S-Clarke

This was a really impressive one for me, probably our most. I have been sceptical about how we return from poor results over the last few years, but we bounced back properly today. I thought Birmingham gave us a really good game, as I felt they would - but we break so quickly now, we don't fart around with the ball, we get it and go with pace. Getting direct players like Leo and Fellows in the team makes such a difference, because it automatically pulls players around and creates space - and Armstrong thrives in space, so he's going to nick things. Leo was the best player on the pitch though, it's not just his direct running, what I really love about him is his resilience - he just keeps going, he gets kicked, pulled, pushed but he keeps going - he doesn't play for the foul, he plays to make something/score something. He's the best player we've had in fricking years, a proper game changing player - not many of those at this level. I think what we're seeing now is the new blood showing their face - Azaz, Fellows, Leo, Jander - they've stepped up and they're pulling this team along now. We're not reliant on Downes being fit, Armstrong being fit, Edozie or Aribo being available - we've evolved and you can now finally see the improvements. There are still holes in the squad that I'm sure we'll fill, but this is more like it. I think Still tried to put too much of a structure in place around players who didn't really want that, whereas the biggest difference I can see that Tonda has brought is enabling freedom - go and run if you've got space, drive forward if there's room. None of this pass back just to keep the ball nonsense, the target seems to be clear and they have clarity - get forward as soon as possible with as few passes as possible, keep the pace quick and drive forward. We have a squad of players built entirely for that, so now they're being allowed to play that way it's no surprise the results are coming.

It would be amazing if you had the ability to have a debate and articulate your points or views clearly with people, but I don't think you have the brain cells for it. You purposely miss the point with most posts, to justify throwing your voice around at the fans of the club you supposedly support. You spend more time attacking the clubs fans than you actually do talking about 'football'.

Not a surprise, fully expected. The club wanted this as soon as they shuffled him into the first team, at the expense of the incumbent Trollope/Lallana. And then when you add the continuous club fluff pieces with players blowing praise up his arse, it was always the end goal. Is it the right call? I don't think so, personally. He had a great run of 4 games, things clicked against Charlton and Leicester specifically - but we came down to that same bump against Millwall, all the old fragilities and lack of game management on and off pitch came back to bite us. The club clearly can't hang on an Interim for long, so they had to make a call - but I don't agree with the view that there is simply no one else out there other than Tonda, we'd have been attractive to a wide range of more experienced managers. But it's what it is, the club have stuck themselves on Tonda - will it be the first SR masterstroke, or yet another catastrophic misjudgement in their history of misjudgements?

I'm not writing him off? I've just not been enormously impressed by him as yet. I'm not talking about under Tonda, under Will and Juric too. Just not quite 'seeing' it yet. That's all.

You really do try to wind people up for the sake of it. This forum was a much better place when you went awol. Is Ramsdale able to play for us now? No. So therefore, do we have a single decent goalkeeper at the club today? No, we don't. If he's contracted to us or not is irrelevant because he cannot play for us today, tomorrow, next week or next month. So my point stands.

I do like your posts at times, and you are entitled to your view point - but coming out and calling people divs isn't a particularly smart move. Everything you have said above is hope casting and guesswork. ''Looks like it's coming good'' ''Looks like their decision this time has been good'' ''Looks like our recruitment has been good'' - we know none of that yet, absolutely none. We've got some good players, but the overall picture still looks like this - - We do not have a number 9 who can score goals. - We do not have a single good goalie at the club. - Spors looks like he's actively throwing his name about to get himself out of the club. And this annoying thing about ''not going up, giving it a year, then attacking the league'' is even more wishful hope casting, rathe than anything built on reality. The best time to get promoted is 'now', which is when you have the deepest squad, the most expensive squad, and the bigger pot of parachute payments to play with. A season or two in this league with SR as our owners and we aren't ever getting out of it.

I thought Wellington would be decent for us at this level, but count me totally underwhelmed by him at this point. I've just not seen anything from him yet, doesn't seem to do anything in an attacking sense nor is he very good defensively.

What on earth is that? Where is McCarthy, Ramsdale, Kelvin Davis? Why is Bazunu even in the list?

The bounce back is what I'm intrigued by. We have struggled to bounce back in the league from a bad result in the last couple of years, I'm intrigued to see if we can turn in a good performance or do we just default to the norm, of one bad result shaking the team and sticking us in a run of no wins again? If we can nail that on Saturday and jump straight back into a win and a good performance, consider me whelmed.

''The club are relaxed about the striker situation, with Ross Stewart due to return to the side shortly. The club will only move if they can find better than what they have, and they have trust in the strikers already at the club.'' Predicted media pushed line by mid-January.

The players have never dealt with pressure very well, they always wilt. When the going is good (3-0, 5-0 etc etc) or the oppo are so poor they can't block space it's great, they can enjoy themselves. But whenever there is adversity or a tight game (which they will be lots of) we can never seem to handle that professionally. Players like Jack Stephens were kept around for this very reason supposedly - vocal on the pitch, good organiser, leads the defence - but we knew how that story was going to end when he re-contracted. It was a performance which closely mirrored QPR away, we just couldn't see this one over the line.

