He’s a bloody awkward player.

Fantastic player for us.

How many strikers are there out there that can run from deep with the ball like he can ?

Who can also play centre half. Chris Sutton or Paul Warhurst would do.

Who cares what they think. “ Winners are grinners and losers can please themselves.”

I prefer to wait whilst next May before I start doing cartwheels. There’s a long, long way to go yet. One thing age has taught me “ Nothing is forever in football, as in life “, look at the current state of the Red Rats for evidence of that.

It used be absolutely enormous back in the day. For the Challenge Cup replay in 1954, Halifax v Warrington the acknowledged gate was 104,000. People that were there that night reckon there were thousands more. The aerial photo of the game and the crowd is jaw dropping. There was talk of making it “ the Wembley of the North “ and I believe one of the Bradford football clubs played there. The players used to make their way down through the crowd from the dressing rooms at the top. That could lead to some interesting encounters. We had a rough house prop who’d beaten all of Bradford’s pack up this particular day. As he was walking back up through the crowd a little old lady, who was stood with her husband, started beating him with her umbrella. Our prop said “ If you don’t stop hitting me with that umbrella, I’ll punch your husband “.

The only loyalty in football is to their bank manager.

Mm. I don’t know as I wasn’t there. He’d be better off sticking to the card tricks. He had big screen and a camera pointing down directly on his hands and the table and the tricks he did were beyond belief even in those circumstance.

I wouldn’t want to be running out at Reading with a back four of Buckley, Phillips, Pickering and Edun.

They’ll be smarting after getting banged at Rotherham. Games are only easy in this league when you’ve gone out, done the business, and made them easy. Thinking it’ll be easy before you’ve even kicked a ball only ends one way. The lack of first choice defenders could really hurt us.

I agree it’s a risk. To be honest it’s a big risk. The thing with Ayala is when he does go missing it’s usual for months not the odd game. But who do we play in his place ?

Bradford Northern/Bulls rugby league ground.

When I saw him live there was a group of lads from a rugby team sat on the front row. They walked out after about 10 minutes. I’m surprised that a fringe venue shut him down, that’s not what the fringe is all about.

Both lads appear to be injury prone I’m afraid.

3) Rovers 6) Odsal 7) Ibrox. 9) Shrewsbury. 10) QPR.

I see Jerry Sadowicz got banned at the Edinburgh Festival. He’s a very funny but also a very scary comedian. There is nothing he won’t make a joke out of. He’s also the most brilliant magician I’ve ever seen. He’s at “ mind blowing “ level when it comes to card tricks.

Especially when one of the other centre halves is Ayala. Wharton has missed games through injury also.

Do you honestly think players at Championship level just run out and play wherever they feel like playing ? He’ll have been playing exactly where he was told to play by the coaching staff. Anybody who disregarded their explicit instructions would have the hard word. If they ignored that they would be subbed.

You better take you boots tomorrow then.

And then Ayala cries off in the warm up again. We’d have Phillips and Pickering playing there with Pears to come on as sub.

Well if you can get injured in the warm up.

Which time ? It happened more than once.

Reading that we’re lucky to have him. What an apprenticeship he’s had. He sounds like a brilliant bloke. Feet on the ground but with his head in the clouds. A difficult act to pull off. Then there is the elephant in the room - our owners.

I’m unusually confident about this. We’re good enough to get a draw. Wallace v Pickering and Swift v Travis crucial areas of the game.