Eddie

It should move back to the linesman actually making the decision that they believe and then VAR used to check that there’s no major fuck up in that decision. ‘Major fuck up’ would have to be defined as something like daylight between players, or a certain distance between those lines, and preferably it would be automated, but ultimately it shifts back to on-field decisions in the main with VAR just hiding in the background in case someone’s a foot offside etc., not measuring people’s toenails which I think is the most infuriating thing at the moment. If the Coventry lad wore size 6s rather than 11s then one of the greatest moments in the cup’s history wouldn’t have just been magically deleted and that’s where it’s so frustrating.

Really good point and I reckon it’s pretty important for confidence. Ended the season with the best home record in the league (nobody with a remaining home game can catch us) and so any team that we’ll play in the play offs will hate the idea of coming to us for the second leg. Unbelievably frustrating game with the amount of chances we missed, but everything to the point of the finish was pretty good (Port Vale were shite!). I was convinced it was destined to finish 0-0 after Williams hit the bar but as you say Biggish Dave, Collins can make something of nothing and he’s clearly a match winner - I was also coming away from the game thinking that he’ll be the difference that will see us go up. Charles clearly getting up to speed, I thought Taylor had a really good game and dealt with their 2 units very very well. Toal is back to his best, Baxter made some big saves and Maghoma carried on his form. Hopefully a good result next weekend, not arsed who we get in the play offs, fingers crossed Santos will be back and no more injuries. Let’s go up in the best way you can, celebrating in the sunshine at Wembley in a month.

Yeah sorry, definitely the wrong choice of word. I couldn’t comment on the first because I’ve no idea of the angles from my seat but I do reckon he’ll be pissed off with the second. Suppose it’s ’credit in the bank’ which means he gets an easier ride for me from last night, rightly or wrongly - do get your point though. As you say, only Maghoma (not having Jerome) comes out of last night with any credit.

It’s a fair point but let’s not start pretending that Baxter needs to be a scapegoat. We also probably lose at Bristol Rovers due to some of the saves Baxter pulled off in those 5 mins post half time and you can’t account for the amount of times that Coleman would have rushed out for unknown reasons causing us problems. We have plenty of issues but Baxter isn’t one (that’s a pretty shit remix of Jay-Z’s version).

The thing that winds me up most when you watch games like last night where the opposition is clearly set up to just camp in, make it horrible and break where possible, is exactly that ‘stick to the system’. There were so many times last night where we’d turn the ball over, they weren’t all set in their defensive positions but nor were we in the way that we set up to attack. Our initial instinct is to slow things down, turn back, allow all of our players to get back to exactly where they need to be and then we go again with our patterns of play. The problem with that is that you’ve also just given Shrewsbury time to get 11 men behind the ball and they’re ready to implement their game plan again (and funnily enough we end up with the ball at either Forester or Iredale and 75% of the time they wasted it). I understand that we have a way to play, sometimes it works amazingly and when the opposition is naive and let us do it (Oxford and Reading) we look amazing, but I just can’t understand how we don’t recognise that it’s not always going to be the case and sometimes we need to sacrifice our perfect training ground triangles and patterns of play in order to take advantage of the opposition being out of position. Sounds very football managery but it just feels when you watch them that it’s drilled in so much that most of them rarely have the thought to do something different when the opportunity presents itself.

Seems mad to say it when we’re 3rd in the league, and little bit of an OTT reaction to last night’s result, but I’m exactly the same and can’t fucking wait for this season to finish. I think it’s a mix of expectation/pressure to go up, meaning sitting 3rd isn’t cause for celebration, having the opposite form to the last few seasons (I.e. first half of the season great and it seeming like we were on track, only for the second half to be shite and the hope just gradually fade) and also the fact that we haven’t had any ‘big’ wins - all the games we’ve won, you’d expect us to so although it’s all great to get the 3 points it doesn’t give you the same buzz that getting 3 points at Wigan/Blackpool/Derby etc. would give you. Obviously standing in the sun at Wembley celebrating promotion makes it the best season ever, but fuck me even if we do do that in reality it feels like an absolute slog to get there.

He isn’t walking anywhere. No manager ever does because it will mean they don’t get paid out, even more so when you’ve got shares in the club and I can only see that the clause attached to that will be “you can’t have these if/when you leave (obviously), if it’s our decision we pay you out, if it’s your decision you hand them back”. It can’t work any other way and therefore he is not walking anywhere. One for the end of the season anyway. Long way to go yet and despite his shortcomings and my frustrations with him after last night’s game, if he still takes us up then he’s very much here next season and so he should be, if not then there’s a question. Until then, it’s all a bit premature.

