bluebruce

Got kicked. Threw himself down when he felt it, but he was kicked. Ismael out. Rudy out. Pasha out. Venkys fucking out.

Nah I saw the replay, he dragged him down. On the other hand we shouldn't have had that free kick just then. Charlton won the ball.

And instead we're losing out of nothing.

Should have been a penalty.

That highly speculative effort from Charlton there tells me that they have been told to work Pears, knowing he has a cockup in him (not literally).

This ref isn't for giving fouls off the ball.

I can already see this isn't going to be a game of fine football. It's going to be a battle. We will see if our lads have the fight in them to come out of it... Lose today and I think we'll go down. The kind of dogfight you have to be able to get at least something from.

Seems a lot for a player who was out of contract. But WBA did offer him a new deal, so they'd have been due compo. Presumably they agreed to waive most of it for a cash-poor Barnsley in exchange for the very high sell on.

Aren't we likely to lose 1 or 2 ESC slots in the summer though due to not giving enough minutes to English trained players? We can't be far from that point. We were very British in composition a couple of years ago, but now we are regularly playing a couple of Japanese lads, an Icelander, a Hungarian, an Aussie, all the Rudy randoms.

I wouldn't say it's our position of least concern. But it's quality not padding we need there.

He has stepped in and not excelled.

I read that as 'they won't be signing Gibson and Cashin', rather than 'they won't be signing Gibson or Cashin'.

That isn't the point I was responding to.

I get what you're saying, but I don't think it's that odd. Tyjon clearly isn't ready. The hope would be that the loan signing would be.

We seem to love a Birmingham City cast off. Sanderson, TGH, this lad. Brum must love us hoovering up their dregs. Although I'm sure Venkys won't put any cash in for Cashin.

In fact, do we think Pasha will have the gumption to come out and say 'nobody knew if Ryan Alebiousu was any good' if he goes on to smash it for an Everton?

On paper, Wooton looks like a bit of a waste of time. 29 years old, and last season he scored 11 league goals, 8 the season before. Ohashi type numbers but in League One and Two respectively. Suggests this season's flurry is the exception not the norm. A no from me unless he's an absolute boss at being a target man. Ballard seems a much better shout, better numbers at a much younger age. But a short sample size and young, may not hit the ground like we need. If he was one of two strikers signed though, with the other having more proven goals pedigree, could be a good move. All of this being on paper, I've never seen either player. Agree I felt we should go for Aasgaard at the time.

It says everything about how scattergun our approach was this summer that Alebiousu was given a 3 year deal whilst Henriksson was given a 4. They clearly had little idea themselves of how good these players would be. Not that it will make much difference when we shunt him out the door in January.

I think it would be incredibly risky to drop McLoughlin and play a back 3 entirely of youngsters whereby O'Riordan would be the most experienced yet has barely played at this level. McLoughlin is no great shakes, but with that level of experience in the back 3 I think they'd be far too error prone. His experience would help keep the shape better and have a better sense of where to sniff out danger. God we are in dire straits that we are even discussing this.

There were pretty persistent rumours that a Middle Eastern club wanted Gueye.

When it has happened as often as it has, excuses start to wear thin. Individually yes, a player might be virtually impossible to keep. Overall, we are fucking up by not offering the going rate. To think anything else is to be kidding yourself.

Could really turn our season around. But zero chance it happens.

I'm talking about prestige history. They're old, great. They got in Europe by winning the prestigious Welsh Cup, oooh. They've never even been in the top flight and barely been in this one. Compared to Blackburn Rovers, they're a chihuahua next to a husky, historically speaking. That's the point I was making. I'm actually pleased for their underdog story and watch their documentary. I'm not knocking what they've done or trying to diss them, I'm pointing out they had precisely zero natural advantages over us. Shitter ground, shitter history, smaller fanbase, worse facilities, lesser finances even after their owners came in. Yet they've managed to jump from 3 leagues below us in a fraction of the time we have gone from Prem to League One and then treaded water in the Championship with zero playoff appearances. And that it's all because of one thing - better owners who let football people run the club, back those people, and only intervene when it's useful.

It's actually just under 2 years ago. They will reach the Prem before we even make the playoffs, and they started in non league with fuck all history and a far smaller fanbase. Their owners aren't even as wealthy as ours. Proper ownership is everything. Their owners didn't understand football either, but they were savvy enough to put proper football people in charge and back them. Our lot already had one of the best operators in English football and fucked him off for corrupt agents. Then have employed arrogance in their ownership ever since despite clearly learning nothing about football even after all this time.

We should have signed Rathbone instead of Wrexham.