S-Clarke

Massive credit to Ipswich, it's a wonderful story to go back to back like they have. They'll enjoy this summer and dream of what could be.

I think it just illustrates how most fans have felt about this season overall, pretty underwhelming all being said. We've never really be in contention for the auto's, just flirted for a week or two - not good enough imo. I always thought it would take mid 90's to get automatic promotion, I predicted we'd hit high 80's/low 90's and just miss out and that was being somewhat pessimistic - but we're on course to do even worse than that. Our run of form since Bristol City has just been the thing of nightmares (8 defeats out of 16, and only 6 wins out of that lot), our start was bad and our end has been even worse. I think the fan base is just bored with it all, it was a season which promised so much (it could still give us what we want, but it all feels a little low key now)

Good luck on recruitment, as SR have failed miserably here if we're honest. But...we could give you Mara? I'd happily take a packet of Haribo in exchange and call it quits.

Clubs will always sign dudds, it's impossible to get it right with every signing - But we've got it back to front since 2017 with more dudds than success. If we go back to the Koeman days - Long, VVD, Mane, Pelle, Tadic, Toby, Bertrand - decent output from all of those. But we also signed some dudds like Juanmi, Cedric, Gardos etc. Even back to our Championship/L1 days - Puncheon, Fonte, Hammond, Cork, Lambo, Jaidi, Chappers - huge players for us. But we also signed Ryan Dickson, Danny Seaborne, De Ridder etc. I'm still nervous about our scouting as we still threw £20m down the pan in the summer really, we should have had much better return for our investment - but once again we cocked up the big signings.

It's certainly slim pickings, as others have said Ings is the only real stand out @ £20m in recent years. I think it just goes to show how utterly woeful our scouting has been on our 'key, make a difference' signings. We could make an 11 out of big money signings who we've had to give away for free.

I think his general demeanour is laid back, he will always come across like that - but that means there's even more need for him to turn up and show up on the pitch, which he's incapable of doing. So if he's laid back and not even delivering then we might as well stick a mannequin out there. We've had some utter crap players over the years, some way worse than Mara, but he's certainly on the list of the bad ones.

Agree, we have to worry about what's to come when we know what's what. I am still finding it hard to get up for the playoffs, but there's still a chance to achieve what we want. I'd just add that it would be very rare for any team to be promoted with 84 points, if we'd have finished in 4th on 90 points or so then I'd give you that - but 84 points is pretty much top end playoffs 9 seasons out of 10, auto's not really in realm of 84 points.

What a great game that was, much better than the dross we've been putting out. Both teams playing with intent and pace. Puts everything to the last game now, the door has slightly opened ajar again for Leeds. Hull needed a win really, that's them done.

1-1 - Ipswich fannying around at the back, and Hull nick it.

You can kind of tell when the possession stats are derived from your own half, when we don't have real attempts on goal. I find that the passing around at the back stems from not really having much of a game plan or any real idea of how to get the ball forward, no one spotting a run, no one having the quality to pick a pass etc - so they revert to safety and just keep it.

Everton the turd that just won't flush! Even after being deducted 8 points and losing lots of games, they're still not getting relegated. Jammy bastards.

Go on then genius, name some realistic names.

We lost our way under Ralph, but what we were trying to follow was a good fit for the limited nature of the squad, and he got a song out of them during large parts of his reign as well, not sure you can deny that. But it kinda backs up what I said also, philosophy's don't really mean anything, it's the players you have and making the most of said players. Like I said, during our really, really successful years you didn't hear any nonsense about philosophies or styles, we just played the best players in the best positions and like magic we did well.

