S-Clarke

Credit to you guys, you are riding that crest of a wave ourselves and Norwich did in 2010/2011 - back to back promotions is certainly on for you in my opinion, Leicester look like they have the weight of the world on their shoulders and that may well affect them further in the run-in. One thing I didn't quite understand, why were your fans shouting abuse at Downes and calling him scum? Did he leave you under a cloud when he went to Swansea? He's never struck me as the sort of player who'd kick up a fuss, so I was wondering if it was just the default ''he used to play for us, so we'll boo him'' stance

Shocker in what sense? We certainly didn't play badly or get blown away, far from it. We were miles better than Ipswich and that's my main frustration, we beat ourselves rather than Ipswich tonking us.

Maybe our analyst team had these tables upside down. It's the only sense I can make of it.

The first 2 are the ones for me. GK - To win promotion via any means you need a GK who will occasionally win you a game on his own, but he's not capable of those point winning saves sadly. Remember Leeds away back in 2011? Kelvin was ridiculously good. As a team we were so, so bad....but we needed him to stand up in goal and he did. This season that sort of performance resulted in a 5-0 at Sunderland. So for me, over the course of an entire season, you see the importance of a keeper who can make saves at crucial moments. If you don't have that then you don't achieve anything. Inconsistent team selections is the other thing - we pissed around with a settled 11 when we didn't need to, bloated out the squad with Rothwell when we didn't need to, had to find ways to fit Stephens into the team when we didn't need to. That made a huge difference to us and totally derailed us from Feb on wards and I'd say it has ultimately cost us the season. It feels as if Martin had too much choice and it has lead to him going mini-Pep on us and trying to reinvent roles and players. Idiotic.

The club don't believe there are GK issues though, so in their eyes/his eyes there was never anything to solve on that one. Anyone would take the shot at Man Utd if they were offered the chance. People call them a mess, but it's Manchester United - globally one of the biggest names in sport, who wouldn't be excited to go in there at a time when they have a chance to breathe some life into it? I'm disappointed he's off at the first shot though, and it shows a lack of loyalty, but by the same token this is probably a once in a lifetime opportunity for him (and he gets to move back to where his roots are). From his personal POV I imagine he wants it and it will happen, the club will play the woe-be-me line crying about compo for a while...but that won't help us planning for his replacement. Hopefully SR have more luck with the next appointment because to have the same situation occur again, after Shields, is a bit naff.

That midfield for this level is really bad, we'd never have any control in games. We need a hell of a lot better than Smallbone if we are to see the best of Charles.

I can't buy that KWP is only on 20k, with Alex McCarthy on 50k. I just can't, makes no sense. Even with a 50% relegation clause, that would mean in the PL he was one of our poorly paid players which would be nonsense.

Not sure I buy that. THB, Bednarek, KWP, Downes are the best 4 in their respective roles in this league individually. I wouldn't pick Vestergaard, Morsey, Sam Byram, Harry Clarke etc over any of those for example. Martin is so lucky to have the individuals he has to choose from, and he's fucked it. Individually we should have enough, but we leave ourselves too exposed and have over complicated the structure with Stephens inclusion.

The logic of that reasoning fly's out of the window as he picked Adams again. You need to have a certain type of arrogance to drop your best player, and Martin certainly does have that.

I guess all we want is to occasionally hear ''What a save from Bazunu'' other than ''hmm, could he have done better there?''. If he'd have saved that third goal last night I reckon it would have been punctuated by ''what a save from Bazunu'', as it would have needed certain quality to get to it. But he doesn't seem to offer anything in that regard which is probably as harsh as I can be, as I don't think he's absolutely horrific - just incapable of making those point/game winning saves you need from a GK. The save the Ipswich keeper made at 2-1 illustrates it pretty well I think.

Hard to say yet, let's finish this season first and see what pans out. If we do stay down here then the team will be 90% new so it's impossible to say how we'd do at this stage. I'd expect us to be able to main some competitiveness at the top end should we still be in this league, financially we'll still be able to strong arm most others due to what we'd bring in transfer fee wise and the parachute payments. I think we've got one more shot at it next season if we fail this year. If we fail next year then it is curtains for god knows how long, maybe decades.

Depends on the $$$, as we saw with Tella, any of our players have a value on their head and if a club meets it then we accept. Armstrong is a depreciating asset with only 1 year left, so this summer is the last time for us to get our money back on him.

They tore Sunderland to threads in the last game, not really sure what to expect. We should beat them if we're honest, I'd put them on par with a Stoke or a Swansea style team in terms of quality. We need some wins back to back to just get some momentum, getting an away win and going into 3 home games is a good opportunity to do just that.

Thinking of players who will return after their loans - Tall Paul, ABK, Charly, Perraud. ABK and Perraud particularly haven't really flourished (ABK is made of glass), so they will come back here and have very few interested parties in my opinion. Obviously wages may dictate things, but if we gain ABK and Perraud for the season that that's a nice little boost - they're still our players at the end of the day. Charly is another one, I think the Juve chatter is just chatter - he's not doing anything there to warrant them spending any money on him, he'll be back here. I'm sure he'll still have interest but we hold the power as he has 4 years remaining. Will clubs pay what we want for Paul...? He's the one I can see generating the most interest.

