Dark Munster

Sacking Hughes shows they are terrified of going down. The January transfer window showed their arrogance/stupidity that we'd survive with Ralph, and could afford to not only not strengthen a poor squad, but actually weaken it further.

It's not the lack of new players Lord T (we keep hearing this in defense of the club), it's the shipping out of decent players without replacements (Gabbi and Cedric in particular. Hoedt fair enough, good riddance). With Danny Ingured out (again) our forward options are a joke, and the same will be true at RB if Valery gets injured/suspended. Yes indeed, except it's "he's so good with young players we can weaken our substandard squad right now and still stay up". It's a stupid gamble. If we do stay up we'll probably hear "we told you so" from those who thought it is a good window. Just like someone playing Russian roulette, the chamber clicks empty as they point it to their skull, and they say "See, I told you it was a safe game."

These go hand in hand. A slimmed down squad plus injuries (which are inevitable) -> serious lack of options -> losing to the likes of Cardiff If Ings was guaranteed to be fit and on form for all the remaining games we could afford to let Gabbi go. Ditto Valery and Cedric. Hell, we could have a squad of 16 players.

Apart from the 30,000 of them who respectfully observed the minute's silence today.

Ralph's a very good manager, but this is mental.

Wasn't it? If Gabbi and Cedric were sold with his approval then he must take his share of the blame.

It's worse than that. We sold.

The common term "6 pointer" is used for good reason.

We replaced Gabbi with our new striker: Nobody. Unfortunately, Nobody is as bad as Long.

It would've been a disappointing window if we had kept Gabbi and Cedric and failed to add a goal-scoring frontman. But selling Gabbi (for the price of half a donkey) and loaning out Cedric (who'll probably be back in June), without bringing in anyone to replace them, was utter madness. Suicidal.

It would've been a completely different game, Gabbi wouldn't be standing (or falling over) where Long was all match. The butterfly effect (or more accurately, the lack-of-Long effect). And no, it doesn't make me feel better, it makes me pissed off that our suicidal transfer window was so avoidable.

Keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel better. I think if Gabbi had played we would've got at least a point (which could well be the difference between 17th and 18th at the end of the season). Most of us would have Gabbi up front instead of the useless Long. Valery was good today, but if he gets injured/suspended Cedric would've been a solid back up.

The root cause of this, going all the way back to when Gabbi got injured in the latter part of Puels' season, is a lack of a goal-scoring front man.

Indeed. And at the very least, not ****ing selling our only one who was capable of scoring goals and not crocked.

Spot on. Thanks for saving me having to type basically the same thing.

I've been furious since the January window closed.

I’ve been trying to come up with a word to describe our window. Suicidal fits perfectly.

I'd say our improved results have coincided with Ralph becoming manager.

Depends how many G&Ts he had. Anyway, looks like Ralph is keeping the same back 3. After Vestergaard's howler against Cardiff, Ralph kept him in and the player responded with good performances. Looks like he's going to do the same thing with Stephens (although Stephens didn't do such a howler).

In fairness to the club, who could've predicted Ings would get injured?

Even more, for me. Spurs

Doesn't an unsuccessful appeal risk being considered frivolous with an extra match ban?

His last game was half way across the globe. The current back three have been doing ok recently, so I'd ease Yoshi back in after this match.

More likely it's because the previous two managers stuck him out on the left. Now he's got more license to roam to the middle or the right I'm sure he'll continue to do well if/when Bertie comes back.

I recall him looking at his runners-up medal with a "WTF is this?" expression on his face.