Johnnyrotten

He made some great saves, although maybe he's on the short side, so that a routine save for a tall keeper turns into a spectacular save for the smaller one. But well played him, if he hadn't played well it could have been 8 (they could have had a couple too). We should have had 2 more pens, hopefully we get those when they matter.

A pity we didn't get him a year or 2 earlier instead of the likes of Donaldson and McGennis. Yes, better than many of the strikers we've had since for his short stay with us, he had Championship and Premiership pedigree and only dropped as low as L1 when he came here.

Yes Verlinden's goal was one of my favourite away goals I've witnessed. To take the lead, and with an outstanding goal too, was a wow moment. Looking at the line ups, their forward line was Carlton Morris (now a regular scorer for Luton) and Freddie Ladapo, they scored 4 between them. Our "strikeforce" was Crawford on his own! (nice assist though). In midfield they had Crooks (now Boro), we had Weir!

Yes, it's easy to dismiss the whole thing as a shit show. The truth is there were some good goals, moments and players too. Daryl Murphy was about 38 but he still knew how to finish & lead the line. Politic & Verlinden had their moments amongst others, and any win felt huge upto the time we realised the fight to stay up was over. As you say the Accy game changed the feel, we went into that after 3 consecutive wins & even took the lead, but that was as good as it got.

Yes, when Politic gave us the lead it was like we'd scored in the FA Cup against United or City, felt like a David v Goliath tie but they were in a lower division to us!

They were given 1k initially

Just my opinion but I think the main problem of half that team was being past their past (and having a strange manager). Many were proven at least good standard L1 in their careers at some point: Lowe, Bryan, Hobbs, Nsiala, Murphy, Hamilton, O' Grady. Line up the season after a lot worse IMO: Crellin, Santos, Baptiste, Jones (3 good 'uns there obviously), Greenidge, Comley, White, Gordon, Sarcevic, Delfouneso, Doyle. Subs Taft, Crawford, Hickman, Mascoll, Amoateng, Tutte

Coventry was a real high point for me too. A tear jerker, buzzing after it. Difficult to explain to any none Bolton fan afterwards why I was on a high given there were about 6k of us watching a 0-0 L1 game and we were on minus 11 points 😆

Agreed, well said I liked him too. Sad he's had to retire. Only 2.5 years ago he was in the Sheff U team that won 2-1 at Man U in the league, and he scored 1 of their goals. Had a good attitude and decent ability, just here in the wrong era.

Well maybe personal preference, human touch, not got a smart phone, not got a signal in the pub/Asda. Ticket office is just another option that might encourage late decision walk ups, plenty of reasons some folk might not book on line. Deary me.

Oxford 2-2 Wycombe | League One Highlights | Video | Watch TV Show | Sky Sports 1st one handball, probably not deliberate, but had to be given. 2nd one, I'd be fuming, the striker played for it all day long and the keeper tried not to touch him. 3rd one just bad defending, clear but needless trip. The conclusion is both teams look reassuringly dodgy at the back!

I'll be equally as generous to my fellow fans. I was lucky enough to be there in the equivalent cup in about 86 and to go again less than 40 years later would just be greedy.

I get that but we seem to pick up as many injuries in training as in matches, and fringe players or those returning from injuries could probably use the extra game time eg JDB, Maghoma, Mendez Gomez, Ashworth, Forrester etc. Playing relatively fiesty FA Cup games has to be better than training exercises against Leeds U21s or whoever in the pizza cup.

Surely we can buy from the ticket office at 2.45 if we want to?

In, looking forward to it. If we draw there a chance the replay will be on TV, that would bring back painful memories, but I'd rather we were in the draw for the 2nd round than not. It looks like the club are only currently selling tickets in the middle 2 blocks of ESL and WSL, that's very tinpot and as with the opening of only 1 stand for the league cup, it sends a strong signal to fans that the club aren't treating this game with a lot of respect.

