Admiral Nelsen

Yes and no. The difference between the two halves was unreal, but it's not as though they created much with all that possession.

Excellent half. Just a shame that Grealish didn't add the third.

Stupid thing to say in retrospect - the amount that it still comes up from Celtic fans and former players shows that it really hit a nerve. To be fair to him though, it was a pretty accurate description. They made it much tougher at Ewood, but we should have absolutely smashed them at Parkhead.

Rather summed up his time with us. I've no time for Goodwillie for obvious reasons - but the abuse he got online after giving away the pen was a real eye opener for me. Pages and pages of really nasty stuff direct to him straight after the final whistle. Why any footballer would have public social media is completely beyond me if that happens to a second division player.

The games coming thick and fast means that all first teamers will be called upon, and if he's available Dack will a hundred percent get his chance to contribute in April. Szmodics keeps the jersey for now, but there's not a chance that he'll manage 8 games in 20 odd days, especially at the intensity that he usually brings.

They did against Norwich! Grant Hanley doing us a favour by putting the ball in his own net. If Colin gets their defence sorted over the international break then they'll have a good chance, but I think their last two results are smash and grabs.

Fairly or otherwise, I can believe that. He clearly didn't fancy being in the trenches when the going got tough at Huddersfield. Like most, I don't mind having players who rub people up the wrong way provided that they do the business. Thomas is no Bellamy in that respect, but he has definitely added another dimension to us with his pace and delivery. I trust JDT entirely to make the call about whether he is worth it or not. When you've played at the level he has with some of the egos that he will have shared a dressing room with, I can't imagine that he would lose much sleep about division two footballers.

Burnley Boro Luton (Boro if Sheffield United get over the line into second) Current bottom three to go down. Huddersfield's last two results have been brilliant, but they've managed to get four points from two shots on target!

Morton is going and we're already short on first teamers there, so I agree that we'll need another option there (and ideally an upgrade on Morton). I'd say we just need the one though. We've got a difference of opinion on Buckley, but even putting that aside there'll be an expectation that A. Wharton and Garrett will become more important too, unless they get loaned out. I agree too that we need two forwards if/when Brereton goes. I like Gally, but he's shown that when we're struggling for goals elsewhere, he can't be the main man that we rely upon. It's going to be interesting to see how we go about this. They don't necessarily both need to be prolific out and out goal scorers - getting a left sided winger a la Thomas and bringing in a goal scoring number 9 would be interesting, but one way or another this is the area that needs urgent strengthening for me. Everything else is a bonus for me. We could well sell one of our keepers now that Pears has shown himself to be ready for first team football - so we might need a replacement there. Signing Thomas permanently is pretty important too come to think of it, but hopefully that should be straightforward given Huddersfield's problems just now.

I'd imagine they would both be straightforward. JRC - has been excellent but he won't have forgotten where he was a few months ago, and other clubs won't have forgotten about his fitness record. A new deal here will surely suit all parties. Carter - slightly different in that he'll want to make sure that he is actually playing games now that he's got in the side. Ayala on his way out means that there should be a gap for him and Wharton to compete over. He might want to make sure that he doesn't suddenly end up as a fourth choice player before signing a long term deal, but I don't expect that will be a problem that materialises.

Agree. Assuming the reports are true then they should get their comeuppance one way or another. Sadly I think that'll only come if they fail to get promoted this season.

To be fair, I think Wigan have already missed a few deadlines for paying players this season. The quick charge has come through them already being on notice from the efl, and they've broken the agreement they had with them.

As good as his is, the only circumstances in which I'd take Van Hecke is if the money involved is ridiculously low. Someone will get a bargain, but we're so much better stocked at centre back than anywhere else on the pitch (apart from possibly in goal, ridiculously). Something else worth considering is that whilst he was very impressive, he was also playing in a back three. I suspect that had he been playing in a four, then his ultra-positive approach to defending may have backfired a bit more when he didn't have two mates covering for him. If we have plans to play a back thee again - then that's a different story and a five of Van Hecke, Hyam, S. Wharton, Carter and Phillips would be the envy of the league. But if we're sticking to a back four, that's too much when we're struggling to get enough quality elsewhere in the squad. Even if he is on a free (which I seriously doubt) he'll be on a half decent Championship wage. Not insignificant when we need to bring in a Brereton replacement AND another first team quality forward.

