Xen

This has made me realise we're not even the highest ranked LCFC in the country anymore...

I cancelled mine, still had a confirmation that the direct debit was renewed. Just to rub salt in the wound, that was about an hour after our relegation was confirmed... I just cancelled the DD again and confirmed with the ticket office that it wouldn't re-process. Keep trying and you'll get through eventually - email is probably best though. Failing that, the general [email protected] email is much more responsive. In my experience, Jim (supporter services) who mans it has been the one positive aspect of dealing with the club over the past few years. First DD payments wont come out til June so you've got plenty of time to get this resolved, imagine theres a lot of people with similar concerns all trying to get answers at once, currently.

Absolutely fuming with this, after going through such an ordeal with trying to cancel my ticket for next year (having cancelled my DD early after the renewals announcement) and being repeatedly reassured that it's been processed, this then happens hours after relegation is confirmed. Our club is beyond a joke at this point.

To all those who have been saying "This is our level" - what about now?? Unless we literally dominate the league and finish clear winners (we won't) we're about to have our lowest ever finish in the history of the club. Assuming we make it til the end of the season without winding up, of course.

Can he play upfront?

Sad thing is, that could have (should have?) been this season in the Championship. They were all on our books in the prem and we were talking about giving them opportunities and gradually integrating them with the first squad, then we had that disaster of a season and got relegated (again) and despite being at a lower level, most of them haven't really had a chance here. Whether or not they would have been PL level is unclear, but they certainly cant have been worse than relegation-zone-championship standard. The fact we need a second relegation to be in a position for them to actually get a chance is pretty depressing...

The small print in question for anyone else unsure: How hard is it for them to create a logical timeline for these things?

It's not what other's have alluded to that you have to tell them not to renew (you DO, but thats not why this email was sent out as the deadline for that is a month from now). I've already explicitly stated to them in writing that I'm not renewing, and they've still sent me this email confirming my renewal. They've effed up their own process. Sent them a strongly worded email asking for clarification...

It's a stupid system and makes no sense. There's no easy opt-out, you have to email them and do it 'manually' that way. The timings are daft too - you have to opt out before the final direct debit for this season comes out. I decided to cancel my DD and pay off the last two payments manually to avoid this, except the site is broken and doesnt actually let you do that, and apparently by cancelling the DD (even with the intention to pay) that voids your season ticket for the remainder of the season. I've had a lengthy back and forth with Jim via lcfchelp (who, credit where its due, was quick to reply and super helpful) to try and figure out how on earth to resolve it all. It's a nightmare for something that should be an incredibly simple process. Which I suppose is to be expected from LCFC at present...

With how dominant she is against her competitors, she's definitely in that same bracket as JEH - possibly even surpassing her if she keeps it up for a lengthy career. As the commentators were saying - if Keely turns up fit and in form, its hers to lose. She broke the 24year old world indoor record by a whole second, and has more to give. If that final had gone different from a tactical pov, it wouldn't surprise me if Keely had gone even faster again. Massive credit to Georgia and Molly too. Great to see a whole wave of success. Nice little stat I saw whilst checking something. The previous 800m indoor record was set on 3rd March 2002. Keely Hogkinson was born on... 3rd March 2002.

Exact same thing with me giving it to family. "Thanks... I'll pass" On more than one occasion someone has taken me up on the offer, and I've felt the need to apologise sincerely afterwards...

There won't be any waiting list, that's for sure. It used to be a multi-year process of getting a membership and buying tickets whenever possible - often as single seats - just to build up enough points over 2-3 years to potentially get one. Now we're half-filling the stadium, those spare seats are remaining spare and plenty of people who've already got their seats at STs aren't bothering. I renewed for this current season mostly because of an admin error - forgot the deadline to cancel the DD - and figured I'd take it as a sign to keep the faith. Gradually started going less and less and then gave up for good in December and after some initial feelings of remorse, now I'm quite happy to have my Saturdays back (2hr travel each way definitely impacts that choice, but still). Part of the appeal for renewing was to keep my seat and then just share the ST with family who are still local. But given how easy it's going to be to buy one-off tickets, I really don't care about having my specific seat and it's not like i'm going to struggle to get my hands on one. Only real downside is it'll limit me going to away games as I was just about at the points threshold where i could consistently get tickets... But oh well.

