I have this nagging thought that we'll do our bit, Coventry wont win, but Preston and Burnley will somehow contrive to win and lose respectively and sink us. Shades of 1980 when "On that famous Saturday Preston fucked it up" as the song went. Like you say, all we can do is win our game and see what happens. It's never ideal when it's not in your own hands but it's a miracle we still have a slight chance after the run we went on.

Tonight's result whilst very satisfying is probably irrelevant as I can't see Bristol City not beating Preston. I think we have to hope we win, and you'd expect Burnley to beat Millwall in which case it then boils down to Coventry not beating Boro.

They should put a big screen up at Ewood.

Probably. That happened two years ago at Millwall. When it was too late it was almost like a case in the second half of "It's OK, we can win the game now!"

If we don't make it he's failed quite badly in my book. He had one job to do and by his own admission that was to maintain our status in the play off positions. If we do make it then I'd say he'd done the job you'd have hoped he would have done. If we did make it and somehow went up then I'd say he'd widely surpassed expectations. Whatever happens it's looking a bit more promising for next season than it did four or five games ago.

(Tin hat on) Conversely, if we miss out, it could be argued that we didn't really need to do all that much to guarantee the play offs. 14 points from 11 games so far. 17 from 12 would still be a fairly ordinary return. We've come a long way from me thinking we wouldn't win a game under him this season though. (Half time v Sheff Wed.)

Fair play, vital win. Still don't think for a minute it will come to anything but as Tom says, nice to still be involved on the last day.

Yeah, right.

Preston only ahead of Luton on goal difference now.

Lot to thank the much maligned Dolan for if we do somehow scrape in.

Typical.

Millwall 1 up

Playing with no urgency at all according to the Sky reporter? Edit: Now Batth one ruled out for offside.

That'll do.

Get the fuck in.

Luton hit the woodwork twice now - think we know what's coming next.

That patently hasn't always been the case, they didn't "have" to spend £12m on Gallagher and Brereton. Irrelevant to the discussion today though.

Spot on den.

Agreed. It was a tremendously revealing interview. In normal circumstances I would describe it as a PR disaster but I'm not sure if you can classify it that way as I doubt if any of the 3 stooges could care less. They might care if it adversely affects ST revenue and they get bollocked from above as a result though.

Until it happens we don-t know for sure if they will pump in any more money to cover trading losses. The family silver has been flogged off and There's only a few trinkets left, there's no one left of any particular value to sell to cover them. In terms of the owners having an interest Im talking a number of years ago now. By Mowbray's own admission he said he had to rein the owners in after promotion. What sort of manager does that? I know you won't hear a bad word said against Mowbray/Gallagher etc so if you're going to pretend he never said it then There's no point discussing it further.

He only did that very grudgingly when you specifically pressed him on whether the aim is promotion. He couldn't say anything else really - not even he is thick enough to say outright they're not interested in promotion but effectively he's already admitted that by conceding the main aim this season was not to make the play offs but to build for next season etc etc.

If you look at Benefactor models elsewhere, almost without exception they start off like a house on fire with the financial support then after a while the enthusiasm for losing millions upon millions starts to dwindle before funding eventually dries to a trickle or stops altogether and it is deemed the aim is for the Club to be self sufficient. To go back to Mowbray this is why he was exactly the wrong person for us after we got back to the Championship because it was always likely to be a race against time to get promoted before the funding was reduced or ran out at some point and Uncle Tony plodding along on "a journey" for years content to merely feather his own nest was the direct opposite of what we needed. Bringing it back up to date, this reinforces the point Eddie was trying to impress upon Gestede about the need for increased investment at strategic points. Unfortunately we're getting the same sort of language now from RG that we did during the Mowbray days about not wanting to move too fast and needing to put the foundations in place first etc etc. We've already been on that lark for most of the last eight years or so with nothing to show for it. In reality, you can't guarantee anything in football, therefore if an opportunity presents itself you have to try and grab it with both hands. You can't pass it up in favour of a vague promise of jam in maybe 5 years time, maybe not. Hopefully most people won't be fooled by this sort of waffle this time round. It does seem that the LT comments brigade are quickly back full square behind the agenda following a few decent results in dead rubbers, although of course the veracity of those accounts must be very much in question.

What came clear from this interview is that any further attempts to interview RG would be a complete waste of time as he spouts absolute nonsense and attempts to answer difficult questions with points that bear no real relation to the question being asked. You really nailed him with the point that it would be sensible to increase investment at strategic points, e.g. when you're sat 5th in the table in January. That point is incontrovertible really but all he could say in response was come out with some lame excuse about how he knew what his annual budget was and that it would remain unchanged no matter what position we found ourselves in. Sums up the hopelessness of our current situation but good work by you guys nonetheless.

I voted "yes" on the assumption that the majority view of the Coalition will be that the end objective is to remove the owners and their hired goons from the Club. I don't think you need to be too sheepish about your objectives, you should be clear and precise about them from the outset, and if you are right then people should come on board in great numbers. Similarly if other people or groups want to take a slightly different approach then that's entirely their prerogative as well, as long as you have a clear and compelling message you don't have to speak for every single member of the fanbase. For many years I thought thought the best way forward would be to combine Venky's financial clout with top class management. Sadly, we never got to a point where we saw the two combined, we either had money spunked up against the wall by a succession of charlatans or the unambitious Mowbray, or finally when a couple of great and ambitious Coaches in JDT and Eustace did eventually arrive, the money had run out. At Senior management and Boardroom level the level of incompetence has continued unchecked and unabated throughout and as far as the owners are concerned they became neither use nor ornament the minute they ceased funding the Club as previously. Good luck with all you're doing. When Eustace was here I used to express the view that we were one poor manager or Coach away from oblivion and I'm not convinced VI isn't it.

Again great post, the situation perfectly summed up in six lines or so. It is difficult to imagine something like this happening ANYWHERE else. It seems pretty obvious the play off attempt was deliberately sabotaged by bringing in players who generally weren't match fit and then refusing to pacify Eustace or allay any of his his concerns. Compounded by then bringing in a new Head Coach with a completely different approach and style of play. BUT - to then publicly more or less admit as such simply beggars belief. They really are taking people's loyalty for granted.