Blue blood

And they employ competence and the best quality that they can. And are all as far from competent as is humanly possible.

Whilst I appreciate the championship is very competitive with any team able to beat any other, looking at the championship table it's pretty much exactly what you would expect. Sheff Utd, Leeds, Burnley at the top. The likes of Weat Brom and Boro in playoffs. The teams neear the bottom of the league to be the ones you'd expect to be there. As I see it there's only a couple or surprises. Luton to be as low as they are and struggling and us to be near the playoffs. Perhaps Sunderland are surprisingly high too but it's few and far between where teams aren't where expected. What makes it even more frustrating is I don't think the top 3 teams are all that good. All three I feel have been unconvincing and marginally less poor than the rest. Makes it all the more frustrating that we aren't investing that bit more needed to enable us to take the next step.

I struggle to see how someone can genuinely believe this. For starters ther hasn't been investment in any exempt areas of the club - the pitch, the ground. And my word that is evident to see. Secondly it's well documented how many costs have been cut which would suggest we are well within the bounds of FFP. Couple this with the lack of expenditure and the huge outlay in fees - Wharton and Raya and Sammi -you'd struggle to see how we aren't well within the rules. Smaller clubs than us seem to invest a lot more in fees. Preston and Millwall seem to yet more than us. How is this possible? They are similar size to where Venkys have us. Or what about the likes of Boro and Stoke who spend a decent wedge without having been promoted in ages? Neither have huge fan bases yet can spend more. Does it not seem odd these teams can do so? So where does FFP restricting solely us come from? How does it hot affect any other club to the same event? How does our cost cutting and outlay not change anything? Genuinely would like to know why FFP is still seen as an issue.

Problem.is the most winnable games are the ones we struggle with. No surprise that a tired squad of late has got good results vs Leeds and Sunderland but fluffed easier games vs Hull and Millwall. Think we are one of the few teams to lose to Plymouth too. Disappointed to lose to that lot again. Their team seems a lot weaker than previous years, but then so do ours. Feel like if we had spent even a semi respectablr proportion of our income on the team we'd have smashed them.

Stoke is an odd one really as others have said. The definition of a poisoned chalice. Imo they are rotten, as in broken, to the core. No manager - and they have had some decent ones - has managed to get anything out of them. And that to me speaks volumes. Some of the managers have decent to good pedigree in this division so for them all to fail suggests the problems are much deeper. Mind you putting Walters in charge of the football.side of things to me sounds like an utter disaster.

The last 2 games have given me massive hope that we will stay up combined with the dross of the championship. Having seen a quarter of the season play out I think there are a few teams worse than us. 2 of the promoted teams look poor. Cardiff are a mess. 2 teams have big name players who are crap at management and Preston look to be on a downwards trajectory. QPR don't look great and Stoke and Sheff Weds haven't kicked on. By my reckoning if we beat the worst 6 teams home and away we are virtually there safety wise. Granted we haven't and won't do that but I'd suspect we'd get a strong return off the worst 6 and surprise wins like Boro and Leeds would make up for any deficit. After that it's not too many points extra to survive. So looks like another season in the championship.

Great win. It's a crazy league. A couple of wins and you shoot up the table, a few without winning and you're looking down nervously. Reading about other teams it seems that most go on runs of good and poor form, you hope there's enough lengthy runs to get something. The something in our case will be survival. Wins vs Boro and Leeds are unexpected and whilst both games suit Eustace's backs to the wall approach, the quality in both teams makes the results very impressive. Still worried we aren't scoring many. That'll be a challenge long term but teams are built from the back which is something positive. Also don't like not having a penalty taker. Don't think that will end well for us. Overall though a good win. 2 clean sheets and I think it's enough to keep relegation worries firmly at bay.

The mind boggles. I guess the two of them are similar in that they both got a team to the play off final. Mind you Lamps had a much better squad, bigger budget and favourable Chelsea loans so it's not a like for like comparison. Factor in the Wembly semi final and being unlucky not to be in the final. The fact that he took the club which was a mess to two promotions. And you see straight off Robins is much better manager. Only an idiot would say otherwise. Seems like there's a lot of idiots in football.

They also ha e a ridiculous amount of money and talent. I'm not that sympathetic.

Remember a game vs Boro years ago when the pitch was spectacularly waterlogged and yet we still played. I think we won and Woodgate was rubbish? I'm sure our cost cutting would have not helped the situation. Not sure whether it tipped the balance or was immaterial but it's pretty crap our motto is every little hinders.

Lol, quick! You're right though, it doesn't need you to be an economist it's plain common sense. Are you really suggesting that halving our supporter base is good for the long term viability for the club or the town businesses? Are you really saying an extra 12k match day supporters wouldn't benefit the town or club? You may say it's peanuts compared to who works for the club but what happens at the next round of downsizing or when we inevitably fall into league 1? What happens in 20 years time when we have a further reduced fanbase? Bar Wharton all the players sold to keep the lights on or get the goals to keep us up cost money - Armstrong, Sami, Brereton. What's going to happen now the production line is slowing? If you can't see the downward trend of the club and the impact that has on people and businesses I'm not going to convince you. But it seems pretty plain to see.

