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Never ceases to amaze me this place. As much as we all bicker and spend days on end waffling shite to eachother I know we've all got eachothers backs. The support from folk on here has been unbelievable and can't thank you all enough. Lads I've never even met sticking a few bob in. Honestly from the bottom of my heart I thank you all. Not just donations but support as well. You are unbelievable people.

Well worth a tenner to make some por sod huff and puff for 20 miles around Manc 😆

Those stats don't happen in isolation though. Teams generally score first against us, they then sit back and we have a load of shots trying to get back into it. We've conceded in 72% of our games this season, which is the same as Port Vale. We concede first in 43% of all our matches. If you chuck in last season, we've conceded first in over 50% of our league games under SS. Given how shit teams in the third tier are - and how many would take 0-0 against us - that's nowhere near automatic promotion standard. Our strikers aren't prolific by any means, but they're having to score two goals every game to win which is unsustainable. Especially when it's always coming from behind against teams who have something to hold on to. The defensive stats look good in terms of goals conceded. But generally when teams want to score against us they do. Orient and Blackpool at home recently scored almost the instant they put an attack together, and that's the kind of thing which has been happening all season.

Will Forrester’s not doing too bad at Orient, Captain now and leading them on a run away from the lower reaches. Bad decision for me letting Will go, the best all round defender we had by a mile and certainly better than the likes of Toal and could have fitted in at full back instead of the useless Tutu.

He was similarly abhorrent when Senator John McCain died. Another Purple Heart winner, he was a pilot shot down and held at the notorious 'Hanoi Hilton' where he spent 5.5 years, regularly being tortured and nearly dying of dysentery. In the 1990s McCain was instrumental in bringing the US and Vietnam back into contact together and towards reconciliation. A man held and tortured for 5.5 years. Trump called McCain a 'loser' for being taken POW, and said he preferred his heroes to 'never get caught'. This from a man who managed to avoid the draft four times. Trump is a horrible cunt. And anyone who defends him is defending a horrible cunt. He's not a 'disrupter' or any other nonsense moniker the excusers give him. He is simply just a horrible cunt. That's it.

Conway and Tutu are both Wing backs, basically wingers who can do a little tacking and marking , the fact our record with them at left and right back is so good is a miracle. They're doing their best outside their natural positions.

Fair points and he did suffer an injury when he went there but to be fair he hadn’t played much before he did go. Orient must see something in him to replace retiring Omar Bogle as captain and now he’s fit he seems to be getting on fine. For me I thought he was a proper defender, headed everything, tackled hard and got blocks in. What teally hacked me off was when Jones returned from his jaunt with Australia, Evatt put him straight back in despite the fact Will had been our stand out defender. That was probably what made his mind up to move on, it certainly would have me. Whilst I accept that he wasn’t as good going forward as Jones he was for me a much more reliable defender and it’s proper defenders that we’re lacking in my opinion. Clearly neither Evatt nor Schuey agreed with me and probably others won’t too but for me Forrester is a miss and one we should have kept.

I've no problem with Forrester and he's arguably as good or better than some of our's on his day. But he's only played 2 of the last 4 of Orient's games, he's either been injured (again) or not first choice. The last 5 games that he played prior to these recent 4, they won 1, drew 1 and lost 3. So its slightly misleading to say he's leading them on a run away from the lower reaches. If he'd played at Vale, he would have been up for the corner that we conceded from, and he would have been launching it to Dalby's ahead instead of Toal doing it, as instructed by SS. We'd have been criticising him after the game, rightly or wrongly, saying we need better defenders.

Keown is a seriously odd bloke

Not just us moaning

Good luck with your scans achy and hope you get better soon. As you say old age can be a pain but hopefully you’ll soon be through it and on the mend.

I'd be giving the some rest if I was SS. Let em all go away and get some sun. They look knackered.

