desperado

Very good 😂👏

Bolton win, platform for a good run, getting us up in those automatics for the 10 game mark.

It all depends which quotes you want to use to highlight your point. Maybe just like at City and Chelsea injuries happen, it’s not a systematic/managerial/specific problem to a club. And maybe we are one of the stronger squads who can cope “Look, it isn’t ideal at all, and what we did last season was look at the data to see how we could have adjusted training to make sure this kind of thing didn’t happen,” he said. “We tried that but unfortunately some of the injuries we have picked up are anomalies, really, they are contact injuries or over-stretches, that can happen over the course of a football match. “We have to deal with it. I genuinely don’t think any squad in this division could cope with the amount of injuries we have at the moment but I think we can.

Bit of positivity - let’s dispel an age old myth… We have a decent record in the most recent family day games! Last 4 family day games Accrington W3-1 Charlton W3-1 Exeter W2-0 Cambridge D1-1 Let’s continue the trend!

Watched that 2nd half. They were bloody lucky to hold on! They were battered! Hope we can have a bit of luck like that when/if a side dominates us for 45 mins.

Barnsley pulled 2 back…

In the Cameron Jerome role?

Yeh - I’ll Whattsapp you 👍

Fair enough. And FWIW I don’t envisage us winning the next 3 and me coming back on here saying everything’s ok we are top and there’s nothing to be concerned about. I just think that at near on a quarter of the games there’s a bit more substance and realism to the judgments we make, positive or negative.

I disagree You can make it out to mean anything you want. After 10, We could conceivably be sat top having beaten a couple of teams who were supposed to be challenging us (Derby Peterborough) and 2 teams in the top 6 (Stevenage & Port Vale). So then you’re searching for some other team/scenario to say it’s not a good judgement. Crazy, that at that point you are saying well being top after 10 games tells us nothing because we haven’t played Exeter away! 🤣

Mad really. It’s a combination of 3 things for me. We can’t deny the “social media, reality tv type world” we live in now, where you’re only as good as your last moment in time. That combined with high expectations and the over-critical/expert football fan means defeats are analysed/over analysed to death. Wins, consistency, goals, clean sheets are expected. I get it, any deviation from this as a team aiming for the top two, is going to be criticised. What I find OTT is how defeats bring about fatalistic resignation, opinions of unstoppable trends that can’t be reversed, views about systemic change in management/ownership being needed. I’ll repeat what I said in another thread, 10 games in was always going to be a good barometer.

Winning goalscorer can do one as well. Don’t care whether he’s a young up and coming talent. C. Vickers - always thought he was a bit of a twat (granted you’d need to know me to get that one 😉)

It’s as poor as I’ve seen Toal. Would still have him ahead of Iredale. As even in a poor game he’s positionally sound, strong and quick. But his distribution yesterday was awful and no argument over his bookings. Can understand his frustration but arguing like that was always a yellow and awful timing for his challenge on the 2nd. But, as I said above. I’ve got lots of faith and time for our best and most influential players, of whom Toal is one of them. Think there’s a reality check from us fans at times about the “quality” of our players. On their day our best ones look every bit top end L1 and even Championship at times, but there’s a reason they are with us and not higher, not one of them does it on a consistent 9/10 out 10/10 basis.

Another big reason IMO, for yesterdays defeat, which must have Evatt scratching his head, was our big key players not being at their best. Top of the list being Sheehan, Dempsey Toal & Charles. Would anybody not have picked them in our starting line up yesterday? It’s a harsh sense of reality that our best players are still only, at the moment, top end L1 players and unfortunately aren’t going to play well and be as influential as they can be every game. The hope is that in the majority of games they are at the top end of their games more times than our competitors key players are. May seem harsh adding Charles to that list as his finish was sublime and everything sensational about what he can do at this level. But his two other chances; the one where he tries to come back inside and the first time effort he fluffs wide are the reason Stoke and other championship clubs are not going to be breaking the bank the try and sign him. We can’t afford to have 4 big players like that, not performing at their best on the same day. FWIW, as people who know me would expect, I think our key players will come back stronger (well Charles will when he’s fit!) from this and will have far more successful days this season than they did yesterday. Always said 10 games in. That’s not changed for me.

Reasonable to have doubts I agree. But yesterday I didn’t feel either of the 2 scenarios you outline were at play yesterday. This wasn’t a Wigan or Barnsley, where we were being tested/out thought/out battled. Nor was it that plan A wasn’t working. We created a shit load of very good chances - we just didn’t put them away. Yes the subs not making us better, once we had conceded, is fair comment, but I think that’s a separate issue.