47er

I think probably the reasoning was that the crowd would have been embarrassingly low if they hadn't reduced prices.

If we lose I'll feel we are in the Last Chance Saloon.

WE were the form team before that match started.

He seemed more intent on terrifying defenders in his last game. Took out three and I only saw the highlights!

However this season ends there are some definite signs of the old enthusiasm and hope returning. A feeling that a turning point has been reached. Let's hope its built on and we're not left disappointed again.

Carrol looked pretty brutal in the weekend's game, all elbows. Hope our centre-backs are up for that. Oh for one of the big men we've had in the past.

I don't think we have 2 who are good enough to play that role. Again, its a case of making the best of what you have as against having a plan and trying to fit the players into it.

Buckley has natural talent though. I wouldn't be getting rid. He has been disappointing on the whole but a more than fair chance he'll come good. Playing alongside Travis and O'Brien might well have brought out the best in him in a central midfield of 3 where his responsibilities were more creative and less defensive. That's a priority for next season.

Probably because his first full season was an enjoyable promotion one albeit from the mislabelled Div 1. It gave him some goodwill for a while which he then used up. 2nd full season we had to stay up. Third we had to get in the top half and so on. All miserly targets because we were never going to achieve a big one.

Nor had Bryan Douglas.

He's been outstanding last few games though. One poor game doesn't change my view of him, especially as the team collectively under-performed.

3rd goal was unforgivable, as bad as the one Szmodics got at Leicester. I think they were terrified of any contact in the box, he just kept getting nearer and nearer---seemingly with no space. Cost us what might have been a remarkable point.

Neill's pre-match comments were spot on as were his tactics. As you say, we didn't change anything to counter it. We started that second half pretty well, if only that screamer from Travis had gone in.

True but this is NOW!

I do! Often!

I assumed clubs could return unsold tickets. Is that wrong?

I can dimly remember us losing to QPR on a plastic pitch---late 70's, early 80's? We were woeful and lost but the ball bounced so much the game wasn't the same. The synthetic pitches were banned not long after and QPR had spent the then enormous sum of a million quid on it. (Just waiting for a poster to tell me I remembered it completely wrong!)

The thing is though that those pitches of yesteryear were great levellers! The ball was hardly ever on the deck!(i'm exaggerating I know). Since I think we are playing better football than Stoke I don't want the pitch to cancel that out.

Sun's not in your eyes?

You're quite right. I made a complete bollocks of that one. No excuse--I just didn't read it properly before posting it.

Spurs, behind the scene, trying to unsettle our player by feeding "journalists"?

I've seen players sent off for less and stay on the field for worse. That's how it goes When he's already been booked? might as well miss by a mile, like Buckley did Might as well slip over with the goal gaping in front of you for that matter! These are all "ifs" and all opinion. As far as I'm concerned, taking the game overall, we were the better side and totally deserved to win.

Very speculative though?

Accepted. That was probably the easiest chance of the match, ironic that he'd done all the hard work! But that doesn't negate my point at all.