He'll be a top player for somebody, but it's the area of the pitch where we least need reinforcements. The only caveat is if JDT would prefer to go with three at the back.

Should've picked up a result away too. One of the misses of our modern era from Jason Roberts who somehow managed to miss from about two yards out.

Hope he likes the look of the place. Declaring an interest slightly as I work at the uni - but it's a great city to be a student in.

Excellent question. I'd take an F.A. cup win over promotion, without a shadow of a doubt. Would I take a semi-final where we would likely be massive underdogs over a realistic chance of promotion? Probably not.

Not completely disagreeing - I think four years would be more sensible. My point was mainly that we don't need to worry about him not keeping on his toes if we gave him a long contract, like Henley. There is an issue about where his ceiling is, and how much more improvement there is left in him. I've said before that I worry about his size, and that he'll really have to go some to compensate for being so small. To be fair to him though, he is being more productive when on the pitch this season, so I'm happy enough with his progress.

That's true, big error in retrospect, for us and probably him too. I don't see the two as quite the same though. Henley got a five year deal (supposedly on about 12k a week) as a 17 year old after two good games against Liverpool & United. Dolan would be getting one as a 21 yr old after 100 appearances. If Dolan signs a five year deal I'd be pretty happy to be honest.

Not going to go game by game, but I think we'll need to break the back of the points total that we'll need by the PNE game. I wouldn't like to go into back-to-back derbies, Luton and then Millwall needing more than 3/4 points. After last night I think we're just about more likely to do it than not, but it's a close run thing. All the games are big from here on in, but that Norwich game in a few weeks looks like a huge opportunity for us to put some daylight between us.

Biggest complement I can give him is that he keeps the shirt when Dack gets back fit. If you would've told me a few months ago that i) Dack would get back near his goalscoring best but that ii) Szmodics would still deserve to get picked in front of him, I wouldn't have believed you.

Did he though? Let's not forget that most of our worst spells happened during Covid, and by the time the fans could come back properly, we looked like we had a half decent chance of at least getting a play off spot. I'm sure there was a poll on here a couple of seasons back which asked if people wanted either or both of Mowbray & Waggott out, and it was literally 90-95% who wanted him gone. Obviously that's not going to be representative of all match going fans, but playing behind closed doors definitely helped shield him from any fan reaction when we were at our worst.

Very close to how I see it. By the end it was the right call for him to go. People rightly talk about the horrible form we went on from a great position last season, but it was actually the season before which changed things for me. That was the season where our squad was good enough to really have a go for the top 6, and we fell woefully short. Slightly unlucky with the injuries we picked up at centre back, but that only goes so far as an excuse. He rightly got some more credit in the bank after the unexpectedly excellent form before Christmas last year, but then the inevitable slump just felt all the worse after it. The best manager we had since Big Sam, but then again that isn't saying much at all! On JDT, I still think that there are a couple of question marks but overall I'm really excited to see what he can do with a full summer. He was always playing catch up this season, but he'll know exactly what we need to be competitive next year.

I think it's just the phrase being used differently. It's not must win in the sense of if we lose, that's effectively the season done. But yes, this looks on paper the most winnable game that we have left, and we probably need to win about half of our remaining games, so it's 100% one that we should be taking to the bank.

I think it definitely has it's uses, but the tendency for some fans (often who don't have much of a clue of how it's put together) use it as a proxy for 'were we the best team or not?' without questioning it is really annoying. When you get a situation like ours when xG has us as relegation fodder and the results show that we could get promoted, the response is always 'they must've fluked their position' instead of asking if there is something about the way that we play which means that xG isn't capturing our performance as well as it seems to do for other teams? Instead it's treated as this magic formula which measures whether you deserved to win or not (although I'm sure that clubs themselves won't look at it in that way). It's probably a bit of both in our case, because we weren't that fantastic before Christmas even though we were riding high. But equally how many games have we won this year when the opposition would've come away thinking that we've done a smash and grab on them? Only a few. The games where we've been poor, we've tended to get beat.