"I’m disappointed it’s ended at home in this way," said the manager. "I know we have another game in the play-offs. Frustrating for everyone really; the players, the supporters, [Steve] Baynes the doc who will be leaving us after today after 14 years of service. "I asked the players to finish it off very well for him and I feel we haven’t been able to do that. I thought the supporters deserved more today, the players deserved more because of how good they’ve been this season. "The last week’s been really tough, I know I’m not talking about today’s performance yet but it’s been a really tough week. It’s also at the end of a relentless schedule, 11 games in 32 days, or whatever it is, is not easy. We made changes today to try and inject some energy and freshness and probably disrupted the rhythm of the team a little bit. "Stoke were good, more aggressive than us in the first half and that’s what’s cost us. We were a goal behind and we have some big chances, they have a few big chances, too many. But in transition when you try and chase being a goal behind you leave yourself open sometimes. "We have to get over this week. It’s really disappointing because it will change how people feel about the season as a whole, I think, the feeling we have at the moment, because there’s been some really brilliant, brilliant moments. "I wanted to finish off with the best moment we can possibly have. The end goal is still there, our job now is to pick everyone up and bounce back from this week. We have a game to prepare for before the two most important games of our season, so all the focus will be on that."

I'd like to see us be a bit ambitious with our managerial appointments. Weirdly we were more ambitious with our 'transfer guru' signings rather than our managers. We've ended up with Jones, Selles and Martin - none of those were ambitious, easy and cheap choices in the main. I'd like to see us grab a manager that we can sit up and say...''yeah, good appointment''. ''I like what he's done in the past''. Carlos Corberan is someone I rate highly at this level, Danny Rohl as well clearly has something about him, Mark Robbins is another who many fancy a change, Will Still seems to want to manage in England - there's 4 potential ambitious appointments for next season if things pan out as it looks. We all said in the summer that this was our most important managerial appointment, so I don't hold much hope in them getting anything right if they have to choose again. They'll go for what they think is the clever and left field option, and it's just an unnecessary gamble.

Brooks still has that individual quality to randomly pop up with a moment I think, he's been very frustrating though - huge let down. Mara - agreed, fraud of a footballer. Should transfer his contract to our parent club in the lower leagues of France, should be more of his level - 'just'.

It's probably the first game this season I can come away and count some saves our GK has made, so credit McCarthy for that. The goal they scored did look a bit iffy though. Stoke were the better side and had the better chances, no question. They didn't have much of the ball though, so in our clever statisticians eyes they lost and we won.

Our loans are 100% through to the end of our season, whether that was next week or the 26th. I believe contractually season long loans run until May 31st/June 1st.

Yeah, there's zero point in dropping and running at this stage. Give him till the end, when the inevitable happens that's when you cut and run. It does feel a bit like dragging out the inevitable though.

That's exactly it, there have been other clubs who have tried to 'play like Man City', even that bat-shit crazy Forest Green Rovers tried to adopt a Man City style, that went well. At the end of the day Man City could play whatever flaming style they want, and they'd still win every week. It's all about the players and that's why that style works for them. I've always had the belief that if a lesser side really wants to zone in on a philosophy, their best chance is to try and disrupt the 'bigger sides' - pressing, closing down, catching them on the break etc. If you just play them at their own game there will only ever be one winner. I hope the club realise that this summer and drop this insane obsession. When we were successful under Pards, Adkins and Koeman you didn't hear any bollocks about a philosophy or a style, we just played a team to win with winning players - it's as simple as that.

