Take Hunt Off

Apparently Rico’s daughter is hospitalised as well so first & foremost is for both of them to recover .Family first football second .

Can’t believe we are discussing it , talking about fitness etc given the state of the energy sapping pitches in those days plus two games a week . Walker & McGinley would walk into our current team not to mention Blake who along with SJM scored thirty goals in our title winning season in the Championship as well !

Brighton ?

Charles Manson right at the back in the dark.

We have the best defensive record in the league surprisingly, anyway you start with 0-0 & get better. Hopefully. Pompey only got a point at Morecambe today , don’t think they’ll be too disappointed. Charlton got a point at Burton Plymouth got a point at Lincoln Peterborough got beat at Exeter Cheltenham got a point at Ipswich All below par Its not just us.

Dingle derby reckon Burnley will toast their inbred cousins.

Statistically we are 6 points better than last season at the same stage We have 5 points less than our excellent second half of the season after the same No of games. No panic. Having said that we need to improve from now until Xmas on last year as we only picked up 4 points from the remaining 7 games

Not happy at all , just realistic in the midst of our autumn slump. Definately take a point next week though fwiw

Didn’t go today so can’t comment on the performance. Trying to be positive we’d probably have lost that match last season (we did) Another similar challenge next week , I’m thinking small steps & another clean sheet next week will do me given five or six of our players are totally out of form at the moment. A playoff place can still be achieved but I think Evatt will have to trade in January in order to bring in a couple of more robust types that we lack , thinking CB &CF.

Not confident when I saw the line-up , thinking where do the goals come from? Although not a critic of Katchunga , he doesn’t hit the target very often & after the euphoria of the late win the previous game expected to see Bodvarson in the starting lineup along with Dapo .Having said that nothing worked on the pitch & the opposition were winning most second balls. Carl Robinson had certainly done is homework targeting Jones & Bradley with lots of lofted high balls as Burton had done (but not as effectively ) The direct battling approach certainly rattled us , & they grew in confidence assisted by another incompetent referee. Things bucked up a bit with the subs & Charles’s goal gave us a chance to get something out of the game. But our Achilles heal of setpiece incompetence did for us . Someone needs to drill some setpiece discipline into our players . To get promoted from any league requires solid defending & some goals from corners & freekicks. We lack both & not just based on yesterday it’s not a new issue other teams seem to rely on it totally .

Unfortunately lived in Burton on Trent for a few years .Went to an FA cup fixture when they were at home to Bury in the late seventies .Burton were very non league then most of the locals following Derby Co. Remained fairly neutral until Alan Waldron got pole-axed (he was almost at the end of his career & that tackle didn’t help) Anyway was a decent game Bury won 2-0. John Ritson played for Bury as well .

Billy Bodin got sent off for Oxford last night (two yellows) so he misses our fixture. In the past he has been a right pain in the arse usually scoring or playing a blinder (Think he was on our radar at one point a few seasons ago.) Good news.

It was a weird team selection in the first place although our left side has been pretty impotent all season , John & the lad from Liverpool are obviously not up to it in Evatt ‘s eyes but playing Dapo as wing back was a gamble too far . Iredale doesn’t look like a wingback either to me but is probably a competent left back /centre back. We have the players to do much better , particularly if we stop fannying around & get the ball quickly to the likes of Katchunga & Charles . Dapo scored fourteen goals last season , he has to be part of the set-up not keeping the bench warm. Great win today , Burton next .We might need to be patient on Tuesday .Evatt’s team selection will be interesting he might even pick the team that finished today.

Aye & these shite teams have us well & truly sussed. Problem is we don’t seem able to overcome this , we never look likely to score from a corner either .All our good teams of the past could mix it a bit when the going got tough but somehow that component is missing in this team which is down to the manager & his training & tactics. Learning curve is wearing a bit thin.

Lee /Thomason/Johnston excellent the rest ok , Katchunga is never going to score goals unfortunately & Iredale is a bit laboured as a wingback. They were absolute gash . But then again we have lost to quite a number of gashish teams in the last few years , so it’s progress . Ref was not an arsehole either.

Thomason had a great game today , can’t fault the lad but mom by a country mile was Lee .He was everywhere , breaking play up , pressing high , tackling, playing one two’s great performance. Baka not the greatest at linking play , but he gives it 100% & with better crossing will get goals with his telescopic leg . Charlton are top ten , not shabby at all , Trafford made several good stops second half lest we forget.

Been there a few times , plenty of ground development until the disastrous blue sky thinking?

Remember it well , a three nil defeat & bit of a pasting although I did complete my greatest ever uppercut on one of Chelsea’s finest .The sound of his teeth thundering together Iives in my memory, even though the rest was a downhill battering down the terraces.

That Villa home game deserved a bigger crowd than turned up.There was an attitude prevailing at the time that if you had committed to a season ticket your loyalty couldn’t be questioned , I had a good few mates at the time who blanked that game & I didn’t understand it then & don’t now. The ticket price was £22 , but relative to the prize ? I know for a fact that the club hierarchy were unhappy with the turn out & in part explains their cavalier attitude with the final tickets ,as actually only around 11k -12k home supporters turned up to one of our biggest games at the Reebok .

How encouraging was that ! I know their league One but eight changes & conspire to go 1-0 down , in the past we’d be grasping at a draw or praying for penalties This squad has improved so much in such a short space of time it’s the beginning of something special . Think as an owd un you get cynical over the years but heyho that ‘on the way up ‘ feeling is unmistakable , it’s contagious and bears comparison to the early seventies , late seventies & early nineties when the Wanderers were definitely coming up the hill .

I would gladly take sixth place now, going to be a tougher & better league next season

I too paid a tenner at the start of the ST for all the right reasons etc. Point is they managed to do jack shit as our club was sinking just a talking shop for attention seekers & cranks. The final straw for me was at one of their meetings (the only one I attended) they were blowing smoke up Dean Holdsworth’s arse like he had acted honourably (having pocketed at least a million quid ) Their naivety stunned me & I walked out .No doubt some well meaning people in there but the ‘elected’ representatives were delusional. They don’t represent anybody but themselves.

RIP Henry , short lived but lively Bolton career Proper old school defender ‘Stick your bloody boot in Henry’ was the chant.

Absolutely the wrong choice assuming of course wiggin weren’t in the hunt.

Notts Forest ?