24-48 rule extended due to International break

We have a reasonable number of players who've had enough experience of either playing for us or for others in testing atmospheres. Sheehan and Toal, for example, have played internationals in places like Turkey, Belgium, Macedonia. Dalby played 30-odd SPL games including ones at Rangers and Celtic. But, I dont think SS has brought in as many course and distance operators as he intimated he needed in Summer, and at times we have looked a side light on guile and nouse. A feature of SS's Plymouth side was an ability to shithouse their way to a result if they weren't playing well. They did it to us at ours in that 0-0 draw. We've very rarely looked like a side able to do that sort of thing and manage our way to a win or draw.

Saw that earlier. Looks like a young lad with some personal issues who's got absolutely spangled on an Away day. Pretty sure I was in a similar situation myself 25 years ago at Charlton - and that was after a win (Djorkaeff brace I think). We stayed down there at a mate-of-a-mates house, and I have no real recollection of anything after the match. Nobody mentioned anything the morning after, but I'm convinced I was sat on a kerb crying my eyes out whilst spewing at some point. Maybe nothing happened and it was all just a beer fear hangover? Anyway, whoever filmed that lad wants a good shoeing.

Was a mixed bag, I did think the Starmer and Lammy sketch was very very funny. He’s got the voice bang on 😁

Is he talking to them via a fucking ouija board? Told us he’d killed the lot last week.

Teams have sussed Toal, Johnston and, to a degree Forino out when on the ball, letting them have it in our third and inviting them to try and do something with it. An answer? Miss them out a bit. TSL was good at that and Bonham also in his first few games, when we were playing 3 at the back, chipping balls directly out to Conway or Tutu or going long towards Dalby.

Santos made Toal and GJ look good he was forever pulling them out the shit.

That's overly negative. Johnston isn't playing well now and I'm not his biggest fan but he had a purple patch earlier in the season (Oct/Nov time) when he was excellent. And Toal also seems to be panicking now, but as Ani says they're having way to much of the ball. The midfield needs to give them options midfield. As for Conway, I'll agree to completely disagree. He's following tactics to get forward and then the CB not covering is the CBs fault. Look at Rotherham away, he's in a good advanced position giving an option on the left, midfielder gives it away and Johnston can't cover a player he had a significant head start on. Tutu shouldn't be in a back 4 I agree. For me we have Forino and Conway who are our best defensive players and more than good enough for this level, but they're lower down the pecking order for some reason.

yes

I listened to his interview on the tarmac today. He's still blaming them for everything! 🤣

I find it mental that everyones only just waking up to Johnston being shit. I've been saying this for months and getting pelters. The problem is he's good enough as a bench warmer not a starter. He wins a lot of headers to be fair to him but its just a case of getting anything on it and lacks any composure whatsoever. When he's against someone with pace he's fucked. Toal often looks like a deer in the headlights, gets bullied to easily. The centre halves we have need to be big lads that are happy having a scrap and setting the tone. Especially away at places like last saturday and mansfield et all. No nonsense, win the battle. Our defence is weak as piss and has been all season. Both full back options aren't good enough and that should've been addressed in January. Once we realised how shite Taylor was, we should've brought in another full back. At least one would've been enough. For all the Conway love, i think he's wank. Forever out of position, not quick enough to get back and doesn't add an awful lot going forward despite being out of position constantly. 2 assists in 35 appearances? Same on the other side with Tutu, 1 assist and 1 goal. They can both beat a man but it rarely comes to anything and their defending is just comical at times. Is conway really that much better than Murphy from last season (he was shite)? I'd much rather have a solid back line that can defend first and foremost. Don't concede and are a threat on set plays.

🤣 - or any other woman to be fair

Trump must have been thinking about Pam Bondi when he was posting that 😉

A bit 😂

"WITCH" 😆

It's not the speed of Toal and GJ that's the problem. It's their dithering and flapping that's the problem. Toals head goes under any form of physical pressure. GJ can barely kick the football in a straight line. Neither are particularly good in the air.

He's a gobshite. Tieing himself up in knots here, as usual.

