bluebruce

Bang on. He doesn't fail. I think part of this is he doesn't feel pressure on a football pitch, not like normal people. He's permanently calm. His interviews have highlighted this in the way he talks about the game. He's a very special boy.

Isn't Sergeant only 16 or 17?

We really are joke negotiators. I've never heard of a caps clause requiring the player to start before.

Are you still accepting new solo participants? I'd be interested.

Even if we did, again, you don't attract bidders on the bench. Not playing someone in order to sell them only works when the player isn't willing to leave otherwise. I doubt we have any players in that category these days, probably not even Scott Wharton.

Maybe, it would be another strange one though as usually a new contract would reset appearances essentially...ie it would be when you make 150 appearances after signing the contract.

Well if that's a strategy keeping him out of the team, it's inordinately stupid even by our standards. Going to be a lot harder to sell someone who is on a good wage if they can't make it into our very average team during a defensive crisis. Who do we think is going to pick up these high wages for us? We might shift him this way but it will be for a minimal fee and with us covering a chunk of his wages.

Blimey, didn't realise he was 26 now! Time flies. Fair enough, still seems strange to drop from 3rd tier to 7th tier just because he missed half a season with injuries (but also the whole season prior I suppose). Would have thought someone around 4th or 5th tier would happily take a chance. A Premiership player in a similar position wouldn't have to drop to the National League typically, which is the same amount of tiers difference as this.

21 appearances in League One last season, to non-contract terms in the 7th tier is a hell of a drop. He must have been utterly dire in League One.

Ordinarily this would be a very valid response, as we sure are a shambles, but we have already demonstrated what our approach to these players is. It would be weird even for us if we were to do that with all the others, then just with Pickering for some reason we choose to devalue the product instead. I'm pretty sure he is out of favour with the manager, whether it's for his playing style/ability or something sort of falling out.

Doesn't encourage anyone to buy them though, especially if their wage is quite high. It would make infinitely more sense to play them, have them do well, then sell to the first semi-reasonable bid, if that was the strategy. Like has happened with a bunch of our other players we weren't willing to sign to new deals (Hyam, Travis, Brittain etc). Not sure I buy that it's this.

So, what is going on with Pickering? I felt he was held in reasonably decent regard heading into this season, and although he has competition in his natural position with Ribeiro (who himself has only played 10 minutes in the last 6 matches) and De Neve and now Hedges in this formation, he has shown in the past that he can do a decent job as a LCB in a back three in particular. Yet for some reason Hedges was preferred there. He hasn't played at all for 8 games since playing the full 90 mins in the Charlton embarassment. I wasn't able to watch that, and tbh I've missed loads of games this calendar year as my Saturdays have been very busy, but I feel like by the end of the season we were in broad agreement that he and Ribeiro meant we were covered at LB really. Pickering seems massively out of favour though, and Ribeiro is struggling to get in too, whilst De Neve is hardly Owen Beck. I was most stunned he didn't even get a look in as an emergency LCB when he has shown before that he can do it and we are so short we are recalling inadequate CBs from Chorley we had only just extended the loan of. What am I missing?

The ref didn't lose us the game. But if you think there hasn't been anything whatsoever wrong with the vast majority of refs we have had this season, I'm flabbergasted.

I'm not convinced that Toth just sits on his line for that one as it comes into the box.

If he's a useful tool there's probably a job for him in the boardroom if he wants it. (Useful being to Venkys rather than us of course, the ones we have are certainly useless tools in reality)

Yeh, this oft repeated notion that worse quality football is automatically more physical is silly.

He did make the bench

Rudy looked very anxious on the closeup there.

Was that the odds just for Morris to score, or combined? Because bookies were offering that just on a Derby win before the match for some reason.

He wasn't primarily to blame for the second, Alebiousu was, but quite frankly that's the sort of header Toth is at least getting close to lately. It wasn't aimed that far from Pears. That's before we get into how much weaker Pears is on crosses than Toth. But he's the backup keeper so I don't expect Toth levels of performance.

We aren't getting any supply whatsoever to our strikers. That's the big difference.

They're nothing special on paper, but not fair to call a side quite poor who are about to record their 5th straight win.

Is this the same in both cups now?

Another brilliantly selected loan. Good, about time, I always thought it was a stupid rule.

It's amazing that a club of our calibre and pedigree didn't attract one decent owner offer in the years we were up for sale. Just a sequence of various chancers. Amazing.