Johnnyrotten

I've watched Rodriguez goals for Notts County, he's clearly got talent. As an explanation for not making it with Oxford in the championship, I'm guessing he doesn't have pace. Skillful and composed, not going to race away from a defence like for eg Dempsey. Strange that he was at Notts County in non league for so long, how was he not signed by an EFL team? As an aside, when Notts County played Grimsby in the play off semi, May 2022, they had RR and Kyle Wooten up front, and Grimsby had McAtee. Wrexham lost to Grimsby in the final and had Mullin and Ollie Palmer, not bad for non league.

For context, that was Wimbledon's 1st ever season as high as Div 3, not long up from non league. And it was our 1st season as low as div 3 for over a decade and maybe our 3rd ever? So we weren't meant to lose there, never mind 4-0. Our season literally peaked at Christmas, beating Wigan Boxing Day and Oxford (who won the league) the next day to go 2nd or 3rd. First 3 away games of 1984, lost 5-0 at Sheff U, 4-0 at Wimbledon, 1-0 at Walsall. No play offs in them days, the season became an irrelevance. Revenge exacted at Easter - Oxford away 5-0 defeat Good Friday (one of few games I went to on official coach), Wigan home 0-1 first ever defeat to them the next day. Bleak times.

If they had better for the championship fair enough, I don't care if he never kicks a ball in the championship as long as he helps us to get there like he did Oxford.

Purely in numbers terms without getting into ability, we've got 8 defenders/wing backs: Christie, Tutu, Johnston, Toal, Forino, Irish lad, Conway, Taylor. At a push for half hour stints, EE at left back (as at Barnsley) and Simons RB. Very happy with these signings to date.

Burstow will be the stand in/sub for Dalby. He's not good enough to start with or without the signings.

And god knows what City would have done to us if we'd beat Stoke!

I've seen some disappointment over the years but I've only teared up and/or got a massive lump in my throat 3 times. First was when they were singing the national anthem prior to the league cup final in 95. Looking back its unbelievable that we were in Div 4 getting crowds of 4k in 1988 and 7 years later it was Liverpool in a cup final, a day I never expected to see never mind so quickly, and that was in the days every team took that cup seriously. 2nd was the Nat Lofthouse tribute v Chelsea, the end of a particular era, it was so moving. 3rd was clapping the kids off v Coventry after that 0-0 draw, I'm still grateful to them lot, they made us proud.

In hindsight I'm disappointed we didn't get past Villa and into the FA Cup Final. But I remember turning up for the day in the frame of mind of enjoying the bonus of being at Wembley and I just wanted us to put on a decent show, similar to when we played Liverpool in the league cup final. I feared Villa might thrash us (Carbone, Dublin, Merson I think, etc), turns out I'd massively overrated them, they were poor on the day. Gutting to lose with the Holdsworth miss and on pens but low expectations meant I soon got over it. The manner of the Stoke defeat and every single thing about that day left a scar I don't think we got over for many years, the start of a massive spiral. Oxford absolutely terrible but we're over it, I honestly think we'd have got relegated badly under IE and we'd have kept some players thinking they would have made the step up, it would have been a car crash IMO. IE would have been a championship manager immune from the sack for ages for god's sake 😀

Their home record is unbelievably bad. Since 25th Oct, played 8 in league and FA Cup. Won 0, drawn 3, lost 5. Scored 2! Not scored in last 4 home games and lost the last 2. And their opponents couldn't have been better hand picked - lost to Burton, Gateshead, Wigan, Exeter and Doncaster. Drawn with Vale, Stevenage, Mansfield. The only thing in their favour is they don't concede many, just 2 in last 4 home games. But it would be hard to find an "easier" away game, on paper. Obviously it'll be 0-0 at H-T.

Thanks for that, have you got highlights of the Stoke game while we're at it, we need a confidence boost 😀 Funny how memories play tricks, I was convinced Murphy's 2nd goal was scored from a really tight angle nearer to the touch line than the 6 yard box, turns out it was a routine finish.

Just waiting for that elusive day when every chance and half chance we have is a goal, and every chance the opponents get isn't 😀 I'll take another 1 goal win with a 90th minute goal bundled in after a keeper error or a pen after the defender handles a cross.

True, but we did still have Collins. If we'd had him all season we arguably wouldn't have a need for Hardie and could concentrate on getting a more robust goalscoring threat like Nombe or Olaofe. We're having to repair the damage of selling our main regular goalscorer (on top of Charles not being replaced).

They didn't play on 2 international weekends when we did, and in Jan they've got 5 league games compared to our 8. The extras were our rearranged game at Stevenage (our choice), the fact that they were in the 3rd round of the FA Cup and Vale away postponed, frozen pitch. Its an advantage to them that any signings they make in Jan will have 5 extra games to play compared to our signings, better VFM for loan fees etc. They play Stevenage twice between now and 10th Feb! For once we get advantage of them having a midweek game before we play them and we get the week off.

And even the 10k or whatever that turned up is inflated by us all having S/Ts. It was never the case till we moved to an all seater stadium, that nearly every regular fan got a ST. Most just paid on the day, if we'd had to pay £25 or whatever on Tuesday, it would probably have been back to the 5 or 6k we used to get at Burnden in the dark days. The difference between a Saturday and midweek turnout is massive, that was never a thing at Burnden, if we had a Tuesday game it would only be marginally down on the equivalent game on a Saturday. But because they don't publish real crowds, we get fed the line that crowds have hugely increased, and yes of course they've improved visibly at weekends, but overall not by anything like the numbers claimed.

I think the only hope Wigan have of doing us a favour on Saturday v Lincoln is getting shut of him and getting the sacked manager bounce.