So now that we've finally broken the woeful streak of not keeping a clean sheet, how many more do we reckon we'll manage before the end of the season? Will this be a springboard for a watertight defence, or was this a false dawn? Upcoming fixtures (and current position) are: H - QPR (16) A - Watford (9) H - Preston (14) A - Sheffield Wednesday (24) H - Swansea (10) A - Portsmouth (19) H - Hull (5) H - Millwall (3) A - Blackburn (20)

Took a look out of interest, and in 15/16 we signed 3 players early in the window whilst Pearson was still here: Huth, Fuchs and Okazaki. All 3 key parts of the title winning side. After Ranieri joined the 3 we signed were Kante (who he had to be convinced about, and was identified early by SWalsh and Shakey who were the continuity) at the start of August and then Inler/Benalouane shortly after the season started. So the early preseason work is what set us up for success, and the later additions were less impactful. Preseason is a lot more important that those running the club seem to have given it credit for lately. Hopefully we can get a solid base sorted far sooner this year…

We need a manager who understands the club, fans can get behind and who gives us a much needed bit of consistency and stability. if he keeps us up, Rowett checks those boxes. Enzo was only ever going to be temporary. Cooper was an uninspiring disaster. Ruud was so out of his depth it was unbelievable. Marti had some decent opening interviews but from there he never really connected with the fans. i don’t want us to go crazy with the contract length on the back of some passable results (as we have form for….) given that we really shouldn’t be in this position in the first place, but a 1year contract with performance-based extensions/bonuses feels like it’d be fair reward for keeping us up. Setting a baseline by surviving relegation and clearing out the end-of-contract deadwood players, but then immediately bringing in someone new to change the direction of the club AGAIN feels like we’d be repeating past failings and setting ourselves up for another tough season. I’d rather keep Rowett than risk another Cifuentes…

Plain sight/site. Yeah, I didn’t laugh either…

No point, may as well wait til the summer and just break the news to them about league one instead..

All the right things, again. [cautiously] Optimistic for this!

If its a 0-0 and we keep our first clean sheet in months, I think I'd be OK with that just to give the defence a bit more confidence. Need to start putting pressure on the teams around us though and start putting some actual points on the board, so I'd rather an ugly 2-1 win with another dodgy mistake for their goal, than a solid 0-0.

Great news. I'd hope we don't rush them back unnecessarily though, but obviously GR will have more insight into how their recovery is going and if they can handle it. In Lascelle's case, I think he's going to be pivotal to the run in and if we ever want to have a sturdy defence (and maybe a clean sheet, remember those?). Okoli/Nelson as a pairing doesnt inspire confidence... but maybe it's right to keep them as the starting pair for one more fixture, with Lascelles coming off the bench if needed. Whereas with JJ, I think we've actually got enough cover that he wouldn't necessarily start even if fully fit. Skipp and a motivated Winks are good options, and the CAM options are pretty secure as well. So again, no point rushing him back unless absolutely certain.

Very true. Hence why I'm trying (probably not as succesfully as i'd like) not to get carried away It feels a bit more substantiated this time. Quite possibly wishful thinking, though...

Apart from the first 6 months of Enzo's Championship season, I don't think I've properly looked forward to any game since the early 22/23 season. It all just went downhill from there - and even winning the Championship last time around we made hard work of it after the strong start. I'm trying not to get carried away, but Rowett is saying all the right things and at least I feel like he wants to get us back on track and instil the right attitudes into the club. Whether or not he's able to is another question (whether that's his ability or due to other aspects of the club...), but I'm cautiously optimistic. We've needed a proper reset for a LONG while, and on a few occasions thought we were getting it but it never really materialised. I think Rowett could build us a Pearson-esque foundation and with better players available than at his previous clubs itd be interesting to see what his ceiling is. The fact that he has a pre-existing connection with the club feels like a positive, too.

Rowett gets one free pass to use Ayew in a match - we're limited in options and he is one of our most experienced players, so makes sense. But now that he's seen him on the pitch I hope we never see him again. We'd genuinely be better off by taking a player off and playing with 10 men rather than having him ambling about. Interesting to see which direction Rowett goes in with the defence - If we can get one clean sheet I think it'll make a massive difference and we'll see more follow, but hard to see us keeping 90mins of consistency to achieve that. Boro could've easily punished us more than just the single goal. Ricardo is gone as a FB, Thomas is questionable (although I think he's actually OK going forward), and Okoli/Nelson doesn't inspire confidence. But with injuries, I don't know what else we can do. Hopefully a swift return for Lascelles - and maybe even Vestergaard - will make us a bit more solid... More generally, I'm feeling positive about Rowett. It's an odd situation to judge, but he seems the right character for the situation and early signs are reasonably reassuring.

Most teams are hovering just above 1PPG so 50pts feels like a reasonable best-guess at safety. If the 6pt deduction gets doubled (which I believe is worst-case scenario) then we'll be down to 26 points and our PPG for the season so far (based on 38pts earned) would see us finish on 42.2pts overall. To get to 50pts we'd need 24/14= 1.7ppg, which is equivalent to 78pts over a full season - so play-off form needed to survive. As it stands, 50pts requires 18/14 = 1.29ppg, equivalent to 59pts over a full season - midtable form. Both are attainable with the current ability of the squad. The current attitude of the squad, however...

She was complicit, but she was also clearly being frozen out by best-buddies Top and Rudders. So it's possible she didn't have quite as much oversight of this stuff as she could (/should?) have had. Does it absolve her outright? No, not at all. But there are massive question marks over all involved in running the club at the top level, and we dont know the full extent to how it played out internally. As far as character references go though, she easily comes out the best of the lot so I suspect some of the more positive narrative actually holds true.