At the risk of "absent players get better everything game they don't play" Forrester seemed to get the rough end of every decision. He's a very decent player & I didn't understand his constant omission or sale.

Off to see Carl Cox and The Prodigy in a couple of weeks. Sober!

I'm in Haven next week for some R&R. Like a warm weather training camp in Dubai for footy players. Instead ill be fucking about on a kayak and buying £8 pints in a bar full of repressed Dad's

We can’t change the result move on more games to come.

The only thing we can say for sure at the moment is that we’re not good enough to win consistently to finish in the top two. We’ll only know by the end of May whether we have enough to get out of this league. As Paul says above In 95 and in 2001 round about this time in the season we had no consistency and some terrible results. Anyway has this 24-48 hour period not passed yet? 😂

Indeed, they're at their level, are trying but in some cases hindered by being asked to do things that aren't their strength. True that there's a different dynamic to most of Toal, Sheehan and Dalby's experiences, though there's been plenty on Wales and NI's recent games, even if the crowd noise is more fervent hope than expectation. As I said though, more of an issue that we're still short of the sort of experience and know how that gets you out of the lower leagues

Then we'd have 2 less players to mark when defending a corner, and a chance of a breakaway. So other than being less likely to concede and more likely to create a chance, what's in it for us?

We’ve got three centre backs who all look uncomfortable in a two. Conway and Tutu both look much more suited to playing as wing backs. Would surely make so much sense to play three at the back and play with wing backs, but it feels like SS is picking the system before the players, rather than finding a formation that suits the selection.

Brilliant stuff, really hope it helps your bro through this unbelievably difficult time. You are going to feel serious pain btw on your marathon 😁

Well over £6k! Unbelievable

2nd major trophy of Trafford's career

Drum rolllllll Well in @Zico all Proceeds will now be spent on postage 😆 IMG_9007.mov

Yeah, I don't follow the logic that we've improved drastically from last season. Especially when most of that is based on the collapse at the end that SS was in charge for. As has been stated many times this season, this is a particularly poor set of L1 teams. 2nd are currently going at less than 2ppg. In the last two seasons 6th finished with 78 and 76 points. You might come third with that this year. For a team with clear, endlessly stated ambitions of getting automatic promotion, being a distant third in this division isn't progress or an achievement of any kind. A month ago Lincoln were a flash in the pan destined to fall away, now they're being painted as a juggernaut we could never compete with. They aren't anything special, but they have just beaten the dross over and over again. As has come up before on here, we're not a patch on the side that finished 3rd two years ago. But the fortunate thing is we don't need to be to win the playoffs this time.

No one would mind if performances were a bit meh, if we won most games. If functional, pragmatic way to promotion. We have won games this season whilst not being great. I always advocated though, that in order to win most games, performances simply can't continually be "bad". They might not always be beautiful for the purest, but they have to have certain qualities to maintain winning. We are a third division team when all is said and done. What is noticeable, is that when we have scabbed a win or two, that performances don't necessarily improve with ehat should be gained confidence, and sometimes continue to be flat, with mixed results. Where this has come from, who knows, but there is a bit of a pattern.

2689 miles! https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy0dxexdd8xo

The SW Coast Path is continuous so goes right around the south of Plymouth including some industrial port areas. There is a water ferry service from the Barbican that goes to Mt Edgecombe which has a decent stretch, but the North Coast and far west tips of Cornwall are the highlight

Absolutely gutted I can't go now, this was a weekend I was really looking forward to, my last 2 trips to Plymouth have been brilliant, I was told today to take things very easy for the next few weeks, in hospital today for immunotherapy infusion which should have taken 2-3 hours, after 5 hours they abandoned it because my blood pressure was dangerously high, 230/140, I now look forward to my PET scan next week to see if Mr C has returned. Aint old age brilliant!!!! Live your life folks because it really is short COYWM

How much you can afford for accountants.

Out now AMF

Pissfroth