Yeah Aribo was really good last night, he didn't seem to be struggling physically - but then we don't have the full info on that. We certainly went to the piss once he wasn't in midfield though. Even at 2-2 we were still in the ascendancy, but for me those 2 subs on 80ish mins effectively lost us the game. (Rothwell and Smallbone)

I really like Jay Stansfield, on loan from Fulham at Birmingham. Good presence to him, plays on the shoulder, decent turn of pace. Not sure he'll get much game time at Fulham so I'd have a look. Reminds me of Jay Rodriguez in how he plays. It'll be a mega busy summer if we stay down though, so much work to be done. We will need a new team, back to front. The scouts will earn their corn this summer (and that does scare the shit out of me given their record)

It's crazy isn't it, the one thing fans have been critical about is that he/we fart around in the back 4 and create nervousness...but the one moment he belts it up field and ''gets it away'' as so many call for, it actually costs us a goal. I wouldn't blame him for the long GK at the stage of the game, a lot should have happened to stop the ball getting back to us as easily as it did. We were so weak.

Maybe, maybe not - I personally thought Bree was pretty shit, at fault for the 1st goal (or contributed to it). Didn't get out to their LB quick enough, we were done down that side quite a lot when they had their moments. The sending off was daft as well, you could argue he had cover so it shouldn't have been a red...but he was absolutely done all ends up and just brought the player down, piss poor play to get caught out like he did.

Absolutely. I also don't want to call out JS either as like you say he's not been bad at all, it's just what he's being asked to do and how it's unsettled the 11 which is bonkers. I'm sure Martin will defend it to the hilt, but the stats speak for themselves - since he started arsing around with the 11 to fit JS into it we have conceded way too many goals to be in the mix. We went away from what got us back to 2nd and that is what will always bug the life out of me, we had it in our hands at the end of Jan - but it's a self-inflicted drop off.

Somewhat agree, but I also believe a lot of the nervousness and instability has been brought on by the inconsistent 11's. We had a period when we were unbeaten where you could name the 11, now it's a guessing game to see where he shoe horns Stephens in and who misses out to accomodate that. I find his role in the side incredibly odd if I'm honest, this kind of floating CB/CM with licence to go left back, right back, CM, CB, Number 10. It feels like nonsense. He's not even a particularly good passer of the ball in my opinion. It's like the madness of inverted full backs taken to a new extreme, there was no need for it - it hasn't added anything else to our game apart from goals against.

Yep, exactly this. Like you say the people who believe he was just involved in Stewart and Charles are daft, anything Wilcox was going to do would be felt over a longer term period. It's daft to say that as we signed an injured striker he's failed. 'If' we fail to go up then the coming summer will be a greater upheaval than the last, we will lose an entire 11. I'd have hoped a DoF in place for the last 12 months would have had plans in place to navigate that, but now we potentially go into this massive summer of change with zero football leadership at the top. Players leaving from all doors and zero football structure in place to support any sort of evolution. It's a recipe for disaster really. Rudderless springs to mind.

If you look back to our form over November, December and into January it was built on the basis of a very, very consistent 11. (notably the back 4) KWP - Bednarek - THB - Manning Downes Smallbone Armstrong Wide players were usually Fraser and S Armstrong with Charly playing in the 10. We didn't have Sulemana, Edozie, Stephens to pick from during December. We were having to fill the squad with Meghoma, Bragg, Dibling, SAA etc - but I think that forced Martin's hand a bit, he couldn't really tinker and the side picked it's self. Our December run of form in particular was really consistent in terms of wins and defensive stability, we conceded just 3 goals in 6 games. Fast forward to today and we have just conceded 13 goals in 6 games, and that's from a chopped and changed back 4. Once Stephens came back he played a couple of games, but was still on the bench for most games in Jan as we continued with that original back 4. We got stacks of clean sheets with that back 4. Come the end of January and into February we have Edozie and Sulemana back, Stephens fully fit, we've gone out and added Rothwell and Brooks to the side. No sign of Dibling, SAA, Bragg, Meghoma anymore. All of a sudden he seemingly has too much choice, from a settled and consistent base the availability and additions of other players have, in my opinion, tempted him to overcomplicate and try to be too clever (i.e. specific players for specific matches, different in-game formations etc etc). I will always stand by the notion that football is a simple game, you help yourself by picking a consistent 11, allow relationships to build and that's what we did during November/December etc - but he got a little too fiddly imo and has tinkered way too much with something that wasn't particularly broken. We got to 2nd on the basis of a consistent 11 (specifically the back 4) but we went away from that and have obviously started conceding goals like no ones business. Individually I don't think Stephens has done particularly bad, but Martin's comment about the team 'needing' Stephens 'at the moment' was crass and probably pissed the guys off who had been doing admirably during the previous weeks.

I go to games and I'm a season ticket holder. Obviously the season has been better because we've been winning as was expected, so automatically that's more enjoyable for sure. It's not been a bad season don't get me wrong, but I do think we have really let ourselves down since mid-feb, up to mid-feb it was great...but the collapse since then has just been shambolic and they deserve pelters for it imo. I sat and watched us lose to Millwall and Hull and I knew after that Millwall game we'd absolutely fucked it. Certainly didn't walk out with a smile on my face then!

I thought we were supposed to start winning all of our remaining games on Friday, so now it starts on Saturday? Fair enough Martin. 98 points will probably not be enough anyway, top 2 are nailed on for 100+ each. They should just give up thinking auto's, it's all well and good having hope, but at this stage it's utter bonkers to believe it.

Not disagreeing with that, but regarding KWP - players have spells where they are not great, but there is no justifiable reason in the entire world that equates to dropping him. There's just none. Even if he's not quite 100% you play him as he's still the best player, it's ridiculous he gave us this year so if we've not used when he was available then it's an utter joke. We're lucky to have players like him available to us, in form or out of form. Next season we will not have any one near his level of ability and then it will show up.