I remember that game at the time because it was famous for no fans being allowed in the return leg at West Ham. There had been trouble in Madrid in the 1st leg (surely not?). I knew they'd played Castilla but had no idea it was Real Madrid B. Newport got to the cup winners cup qtr-final that season, losing to Carl Zeiss Jena 3-2 on aggregate- how exotic that sounded - Aldridge was playing for them then.

I get what your saying but City's place in the hierarchy isn't down to Guardiola as such, course he's a great manager, but the infrastructure in place now appears to be way ahead of anywhere else. Liverpool owed their dominance to Shankly/Paisley arguably, like Derby and Forest won titles because of Clough, Everton under Kendal etc. City could have Keith Hill as manager and they'd still be top 6 comfortably, they will never be in danger in our lifetimes of going down, unlike Utd/City/Newcastle of the 70s and 80s. The big shift from a Utd/City point of view is that we grew up seeing Utd as the dominant team, City always striving to keep up (which they did for a bit late 60s to late 70s). Those days are gone for the foreseeable. It can change, City may have a dip and Utd may get a great manager/sort ownership issues, but a whole generation of teenagers/20 odd year olds only really know City dominance, its a massive shift and its hard to see it changing since they've regenerated the whole club.

I bet their fans are buzzing at the prospect of all them new smaller grounds they might be visiting next season

I miss the Man City of Maine Road. Part of the rich tapestry of what made the league what it was, they had that niche of being the big club that could never quite win anything, and their fans were considered salt of the earth because of it, always striving to be important but never quite managing it. Newcastle were similar, even that fun is being taken away now. Only Everton are really left of the under achieving big clubs, but they'd need to be relegated to truly take over the City/Newcastle role of the 80s and 90s. If I was a City fan I do think I'd struggle for motivation, do they start each season just worrying they might not win every trophy?

Joey Barton? An odd coincidence the Bristol clubs have sacked their managers in the same week, and it hadn't occurred to me before that 2 of the least likeable managers in England were in the same city. It will be a surprise to see either of them again.

Charlton have no luck with the timing of their matches with us. Last season when we beat them at home after losing 2 on the trot, it was the start of a 4 match winning run, scoring 8 conceding 1; when we played them away it was the 2nd of that 5 match winning run when we scored 14 and conceded 1. Feb 2022 beat them in the middle of a run of 5 wins and a draw, including the 6-0 v Sunderland. Can we play them every month?

Trafford used to stand well out of his goal for us for no apparent reason and its just asking for trouble. Enjoyable to see Burnley playing their way into trouble every week. They look half decent going forward but the fannying around at the back plays into the opposition's hands. Kompany and the owner Pace seem genuine and likeable which is annoying, but hopefully they'll be back in the championship next season despite 2 of the other relegation spots being already sorted, effectively.

Add Maddison and Saka into the mix too. Maddison has been top class for years, he didn't get picked by Southgate till this season so missed a world cup, he's only got about 5 caps compared to 30+ for the likes of Dier, Mount, Lingard, Sancho. Anyway that's 4 top class players to build a team around. Or if your Paul Merson, top top players.

Yes, you just know that by transfer window time, Derby will have a manager that will mean they are a contender, if not for top 2, then for play off success. They will be a different proposition when we go there in March, not that it makes any difference who manages them when we go there, if only we could play Charlton or Port Vale every week.

Fair enough, I think my viewpoint is not allowing the quality of the oppositions shots (or luck) to be a factor. So the long range shots from Carlisle and Wycombe that ended up in our net were great/lucky shots, but we should arguably have closed them down so that their quality/fortune didn't come into play. Eg marking their players instead of marking space. But at Port Vale we were supposedly under the cosh in the 2nd half but I never felt like they threatened, I felt like we controlled that game, without breaking sweat, we were just better than them. Strange that they were above us before that game and it was considered a "tough" game, it was nothing of the sort, and just like Carlisle/Northampton they are all bang out of form, relegation fodder. On another note, in the last 20 games between them, Reading and Carlisle have won 3, 2 of them were against us. Annoying or what, especially as we were ahead in both.