The Premier League has been terrible this season. The champions and the bottom 3 all sorted with so many games to go has removed any sort of spectacle. We are just in a position where teams go up and come straight back down with really low points totals. The likes of Fulham, Brentford, Bournemouth and Brighton will be probably comfortable for the forseeable with the same teams yoyo-ing between Premier League and Championship. You then have a pyramid that is also fucked, desperately chasing the latest increased sky deal, constantly increasing ticket prices and willingly inconvenicing fans yet losing more and more money year on year despite this with the money all landing in the pockets of the players and agents.

Didnt Cantwell only get loads of stick becuase of his personality rather than ability/inability?

Dolan? Based on? You keep saying those 2 countries for our incoming signings too.

Obviously not.

We shouldnt sign Sanderson permanently and certainly not for £1m. And theres no chance that we have 90% of our business done at any point of pre season. Managers always say they want business done early but wont happen especially here when we will be begging for loans late in the window.

The thing is, it implies that their current ticketing policies will definitely generate more income. For example, abolish this early bird shite and you would have a full summer whereby its much more likely that people will eventually decide to buy season tickets. Also, you are always battling quantity v price and hitting a sweet spot. Reducing prices will increase quantity short term, so its getting not only that balance. But realising that increasing numbers short term will likely get more people in the habit to then buy season tickets going forward, as well as more additional purchases eg things like food/drink and merchandise.

He would fit the criteria of being 5x worse.

I genuinely dont know where to start with this. I dont know what world you live in. Anyone who just sees last season as a massive overachievement with absolutely no dissent towards anything else regarding the club clearly hasnt been paying attention. But that doesnt take away from my point that hiking prices here at this particular football club as a second phase is IMO a terrible commercial decision. The commercial side was the one aspect of the club you would willingly criticise and even then you are now back to defending the club on that. Wont someone think of the increasing prices of gas and electric?!

No. We shouldnt be signing a striker who was 5th or 6th choice for a side in League 1, behind players like Jay Rodriguez, Steven Fletcher and Jack Marriott.

The TV money keeps going up, at the inconvenience of the match going fan. Those increases far exceed minor increases relative to a football club such as energy and national insurance. Dont let the sob stories from Waggott and Suhail fool you. Problem is that clubs pay far too much in wages, its not an increase in gas and electric or NI that is causing football clubs to be so reliant on owner investment year on year. But either way, whether other clubs do it or not is not the point. Those clubs are in totally different situations to us. Our fan base dwindles and dwindles, those other clubs can do it because their sales are higher and their grounds are far more full therefore its far more justified. We also have a lot of angry and unhappy fans who may have cooled off in the summer or decided that they missed going. But now, they will be much more unlikely to then buy at a higher price. If you sell 12k or more of say a possible 23k season tickets at the end of a first phase, with a fan base that isnt full of unhappiness. Its fine to then not necessarily sell many more after it, for it to just tick over with a few more sales after which is more likely if the fanbase isnt already angry at having the piss taking out of it. If you sell 7.5k (and boast about it) of a possible 23k season tickets, with an unhappy fanbase. To then bring in a second phase of higher prices is just preventing that majority of empty seats from being sold. Its such a flawed mindset to shrug your shoulders and say well some other teams are also doing it. Its simply not comparing like for like. If we scrapped the phases at our club, I would be pretty sure that yes cash flow in might become slightly more staggered across the summer, for the sake of a month or two, but the overall sales income would be higher.

I dont really care about other clubs, it doesnt excuse our shitty policies. Other clubs are in different situations. Not the same supporter unrest, not the same whittled down fanbase, not the same economic conditions in those areas, not the same lack of demand and number of empty seats. Bolton for example will have sold miles more in that first phase than we will.

Disgraceful pricing, these phases are a joke. Just ensuring that from a mere couple of weeks after the end of the season that no further sales will be made.

I think they do get it. Its clear that he will be here. That doesnt mean that he is good enough or that he should be given a deal. If someone isnt good enough, rather than just shrugging our shoulders and going yeah he will have to do, we can still have some standards.

Either way, we shouldnt sell Pickering. Need them both.

Dont see why we would sell our best left back and Cantwell isnt going anywhere.

Isnt that a risk though, in that his contract having signed for a fee is presumably at least reasonable at Championship level, so he could sit on it or it might put off suitors only able to pay a % of his wage?

Clubs at the level that would see Markanday as an asset would struggle to pay a fee. Better off just letting him go rather than activating his extension and risk being stuck with him.

Maybe he will end up at Barrow. I think I am right in thinking that the former data analyst of this parish went there and they seemed to sign a few former Rovers.

But why did it make you actively want them to be relegated? Youve not given a reason why you feel strongly enough not just to agree or disagree with the decision from a neutral perspective, but to want them to be relegated. "And nothing more." Should teams not try and overachieve and just settle for just getting by, even if their current manager has overseen the worst form in the entire league over the second half of the ssason? If Ismael has us in 18th or 19th next season, the guff coming from inside the club keeps saying thats where wre rank financially. So surely his job would be safe as thats as we can expect.

Ive just said why I think why. Lack of alternatives, lack of money, lack of standards. And misjudgements. Jason Lowe was regularly picked. Wonder why?

Exactly. Plus its not as if they have had many other options and certainly no quality. Weve been lacking a quality wide man for a number of years aside from Brereton when we had him, and being on the bench over Buckley who is also not good enough is hardly a badge of honour.

"I hope they get relegated."

"The Hornets started the season well, sitting around the play-off places, but since the turn of the year were the worst side in the Championship, taking 23 points from 23 games." Not that bizarre. What is bizarre is getting angry about Watford sacking their manager to the point of wishing them relegated.

If you are repeatedly highlighting one of his two assists from the entire season, similar to when it was repeated mentions of his solitary goal v Watford the season before. It suggests there isnt too much else to go at. Experienced? Yes. So is David Dunn, shall we get him back? Can play different positions? Not really, left and right wing, equally ineffective on either side. Good enough? No. It is about standards. We take the easy option of signing cheap players to pad the squad out, and when they play the decline in quality compared to the starters helps to cause us to lose momentum and go on terrible runs. Low standards leads to the he will do mentality, he did one or two good things over the course of a season. Rinse and repeat. Im sick of this club just making do. Im not expecting Rodri and Vinicius Junior to be squad members, im not even expecting them to be as good as Travis/Tronstad necessarily. But players who will genuinely challenge and at least keep them on their toes, players who would be capable of filling in if the starters are injured or even desperately in need of a break and wouldnt massively weaken the team in doing so. Lewis Baker coming in did that to an extent, if he started it wasnt quite Travis or Tronstad but it was good competition. Forshaw was a massive downgrade.

They aren't "decent" squad players. They are examples of a club who have lowered their standards, who don't put any money in to the squad. Hedges is an attacking player who plays almost every game and has mustered 1 goal and 2 assists. He offers nothing going forward, he doesn't score, he isn't creative, he isn't quick, he isn't tricky, he doesn't beat players. Forshaw is a veteran who Plymouth happily gave away. When he started games or played a big chunk of games, think Oxford away, Bristol City away, Stoke away, Swansea away, we really struggled. Not obviously all down to him, but he isn't good enough aside from coming on occasionally for a few minutes to help see out a game. Which is all well and good, but he will need to start games when starters are unavailable. It's this idea of, oh he will do as a squad player. Then when we get a few injuries and have to play these players from the start regularly, the performance levels dip and the results suffer.