A load of absolute dog shit. We played exactly like what we'll become once we start lingering in this league, a load of huff and puff mid-table also-ran bollocks. This season will always have been our best chance to get promoted, no other way to put it. I thought the very least we'd achieve would be Top 80's or low 90's points wise, and beating our 2011/2012 total - but we're not even going to manage that, which just adds weight to how underwhelming and frankly frustrating this entire season has been. Only we can go 26 games unbeaten and not achieve anything. Only we can keep the ball for an average of 70% and not achieve anything. Way to go everyone. The first half was as bad as we've played this season, so slow, so predictable. I think we saw pretty clearly why the likes of Mara should be given away for free in the summer, in fact I'd pay someone to take that waste of space. Brooks, very, very disappointing - I like him as a player, always have done, but he plays as an individual and you can tell as clear as day that he's passing through - he has no interest or affiliation with us, we were just a convenient option for him when he wanted to play games. He'll waddle off back to Bournemouth in the summer after a completely forgettable loan spell. THB is another one really, I think he knows the outcome is that he'll go back to City as we won't be buying him - so his commitment levels are through the floor. In many ways this is what happens when you fill your squad with loan players, commitment drops when they realise it's not ending as they thought - so they're planning their futures back at their parent clubs in the summer. What that will leave us with is not worth thinking about at this stage, we'd be lucky to compete for top half. I'm not going to talk about the managers deficiencies as that's been done to death, but it genuinely feels to me that we have wasted an entire season on nothing - we won't even have sales to show for it, as our best players are loan players. At this stage I'm struggling to get myself up for the playoffs, we'll enter it in the worst way possible on the back of 4 straight defeats - and I have no confidence that we'd even avoid defeat against any of the current Top 6. It feels like there is a certain inevitability about how it's going to end, so why waste our time - give our place to Hull and let us sort our shit out for what will be one hell of a summer of more change.

What, over 60 goals conceded in a season?

I don't think they've made the best use of him really, he's been in and out of the team, sub here, sub there etc. He has consistently hit 20 odd goals a season for years at this level, so they should have just built the 11 around him with Summerville and Willy either side and Rutter in the 10.

Player Of The Season: Adam Armstrong. He's turned up this year, not just with goals but general attacking involvement. KWP isn't far behind but he was somewhat expected to be good, but Adam Armstrong stepped up from a real low bar in my opinion. Underwhelming Achievement Award (Worst POTS): Sulemana. It was seen as a bit of a surprise that we'd kept him and we were all pretty excited, but he has been utterly, utterly woeful. He hasn't even scored a goal in this league. Need to get shot of him in the summer, we'll lose 50% on his value without doubt - but that's on our scouts for their stupidity. Best Signing Of The Season: Flynn Downes. Kind of an easy one really, I think he's a Xavi type player at this level - knits everything together, box to box, full of running. THB a close run second, but Flynn edges it for me. Worst Signing Of The Season: Stewart. It can only really be him, not his fault - but the club gambled on an injured striker and low and behold he's been injured all year. We could have waited a year, let him be injured at Sunderland and got him for free this summer. Best Match: Swansea 1 - 3 Southampton. The first 30 mins of that game were as good as we've been for years, so dominant. It wouldn't have been surprising to have seen us hit 6 in those first 30 mins, we were so good. Worst Match: Sunderland 5 - 0 Southampton. Sunderland weren't as good this year, but we allowed them to totally destroy us. It was a bit of a humbling really, only just into the season, playing against a normal Championship side and we were destroyed. A lesson of what was to come defensively it has to be said. Season Rating: 6/10 as it stands. I will always feel a bit underwhelmed by it all, our automatic promotion push was pathetic to say the least - just on the periphery all season. Playoffs always looked guaranteed but I think we could have made more of a fist of it at the top end, we've ended up the worst of the chasers. Russ Rating: 6/10. Seems a nice guy, we have won lots of games under him - but I somewhat feel they have been a little in spite of Russ given the players we have compared to the lesser teams we play. As soon as we come up against anyone half decent we get taken apart. His wedded faith to a pass the ball philosophy is dumb and will cost him a top level managerial career in my opinion. Your one hope for the remainder of the season/next season: Goes without saying this season, get up via the playoffs. It will be tough though given that we have struggled against the top 6 sides all year. If we fail my hope for next season is that we can remain competitive at the top end of this level.

He's another one of those players who never makes absolute howlers, but you are always left wondering if he could have done better. He's not really made any saves since he's been back in the side, nothing that stands out - yet he's picked the ball out of his net 7 times, which is a bit odd. I'm not saying it's on him at all, but I just find it odd that our GK's don't make saves.