come up with us to PL, fail again, and get dumped in January back to the Championship to WBA. I think it would have been healthier to have a clean break in the summer at this point. He won't be here next season either way.

It's still early days, but I think he's got signs of being a good reactionary shot stopper (any part of his body). I think he's flappy though, at corners, free kicks etc, he flaps about a fair bit. I think that's a genuine thing in his game that I've noticed so far. And not being a play out keeper is good for me, as long as we don't try to force him to play that way (Like we did with McCarthy). Let him be a GK.

It was actually weirdly similar to the game at their place, a fairly ugly game but we came out the other side with a scrappy win. That's what this was, let's not beat around the bush - a proper scrappy 1-0. The clean sheet is a huge plus from tonight in my eyes, it feels like it's been forever but it was only as far back as that Millwall 0-0 a few weeks back. Defensively fairly solid for that first half, I didn't think Sheff U carried much threat. The first half for me demonstrated why the 4 works, because it forced us to move through the lines quicker - and Leo and Fellows kept the width, we stretched the game and moved it a bit quicker - not so obsessed with passing around 3 CB's, we had less 'backwards options' - and it showed. I thought Wellington did well, full of effort and energy. I've not been convinced but he's not Manning, so I'd give him the birth now. Stewart gives us what we don't have, a centre forward who provides a physical presence in the sense of hold up, and disruption of a backline. You can't rely on him to stay fit though, so it would be daft to expect that - we still need a new one of 'his type'. Not much happened in the 2nd half really, bit scrappy. Sheff U came into it with Bamford adding a bit more for them up top, but we held out. Good to get a win to go into the weekend, but it was very scrappy - but you'd take them in our state.

Nah, they always wanted to give it to Tonda. There was no one else. You don't skip the current first team coaches and give the U21 the interim role unless he's not high on their wish list. Let's be clear, we weren't stuck with a choice of a 32 year old kid whose never managed and no one else. They didn't even bother looking.

I gave them a tiny bit of rope in the summer when we got rid of Rusk and brought Still in early doors. We had a new scouting setup, new DoF, we seemed to have a direction. I was somewhat optimistic and maybe curious about how the summer would pan out. I'd say my optimism was totally erased the moment they gave Stephens the new contract, because that demonstrated that even these new people don't get it. That contract renewal in isolation wasn't a problem, it was more of what it signified - happy with mediocrity and carry on with what didn't work before. That decision kind of told me nothing would change, and we were heading into the same groundhog cycle.

I think this is a bit of an emotional stretch to be critical of. This is just normal business/normal corporate life. Most big orgs and event orgs are taking bookings for next Christmas now. This is totally separate from football and fan discontent. This is a corporate business trying to make money from corporate events. Completely separate element.

We don't play against high level defenders anymore, and won't do for many many years - so he'd be a good fit! I'm really pleased for Dom personally, he's had a horrible time with injuries. His goal scoring record in the under age groups was always epic, proper fox in the box type striker. I hope he's over those because I did doubt if he'd be able to contribute, but this season for him has been epic. Were we wrong to sell him? I'd have probably renewed his deal and loaned him to Leyton Orient, but we probably looked at it financially and took the money. Hindsight and everything though, but given that the club happily renewed Stephens and didn't bother with Ballard certainly shows their skewed way of working.

I don't think Lallana was ever in the equation to be honest, he wasn't 'Spors' man. It was only ever going to be Tonda. When Still was sacked, the usual logical approach is that the existing first team coach/assistant assume interim control - which would have been Tisdale and Lallana. But the fact they went straight to Tonda told me that he's our new manager, he was never interim no matter what bollocks the club put out.