nnfox

No, Ward was Rodgers. Puel never made a bad signing

Lack of fitness. Lack of strength in depth. They obviously had a rocket at half time and we started slowly. The early goal gave them belief. Ref was decent for a change.

Overall violent crime is down but when violent crime occurs, people (young people in particular, both genders) seem to be willing to very quickly escalate it to an extreme level of violence. There's generally a lower value on other people's lives now and easy access to images and audio that normalise extreme violence. The days of a punch up and shaking hands afterwards seem to be firmly a thing of the past.

Weird article. Seems like lazy/lax journalism. The article looks like it was written in the immediate aftermath of the incident with an appeal for witnesses, but they have since been found guilty and the reporting restrictions lifted yesterday after sentencing. No mention of the actual court result in the article. But yeah, absolutely vile.

This argument where he should play the kids is a nonsense. We have had a good few years where decent talent from the academy has been slim pickings. Now we have half a dozen genuinely promising prospects, they should all go straight into the team and show the seasoned pros how it's done? Come off it Ben Nelson.. I have seen him play two games. Good in one, poor in the other. Has been injured for a bit. Would I like to see more of him? Yes. Does not picking him in every game mean that Marti doesn't know what he's doing? No Louis Page... Has looked out of his depth whenever I've seen him. Decent prospect? For sure. Ready to rip up the Championship? Absolutely not. Jake Evans... Hasn't featured. From what I saw if him in pre-season, he didn't look like someone who was going to get double figures in the Championship. Do I want him to do well? Definitely (he was in the year above my lad at school) Does he need more development time? Yes, I think so. Jeremy Monga... Exceptionally talented. Could he go to the very top of the game? Maybe, but he's nowhere near yet. A lot of pressure for a 16 year old and there are many aspects of his game that need fine tuning. Olabade Aluko... People crying out for him to get a game. "Marti, give Aluko a game because Thomas is rubbish", "Marti should give Aluko a chance". Gets a game. Gets sent off after 30 minutes, what happens? "Marti shouldn't have played him in that game". Silko Thomas... Another one that holds a lot of promise, but needs careful development. The list goes on. What do you do? Play them all? At the same time? What happens when they get battered 5 or 6 nil? Still Marti's fault. Any manager that comes in at this point in our history is on an absolute hiding to nothing. Spring follows Winter. Right now it's Winter. Things will get better but changing the manager will not all of a sudden bring us sustainable long term success. It's not possible in the current situation.

If Farke became available, that could be a sensible decision, but if that's not an option, there's no point making a change.

Interesting pre-Marti thread, because there's some posts in here that were correct about our season before we had a manager. There's interesting references to us going to be fine because we have Bilal, Mads, Wilf. Justin will be fine at this level and McAteer was decent in the Championship (all of them now gone). Yet some people blame our current predicament on the fact that Faes is preferred over Nelson. I'm not saying Marti is perfect by any stretch but look at the tools he has at his disposal. This club limped over the line in 2024 with Maresca. It was a poor finish to the season where we benefitted massively from a statistically anomalous first half of the season. We were shocking in the Prem under Cooper, some would say even worse under Ruud. Now we have much weaker team on paper, yet for some, it's Marti's fault we're not winning every game. So many fans were calling for a reset last season. Now it appears loads of those same fans thought it could be sorted in a single transfer window and less than half a season. It's a multi-window, multi-season task. Yes, of course we all want to be winning every week but we pretty much all wanted a manager to preside over a rebuild. We're still very much in the demolition phase and Marti needs at least one transfer window to start laying some proper foundations.

The Mist. I really enjoyed it, but it seems everyone else hated it. Set up nicely for a second season as well.

What is this ref actually doing???

Lee Hendrie can get in the bin as well.

No width now. 432. Compact middle. Lump it forward

Ayew ans Soumare on. Let's go!

Big half time team talk. Earn your money Marti.

I'm starting to struggle to see a way back tonight.

He'll be up against it at Newport, for sure. They're rock bottom of League Two! Absolutely love the bloke though, he was a great player, brilliant professional and had a genuine connection with the fans. Hope he does well and regardless of results, I'd welcome him back here in a flash in pretty much any capacity right now.

I've been watching football for a lot of years now. All I can say is that some managers work out, and some don't. Why that is, is a bit of an unknown. If it were known, then no professional club would ever select a "bad" manager. For me, Marti on paper ticks a lot of boxes. I'm disappointed that we haven't won a few more games, but then I remind myself of how the club is run... 1. Marti was brought in late into pre season. 2. We still had many of the players that have been poor performers for multiple seasons and multiple managers. 3. We spent zero pounds bring new players in. 4. We don't have a goalscorer and we don't have a creative midfielder. 5. There's a crap atmosphere hanging over the club, both from a bunch of relegated players and frustrated fans. 6. Points deduction incoming adding to uncertainty. I'm prepared to give Marti time. IF he's given funds to spend in January, then let's see what difference that makes. If he isn't given funds, then I say keep for the rest of the season (providing we're not flirting with relegation). We can't keep changing managers every 20 games, at some point you have to stick with one. It appears that we're about to enter a period of change at the strategic level of the club and who knows what that's going to look like. Maintaining a bit of stability on the training ground is, right now, of the highest importance.

Maresca would not have kept us up. We didn't have the players for his brand of football. Chelsea coming in for him was exactly what he needed.

That's one way of looking at it. Another way of looking at it is that the situation must be pretty dire if raising income tax for the first time in 50 years is seen as a legitimate option. Another way still, is to present this as an option with no intention of following through to make the public fearful that it might happen, then deliver a less bad option and a proportion of the public will be relieved to the point of thinking that the less bad option is actually a good thing. I'm not sure there's much benefit for the anti-labour brigade to pluck stuff like this out of thin air to discredit Labour, because ultimately Labour hold all the cards come delivery and get the final say.

This is correct. The Chancellor does not do the maths. Whoever the Chancellor is, makes the decision. Often, they are tough decisions and rarely will everybody from business and the wider public agree that a given decision is a good one. Rachel Reeves will have been presented with a list of options to raise money for the nation. It is very likely that all options are crap. It is a very common tactic for these decisions to be tentatively made in the weeks leading to a budget and deliberately leaked to the press to measure public opinion. If it looks like the option will be a major vote loser, they won't do it because they want to stay in power. Sometimes they will use the tactic to present something very bad, then deliver something less bad - it can actually be a vote winner. Make no mistake, these decisions, whether blue team or red team are made with votes in mind. Actual finances are a secondary factor.

Squid Game - The Challenge is good

We need a striker. There is no point in discussing anything else until we have a striker that can actually score goals. Regardless of outgoings. Striker, striker, striker.

What a team we had around that time. Great memories.

They always leak ideas to see the reaction. Remember, the number one priority for government is to stay in power. Popularity is more important than doing the right thing.

So funny reading through this thread. Pointless. Did well. Get rid. Game changer. Never want to see him in the shirt again. First name on the team sheet.

Need some new deckchairs. Until that happens, all he can do is rearrange what we have.