I go with the general feeling that we were lucky to even be in the game, we were fortunate to be at 2-2 in the 95th min. We weren't in it yesterday, we couldn't gain any control nor management of that game in any minute. It was a really piss poor effort when you look at what went on before, but it also raised the alarms as to how we revert back to type when opposition press us aggressively. We didn't have that against Leicester, Charlton, Wednesday etc - and we were fine. QPR pressed us hard, but we were lucky as shit to get out of thee with a win. So this performance was more in line with the QPR away one for me, still major, major question marks over the makeup of this squad and the inexperience in and around the coaching staff to see us over the line in these 'bog standard' Championship encounters.

Yeah I imagine they've done most of the legalities already, they just wanted a full week between fixtures before announcing it.

I think the club have decided Jelert is for the bin, he'll be gone in January.

He's on course to win the worst GK in the league stat again, and he hasn't even been first choice all season. He's consistent, you've got to give him that.

I wouldn't even have fancied Quarshie today, his legs would have been going all over the place. I think we need a better CB, as I don't really rate any of ours. I like Edwards, but seemingly the club want to cash in on him. I agree with Fellows, in the last couple of games he was excellent from wing back because he was attacking - he was against 10 men mid-week, and against Charlton they didn't even attack - so he could just play as a winger. That's where we bought him for, so I agree - play him as a winger once Mads is back.

Next Saturday will be a good test - see if he's able to lift the side. Birmingham will be another tough game. Nothing he did worked today, although the players need to take some serious responsibility in the later stages of games - it can't all be on the manager. (I'm looking at you, Captain Jack)

Aribo's style has always been like this, very 'lazy' looking in the way he plays - and I prefer him in a more advanced role, than arsing around in a central CM position - as it cost us. That sub was an incredibly bad call at the wrong time.

We were really, really poor today. As bad as we were at QPR in most aspects. We couldn't control the game, we couldn't manage the game. Millwall deserved to win that game 2 times over, we were no where near. Fortunate to even be in the conversation. In the games against Charlton, Wednesday etc we were given space - they stood off us, so we had time to quickly move and go. Teams aren't going to do that every week, so we need more to our repertoire than hoping THB can receive the ball in space and play infield - you'll get 1 or 2 games a season where we get the space we had against Charlton, but this league doesn't work like that. Millwall pressed/pushed/harried us as and it was similar to under Still really, we wilted. Stephens, for being a captain and all, couldn't marshal a back line if his life depended on it. THB went back to his awfulness. Tactically we didn't have any answer to Millwall today, I felt inexperience showed - much in the same way as it showed against the likes of Hull and Blackburn in earlier games too. We need an experienced manager.

Is it wrong to still feel a bit apprehensive? We've all lived through 'manager' bounces and caretakers getting the team going, Alan Sheehan at Swansea being a fine example last year - then they gave him the job, and it all went south. I want to see how he reacts to adversity. We will hit bumps during December and have some iffy results, I just want to see how we come out of the back of that. 4 games is a good start, but I need to see more - he's still incredibly inexperienced. I guess my uncertainty is also driven from the record we've had with Managers - so my mind is in a bit of an odd place. I think he's started well, but I just want to see a few more games.

He was always class, got bogged down a bit in the later days of Stills tenure - but even his short cameos right at the start, even against the Skates, you can see his has agility on the ball and a real knack of arriving in and around the box. He's an upgrade on Will Smallbone and Downes in one player, him and Romeu could strike up something pretty special. What a player to learn from.

What on earth is going on? The upturn in form is unexpected to say the least. We've come from a base of zero to where we are now, which is with a proper foundation behind us. I don't even remember us winning 3 consecutive games as comfortably as that under Martin. Fellows/Azaz/Armstrong/Leo are dangerous at this level, they always were. Will Still just couldn't seem to find a way to get all 4 on the pitch at once, and that was the problem. What you're seeing now is benefit of prolonged game time for Fellows and Azaz - they can now build relationships on the pitch, no more chopping and changing. Armstrong, whilst playing as the 9, is more intelligent with his game than he was. He drops deep and has runners beyond him, rather than him being the 'runner' in behind himself all alone. The difference is stark in that sense. The second goal was a case in point really - Armstrong was so deep, but he had runners behind him and flicked the ball around to Leo - and they were away. It was the same against Charlton for Janders goal, picking it up and having runners beyond. That's been a tweak in Armstrong's game that I've seen, which is really benefiting everyone else. I somewhat felt sorry for Still, but I don't think he ever really knew how to get the best out of the tools he had - there was too much chop and change through the spine, and nothing ever felt settled and there were no real patterns. Tonda has been surprising, I still think we need to bide our time though. I'd like to see how he deals with adversity when we have a couple of iffy games back to back, so I wouldn't jump to give him the job tonight. I just think we need a bigger sample. The signs are positive, somewhat unexpected, and we'll see where December takes us - this is the month which will make our season.

Bit like Messi though isn't it? Obviously different universes, but these sorts will always be targeted and hacked down. The thing with Messi, and hopefully Leo (as he's shown) is that they've got this resiliency to just bounce up/bounce through them and ignore those tackles/bites and carry on. Plus being 10x better than the opposition means you can often think a few seconds ahead of any potential hack as well.

He is to them looking at their forums, I think it's because he's had a couple of serious ACL injuries with them which have restricted his mobility hugely.

I wish they'd focus on un-breaking and stabilising the clubs they currently own, before launching onto others. Everything they do screams incompetence.