Exactly what I was thinking today. Foreign ownership has comprehensively ruined football.

It's all so sadly predictable, isn't it? God knows what next season will be like, all I would be able to say with any confidence is that it will be a complete sufferfest. Just like the previous ten seasons. What did we ever do to deserve this shit?

Any expected goals yet?

He does seem to be a very self-pitying character. If this was world War two, he'd be going on about how we couldn't realistically beat hitler, sure the Americans were a great help, but there's only so much they can do, we've had some terrible injury problems with the SAS, the Germans had a head start on us with armaments production, those cliffs in Normandy look awful high, and it's a very long way to Berlin. But we're on a journey, and it involves using the paras as stretcher bearers, tanks that only have reverse gear, getting orders by pigeon post from India and mission briefings that involve running around a lot and shooting the first chance you get. He's completely given up, but he wants his payoff. It's kind of funny in a way, because venkys keep on getting taken in by his comments to the press which are in actual fact an imprecation to bin him

I swear they built Stonehenge quicker

More of a freak of discipline

Yeah, his performance level seriously dropped off. I would bet a lot of money that he didn't look after himself. It doesn't matter how talented you are, if you want you reach your potential and stay there, it's early nights and eating right. With him it was more like up all night banging granny box.

How's Mowbray Survive?

That isn't going to be the only goal of the game, I'm sure.

For in seventy matches we've won where we've gone behind first I think it will be now

Expected contents : one maniac

Ideal scenario for me is Mowbray being caught by the Sunday tabloids buck naked riding a giant GM Venky's broiler chicken with Venky Venky sat in a massive sandpit wearing a child's romper suit playing Monopoly, Barry Venky and Steve Maggott take it in turns to wax each other's buttocks and Madame Venky rides a mechanized broomstick around Venky Towers parapets shouting "Surrender Dorothy" with Benson and Venus snorting coke out of the bum crack of a lifesize figure of Mahatma Gandhi. And we beat Derby. The resulting fall-out see Venky's go bust, the Coventrio depart, Rovers stay up and get taken over by the two Ians, we get our Rovers back *and* get the last laugh. It's been a long week. Must stop eating cheese before bedtime.

I just think it's a real indicator that we're being driven beyond our limits. God knows I've worn enough times in my life, but I only rarely do it when I'm not angry.

We're one messed up football club

"It is impossible that happiness and yearning for what is not present should ever be united" That's yer man Epictetus there. It's impossible to care about the club right now without wishing that things were different. It's not about whether we're winning, what division we're in, how much money we have. It's none of that. It's about knowing that yer man in the dug-out is busting his balls to get a win, the lads on the pitch are running themselves into the ground to keep the ball out of our net and put one in theirs. It's looking at the fixture list, because you really want to know who we're playing on your birthday, it's about hoping we do better than last year, will we get a cup run. It's all that, and it's been taken from us, and at this juncture you really have to wonder if we'll ever get it back. If you're asking me to feel the same with venky's running us, an absolute dickhead managing us, who thinks you can score goals passing it backwards with players out of position and money wasted on no-hopers, then I'm sorry but no.

I think we should all give ourselves a pat on the back for still having some sort of an interest in the club, despite all this sort of nonsense. Having said that, if I had a crystal ball and could see that in fifty years ' time we were still being run by venkys, then, as they say on dragon's den "I'm out". The only reason I still have an interest is the forlorn hope that these doss wankers will one day depart,and that there will be still be something to salvage. If that how gets taken away then for the sake of my own mental health, I have to walk. I don't think I could ever support another club, but I certainly can't support one where the soul and ambition has been eaten away by talentless parasites

You'd imagine that it would only be a matter of time before we get relegated again.

"and I did an expected goal last week in training. Go easy on me, I've got to get home for my reality TV show episode"

"Yorath beasted us in training with an old-school regime of hill running and intense stamina sessions, all designed to see how far he could push us and what we were made of. We ran up and down terraces, up hill and down dale, always to the point of exhaustion. He was pushing us to the limits. Trust me, sports science was the last thing Taff had in mind but to me his methods were spot on. Modern-day football is full of sports scientists and statistical experts, but I have yet to see an energy drink or a Prozone reading that helps you win a 50–50 challenge. Taff was spot on with his methods and I had no problem with his approach because, when the pain kicks in, you discover who has the courage and strength to kick on and who is lacking in those qualities. There is definitely a place for that kind of training and it was an intelligent way to suss out the squad in the first few weeks. One day he made us do ten hill runs and, by the ninth, we were at the point of dropping, but at least we could see an end to it. ‘Right,’ he said when we had completed the tenth, ‘I want another three’. There were one or two who couldn’t hack it while others tried manfully but were by now out on their feet. It was his way of figuring out who would be able to dig deep in the battles to come and those who would fold when the going got tough." Andy Morrison, the good, the mad and the ugly. Really good read. How would our lads get on with that training right now?

Whether it was defined as a big chance demonstrates that this is a subjective measure. To me, mowbray telling our players to keep passing it backwards, and getting Armstrong to shoot on sight shows that he is trying to game the system, ie keep his job. I'm not totally familiar with opta stats, perhaps they can be of some use as part of an overall toolbox, but certainly not the be-all and end-all of football management. I never saw a stats table score a goal, or go on for a fifty fifty on a wet windy cold night in Doncaster in the last minute of a game you're losing.

It's a statistic created by opta. EXPECTED GOALS (XG) EXPECTED GOALS (XG) MEASURES THE QUALITY OF A SHOT BASED ON SEVERAL VARIABLES SUCH AS ASSIST TYPE, SHOT ANGLE AND DISTANCE FROM GOAL, WHETHER IT WAS A HEADED SHOT AND WHETHER IT WAS DEFINED AS A BIG CHANCE. ADDING UP A PLAYER OR TEAM’S EXPECTED GOALS CAN GIVE US AN INDICATION OF HOW MANY GOALS A PLAYER OR TEAM SHOULD HAVE SCORED ON AVERAGE, GIVEN THE SHOTS THEY HAVE TAKEN

Speak for yourself, chum!

Well give them time, it's only been ten years and counting so far. 🤔

Still doesn't understand it too well though, otherwise why is Moggadonnasaurus Rex still here? Nice guys, nothing. Not interested. Clearly venkys are idiots, they're employing a business model that doesn't work, they take to long to reach decisions and when they do, they're the wrong ones. I don't care how much money they have. It doesn't buy Class, and it can't change the terminally stupid into smart operators. They're a pox, the lot of them. I hope their haemarrhoids get infected with blood-sucking fleas and I hope their nuts drop off and roll down the drain. The only thing they'll get right is putting the club up for sale, otherwise we're dying a slow death

I'm convinced we're done for unless mowbray goes. We don't recover from going a goal down, so we can take it as read that week lose this one. In absolutely amazed he's still in the job