Ogbeta not putting his head in where it hurts and simply nodding the ball into the net is the most perfect example of our team. Beautiful football before it, chance on a plate, needs some bollocks to just finish it off and we’ve got a whole half to go and get the winner. He shit out of it. It absolutely optimises that extra 5% that makes you a top team. On very rare occasions we look like we have it (Barnsley away) but by this point in the season you can see the wider trend and the answer is we simply don’t. This isn’t an Evatt out, it all rests on him blah blah, but ultimately he has to recruit players that give you that extra 5% in the crucial moments, or instil it into them so Ogbeta knows he has no choice but to put his head on that, or he may as well not go back into the changing rooms after. As for the rest of it, it’s pretty well covered by what others have said - Dempsey, Iredale and Forester were horrendous - GT showed again just why he can’t play the Sheehan role. There isn’t one player in our team anywhere near as important as Sheehan IMO. I agree with the poster though that said Morley has to play when Sheehan is out, he’s been far from great this season but he’s the only one that would make that midfield balanced last night. Awful tactical decision (and no ability / reluctance to admit that and change it) - Maghoma looked like a footballer playing with his mates at times, it was embarrassing how he had to try and do everything because the rest were so shit - Charles looked way off it. Pretty sure he was feeling his knee at one stage and then came over to get pills. Hope that was just precautionary - Dan is not the saviour. We’ll soon realise just how shit he was before our memories of him started to fade Form table shows that we were never going to make the automatics. In the last 15 games, just as the going got tough our form would have seen us just cling onto a play off place. Comes back to my original point, we haven’t got the spuds. Saying all that, I still think that a fit Santos, Sheehan and Charles into that team and we’ll be reet in the play offs. Without them though, we’ve no chance.

🥴 just as our injury problems looked to be improving. Should be enough to get us through today’s game comfortably - be interesting to see who plays the Sheehan role though

Open to all but renewals are the only ones that can buy their own seat at this point. So a newbie can buy an early bird ticket but only has the option of the remaining seats that aren’t currently allocated to one of this year’s season ticket holders … I think 🥴

It’s not just renewals. Just early bird offer for all.

It was so obvious yesterday that he had a personal point to prove. I don’t buy into all oa f it about Yengi destroying him at Fratton Park, it was a good battle and he definitely gave him more of a game than most but he also got away with murder from a weak ref. Yesterday Santos absolutely toyed with him, he didn’t get a sniff. My biggest criticism of Santos is that he plays like the game’s too easy and often looks like he’s just had a pre-game joint. He’s a L1 Van-Dijk, looks like a rolls Royce when it’s going well, but it looks pedestrian when he’s off it. I wouldn’t mind him having that criticism about every personal battle with a striker before every game because when he’s got that point to prove he’s an absolute machine. Santos of yesterday’s second half IS the best defender in the league, he just needs to find that mentality when there isn’t a personal agenda to get him going.

Think it was actually a couple of minutes before if it’s the one I’m thinking of - looked a harder chance than the header to be fair and if he had have volleyed it in then it would have classed as an amazing finish from your centre back. The header however, unless my perception of how easy a header it was was completely skewed then it goes down as almost as bad a miss as Bod’s second half effort. It shouldn’t detract from how good he was though for the last 60 minutes. Hopefully the injury isn’t too bad because Santos of the second half would increase our chances in the play offs by a considerable amount. So many times he was left one on one with their forwards and he made it look easy - we don’t have another defender at the club that can do that.

This has blown my mind, how two people (and I’m pretty sure you’re not one with pre-conceived views) can watch the same thing and come to such a different opinion. Honestly I thought he was a joy to watch yesterday. He was dying to get on the ball and when he did he generally made something happen - he was absolutely everywhere on the pitch because he just wanted them to give it him, confidence was sky high and he won’t get the assist for the goal, but it was all his good work in the first place to get the ball to Ogbeta. I was sat there thinking, there’s no chance we keep him for next season unless we go up, he’s playing Championship football next season. But then you watched the same thing and thought he wasn’t just bang average, but dreadful! Mental! Don’t take that as any kind of dig by the way, like I say, I know you’re not just trying to back up pre-conceived views, just found it interesting more than anything.

What happened with what looked like his free header from the corner at about 75 minutes ish? From where we were it looked like he’d arrived on it perfect and had just nodded it down into the bottom right corner but next minute the keeper just caught it like someone had just gently thrown it back to him - assume he didn’t make the right contact or a defender got something on it?