frosty

Give it a try I say Chaddy. It’s better than a few years back when you knew Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern would probably make up three of the four semi-finalists and the other would likely be one of Juventus or Atlético. Atalanta in particular is a wonderful story and they play extremely attractive football.

One of the best shows going!

And Derby were going nowhere until they changed manager. I can remember Nigel Clough talking season after season (mid-table finish after mid-table finish) about a slow build, young players etc, and being praised for it. He left at some point during the 13/14 season, in comes McClaren, no messing about, 3rd place and play-off final straight away.

No idea why you're stating that like it's a fact based on an article on footballinsider247.com. He's been very good lately, and fingers crossed that form continues if we're to have any chance of achieving anything this season, but after the Forest away game I'd have probably driven him back to Brighton. I'd be staggered if he popped up as a number one somewhere in either the PL or Bundesliga.

He’s done poorly in his last few jobs now has Grayson. He had a reputation as a promotion expert from League One but don’t think any teams looking to get out of that league will be turning to him anytime soon. Wonder what’ll happen to Dunny - he only went there a few weeks ago.

How anyone is still talking about the playoffs is beyond me. The only time this season I've given it serious thought was after Bristol City away when I thought that maybe, just maybe, we'd turned some sort of corner as that wasn't the kind of victory that we usually got. Then, when we had chance to actually enter the top 6, we of course stunk the place out in home games v Wigan and Birmingham and it became clear that we'd just end up plodding in mid-table.

Glad he scored but we didn’t splash out on a striker for him to be playing on a Monday lunchtime down at Brockhall. As @tomphil says above the goal can do him no harm, but it’s worrying to read other comments saying he still doesn’t look to have the basics. Now that the transfer window is closed and he hasn’t gone out on loan (which I think would have been best for all parties), I don’t know where we go from here.....

Zero chance at all.

Bloody fan negativity making the team go on a miserable run whenever we get near the top 6. Bloody fan negativity spending £12m on Brereton and Gallagher. Anyway, never understand how fans who want the club and team to be the best they possibly can - so who are looking upwards and wanting positive things for the club - are labelled as negative. *This post was replying to a now deleted post!

Bennett was in front of Nyambe for the last part of the game and looked absolutely knackered. So that didn’t help Nyambe one bit.

He has been poor yep. Last five minutes of the half included him failing to hold up a pass on the half way line that Graham would have done with his eyes closed. And then looking half asleep in our defensive third. Good half from us overall thankfully, could do with another.

Super Joey Rothwell been superb so far.

Christ talk about aiming low! You’re either going for promotion or you’re not. If you talk about wanting to be part of the ‘chasing pack’ or perhaps aiming for a ‘play-off push’ (acting as if the teams above are miles ahead and uncatchable) then you may as well also say you’re happy with mid-table.

I agree - it ain’t happening, therefore I don’t think you need to be worrying about how this squad of players and managers would do in the PL. We’re slap bang in the middle of the table and before the last game we had a goal difference of 0. Whenever we’re presented with a winnable game that could lift us into the top 6 off the back of a good run (Wigan at home, quite sure Luton at home too) then we play like frightened rabbits and that starts a bad run of form. Everything points to us finishing about where we are now. Which is frustrating as the standard is pretty poor and the league’s wide open.

Indeed. He always had a slight problem with low shots (low long shots in particular) but after his injury - which was a very nasty injury to be fair - he was pretty poor and took an age to get down to anything. That said, I think in general he was a good keeper for us under Big Sam and played his part in our top ten finish and being very tough to beat at Ewood.

I occasionally have a gander yep. Always reminds me how well organised our site is - there are always so many threads on other boards a lot of which are about the same thing. Would be impossible to keep up.

To be fair he couldn’t have had any arguments if he’d have been sacked after the Liverpool fiasco last season - especially as exactly the same thing happened at Roma a year earlier. That’d have made much more sense than delaying the inevitable until now.

13th out of 24 with a goal difference of 0, Midtable Mogga’s dream.

Off the top of my head, think he scored a good header v Sheff Utd at home. Same game he scored a last minute free kick winner. Struggling apart from that - will have a look on YouTube later. You're right about getting his head on long balls from the back. He went through a spell where it felt like he was flicking on loads of goal kicks, free kicks etc. Then all of a sudden he didn’t seem to be winning anywhere near as many! Good memories of MGP though - anyone who scores a last minute winner v Burnley, two to win at Old Trafford and was a part of Rovers teams finishing 6th, 7th etc in the Premier League has to be remembered fondly.

I love FM, but.....no way are we finishing a) one point off the play offs, b ) 3 points off 3rd and c) only 15 points off the top! They've been kind to us there.

You know you’re dealing with a small club that’s had no on-pitch success for most fans’ lifetimes (probably longer) when they’re obsessed with attendances and try and ‘get one over you’ that way. Very odd. Burnley fans used to be the same until they got promoted (or I just see fewer of them these days). Always remember them talking about attendances and their away followings etc more than the football itself.

Just seen their winner. Has to be one of the worst things I’ve ever seen. Reckon I could have thrown my cap on that one.

Right, they’re useless, have 10 men and have conceded a shed load of goals at home lately. No excuses not to win now (and save us all from a depressing replay!)

Brilliant that. Shame the opportunity to accumulate more points over the last decade was thrown away so needlessly, but looking forward to the day we’re back (it’ll happen one day, right....?).

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/jumplist/weisseweste/wettbewerb/GB2 This also has Raya now on 9 clean sheets and Walton, with a few others, on 8.