Lighthouse

I know who you’re getting at but Branfoot’s got to be in his eighties by now.

Thank you.

If the next manager can’t get us above 20th with one of the most expensive and talented squads in the league then Spors needs sacking too.

I’d be quite willing to give him half the season to improve…. If we were 6th - 10th and not really where we want to be. We’re 20th.

I’m convinced that many players, Downs, Archer and Azaz in particular, are nowhere near as bad as we are making them look.

You know that scene in Austin Powers when they’re playing blackjack and Austin sticks on 5. Yeah, that.

No way they’d take a coach that far north. We probably flew to East Midlands when we played Derby a couple of weeks back, knowing us.

Bamford, seriously? The guy's finished, spent last season making 15 min sub appearances for Leeds without troubling the back of the net.

Just goes to show how sh*te our squad was last season. Our two best players aren’t even starting for a really sh*te West Ham.

Yep, not true either, just a lazy go-to argument. Brentford just have better players than us, it’s really that simple. Our ‘soft as sh*te’ team got the third most bookings last season, Brentford had the second least. https://www.myfootballfacts.com/premier-league/all-time-premier-league/cards/premier-league-red-and-yellow-cards-2024-25/

You pay for any attribute, be it physical or technical. Besides, Brentford have about five players who would have been our record signing, their squad wasn't exactly cheap either. The crazy gang was as close to WWII as it is to today, so not really relevant to modern PL transfer fees. Put simply; if it was that easy everyone would be doing it.

Last years top three in the PL were the 12th, 20th and 15th tallest squads respectively, according to Give Me Sport. There is no correlation between that and performance, we went down because our team was the crappest, nothing more. Furthermore our biggest (Paul) and quickest (Sully) players were both useless.

I'm not sure what your preoccupation with 'big, powerful athletes' stems from but it hasn't been our problem this season, nor was it in either of the two relegations. We got relegated because our players were terrible and we're 18th now because Still has no idea how to get the best out of the squad he asked for. Quarshie is 6'5", Wood is 6'2", so are THB and Charles and we've a few other players North of 6ft. I don't know what collection of large, muscular men you had in mind but the one we've got is sufficient.

I don't know which 'logic' you're following but this all seems like a deliberate attempt to confuse what is a fairly straight forward system, which has worked perfectly well around the world for centuries and doesn't need changing. If you have male reproductive organs, used the mens changing/toilet facilities, if you have female organs, use the ladies. There's no other system that can or will work. You can't make laws based on subjective ideas of how people feel or how 'butch' they look.

It's over five months since we played our last PL game and half of that squad isn't even at the club any more. We're 'mentally rebuilding' from PL relegation, not the Battle of the Somme. Still's tactics are sh*t, it really is that simple.

We have a very good squad and no doubt would pay our next manager one of the highest salaries in the league with a view to hopefully getting into the PL again. We're clearly one of the more attractive propositions in this division. I can't get my head around the idea that somehow SR have let Still down, and not the other way around. Still literally said he needed decent wide players to play his system. We went out and signed Mads, Jelert, Fellows and Scienza. Who would we have signed if Still had the 'ultimate say'?

Again, that makes zero sense. A significant number of players have been signed under SR and then moved on when they were deemed not to be up to standard. There is no reason at all to suggest Bazunu is different and no self respecting manager would accept a job where the team is being picked over his head. Downs is on the bench because with Stewart injured there’s nobody else and we’re hardly going to give up on a player after eight games.

Except that both have been dropped in the past and there is zero reason or motivation for this imposition.

How is it ‘unbalanced’? How do Edozie and Aribo not being included in the squad affect things in any way? We’re not short of players anywhere. As for strikers, Armstrong will score you 20 a season in a supporting role, even if Archer or Downes is misfiring up front. Neither of our keepers is ‘horrific’, that’s just hysteria. Baz should have held on to Hull’s first goal and McC had a brain fart tonight but it’s hardly as if our superb outfield play is being undone by howlers every game. I reiterate, they’ve cost us zero points so far. Fellows and Azaz are better players than Edozie and Aribo. That’s why we signed them. Why we aren’t playing them every week is beyond me.

I know what I’d do. Buy him a one way Eurostar ticket back to France. This is bad but Claude is not the answer.

What? It’s stacked with talent in basically all departments apart from a couple of average goalkeepers, and how many points have they cost us this season? Zero. Every season people complain that we sign some quirky, Slovenian U15s, girls, disability inclusivity league player based on football manager stats instead of decent, experienced players for the league we’re in. This year we’ve actually gone out and signed Fellows, Mads and Azaz and brought Charles and Edwards back from loan to complement the bags of Championship experience we already have. On top of that Jander, Jelert and especially Leo have all looked decent like decent signings from abroad. This squad is superb, it’s just appallingly managed and playing nowhere near its potential.

That’s not true, after we went 3-1 we took off a striker. Always one step ahead, Will, I bet they weren’t expecting that.

They’re in the relegation and in dreadful form, so I think we’re going to need to bolster our defence, maybe add an extra CB just to make sure. Keeper (Either one, I don’t care) Wood THB Manning Fraser Edwards Welington Downes Charles Jander Armstrong I know it’s risky but it’s worth a try.

Great to see the Bristol players laughing and joking in the post-match interviews. Isn’t it wonderful that we get to make so many people happy, week after week.