S-Clarke

That would require Huddersfield beating Ipswich on their patch, which is pretty much not going to happen.

I always had a feel that this game would be a total dead rubber, but if I'm honest I thought it would have been because Leeds had wrapped it up - no idea what happened to them. They're obviously very strong for the playoffs - maybe the best of the 4. It's not good for us that we may have to get past them in a final., as they have so many weapons on the break that are our kryptonite.

Maybe in the third year it will be a bit like that, but I just feel we have a tiny bit of grace next year - not based on anything other than a hunch and looking at what went on in the summer. If you think about it, we pocketed a hell of a lot in the summer (more than anyone else ever has at this level), we're likely going to pocket another 50m+ this summer with the sales of Bednarek, KWP and some others (maybe ABK). We'll trim the wage bill even further with Adams, Stu and McCarthy off - so as long as we aren't financially absolutely screwed and all this will have to service extreme levels of unknown debt, then I don't see any reason why we cannot compete strongly again. A lot will be down to recruitment as like you say, we will lose lots - pretty much an entire 11, and will need to start all over again. Cock it up next year and I see no way back for us for a long, long time.

I don't class a little week or two flirt as being in the hunt to be honest, we've always been on the edge of it and playing catchup by some distance. As soon as we get close, we're back to 10 points adrift again. If we were switching places over months, back and forth, then yeah for sure - but it was no more than a brief flirtation, we never really competed strongly enough for it in my eyes.

I think if we stay down I would still expect us to be competitive next year, It won't be easy as we'll need to add a lot of players...but we will still have a massive financial advantage to do so over pretty much 80% of the league. I've always thought we have two shots at this, this season has been a bit underwhelming because we've never been involved in the auto hunt, but if we fail in the playoffs then I do genuinely expect us to have another promotion attempt next year (as long as our recruitment is right) - Martin will be out of the door if we don't start in that manner. It will be our last shot.

The Rasiak equaliser was magic, one of my best ever moments. Place was rocking. The ET, from memory (it's a bit hazy!) was pretty much a dump squib though as Derby just resorted to their generic tactic of kicking us into what was becoming a mud pit. Leacock and Moore, their CB's, were absolute thugs.

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.