I'm no economist but I'm fairly sure that the loss of over 12k regular fans might have had an impact on local businesses and the like. I dare say Swag's cost cutting measures haven't helped us boost the local economy either.

You are welcome. Give it another few years and the paraphrase will be altered again, and not for the better.

Good post. Agree with the gist of this but not sure all of those are of squad filler standard. Britain, Pears, Gueye and Hedges definitely aren't! Leonard I don't think we've seen enough of to know either way, likewise Baath. Siggy and Buckley I think have the talent to be squad players but need to show more consistency to warrant a wage here. You are spot on though that so many players are being asked to do a role which is too much for them. To paraphrase a famous quote from here "buy league one players, get league oen football." .

I don't think a full season prior to this can be helping him at all either! Players need a break. Nor is it our fault we've a) not brought in enough strikers and b) those we have are not good enough.

Cardiff are pretty naff too so I expect at least a point. New manager bounce won't last forever for them. Their squad isn't any better than ours, and given Cardiff will see it as winnable I reckon that suits our sit back and grind out a win "plan".

I also thought that wage wise with our 2 aging centre backs this year. Surely one of better quality would have been more logical. I know you need 4 but having 3 decent (ha ha) is better than having 2 duds as cover.

I'd forgotten he was on the books which says it all really.

Stupid, stupid decision by Coventry. First off when you look at what he has done over seven years - he's had them performing really well, and transformed the club's position, with a couple of very near misses on big success. Even looking in the short term,recently they have beaten Boro and Luton, two decent sides, so the signs of recovery this year were there. It's an appalling decision.

Looking at the table two teams are already falling away. Portsmouth I think are doomed, they don't look good enough, so we are already down to 2 spaces. Again, I think we might be saved by three worse teams. The worry is this yesr there are fewer candidates then the previous season.

Of the limited amount I've seen/heard and read of Rovers this season it's utterly clear that the bargain basement approach is really coming home to roost. No quality offensively and no one to step up - in fact most of our top scorers have all needed a season or two to bed in - means that the issues in attack has been carefully crafted over the past couple of years. Of our attacking options, where do you start? The Japanese lad was worth a punt. We've always had punts to find strikers - remember Jeffers and Fowler. Difference was back then these punts were combined with investment in strikers and proven talent. As it is I think he's probably an OK squad player/impact sub and probably plays at the level of the team. He won't pull the team up, but in a decent squad as a squad player he'd not disgrace himself. Can see why we went for him, just his role in the team is above his level. Gueye - looks lost and a few levels above his ability. That said since he's meant to make it awkward for defences, which is his best (using the term relatively) skill, having no one up front to capitalise is a waste of his very limited talents. Imagine playing Roberts up front under Hughes on his own, he'd have had a fraction of the impact. Misuse aside he's not much use. Weimann - when someone is released by a lower mid table championship outfit the wrong side of 30, alarm bells should be ringing. If he's not good enough for a limited Bristol side, who are where we "aspire " to be, why bring him in? A worrying transfer, whose asset of experience is overly magnified by the derth of it elsewhere. Dolan - controversially I like him. He's a one trick pony but when it works it's very good. Problem is it only works about 1 in every 3 or 4 games. In other games he's useless. In a squad game having Dolan in the squad as an option for when it works or you want something different is fine. When you are relying on something that, perhaps charitably, only works a third or quarter of the time, and it's that integral to your plans, it's asking for trouble. Hedges - the forward version of Jason Lowe. A good engine but a useless footballer well above his level. Cantwell- to me he's an enhancer and creator, whose usefulness is massively undermined by the fact we a) have forwards who can't finish chances and b) have no pace or good movement in the rest of the front line. With that being the case, and him needing to play in the hole - when all our striking options need someone up front with them - we really aren't going to get the best out of him. Leonard - jury still out for me on him. Better than other young players I've seen and has potential but yet to be convinced. The formarion - whilst our defensive mids are probably our strongest area, having both in the team means we are essentially playing with 6 defenders and 4 very limited attackers. With only 4 offensive players it's not a good start even before we consider their quality. The rest of the team has to offer more going forwards. As I type I recognise the issue is probably more with the defence than the 2 sitting mids. If the full backs offered more going forwards. - and probably.JRC could/should fulfil this - then 2 sitting mids is less of an issue. That said if the centre defence wasn't ancient/slow/poor the full backs could push up more. Even without Venkys stinginess we couldn't alter a whole team so two strong defensive mids is fine, if the rest of the team is any good. But ahead and behind they aren't really. Rant over but it's no wonder we don't score.

I think the squad reminds me a little of the one under Coyle. We had 4 good options up top but were threadbare in other places. Feel like it's similar now in that regard.

Dunno if it's injury fitness or age but in this case Kane is looking like the international version of Rhodes. Great finisher but no pace or presence.

Disagree on how many slices we are due. Given the easier draws we have had tournament after tournament I'd say we've a fair bit of luck

Not sure how that was a penalty. Sure the guy was late and maybe due a card but the ball was well gone out of play before he connected.