OntarioFox

It was already time for the Sunday lunchtime kickoff by the time they'd finished typing

The fact that I have to give Elon Musk my personal ID to see a boob, yet have a man's grisly death thrust in my face as soon as I open up the app, sums up the state of the internet and Xitter in particular, in 2025.

Just glad the international break is over and we can get back to business. They become more and more excruciating every time.

Yikes, wasn't aware of that. I guess we can add a rotting stadium to the list of things that make us a pound shop Man United under King Power.

It's been an issue for a full decade at this point - I remember having a conversation about how we could use the title money to finally replace the seats, and apart from a few small patches which stick out like a sore thumb we're still waiting.

True, I guess what I'm saying is that there isn't going to be enough of a piss-take drop off for them to go down any time soon, sadly. That was a uniquely 'us' series of events because we've let the inmates run the asylum since the title win.

There's one glaring difference between our setup and Forest's though. The players treat top like their mate and he lets them get away with murder, whereas I imagine any that let their levels drop for Mr Marianakis would end up swimming in the trent with concrete boots.

I'd like them to get Steve Cooper back in, since they kept insisting he was a brilliant manager let down by us. Go on, put your money where your mouth is.

Doesn't mean they have to though. Ngolo Kante commuted to Belvoir Drive in a Mini Cooper despite being the best midfielder in the world and on £40k a week at the time. Then again, he ended up in Saudi too so that's probably not the best example.

So much for the Israeli defence force

Stick with a manager for more than a season - we've had no stability since it became obvious the board had no long-term plan beyond Rodgers. They also naively assumed Enzo would stick around I think, which was partially out of their control but once again showed this club's allergy to thinking more than one step ahead. Stick with a style - even if that means we have to grit our teeth and accept we'll remain a possession-first club for the time being. I think many of us would like to see something a bit more direct, but we can still reap the rewards if the man in the dugout can at least get the pressing intensity out of players who are clearly capable. Any signings absolutely MUST fit this style. No more Cooper-type windows. Clear out the deadwood. This has thankfully started, but the job is nowhere near complete. Build around the youth. We have some brilliant prospects coming through, now for God's sake play them. By the end of the season I'm hoping the likes of Aluko, Nelson and maybe a returning Alves can join Page and Monga in breaking into the first team. Accept that we need to cut our cloth and completely reset the wage structure - even if that means a few seasons in the Championship or (god forbid) lower. All of this is based on a working assumption that there is going to be no movement at boardroom or ownership level. I'd still rather they all buggered off, or that we at least get a new DOF with some semblance of competence and vision, but I can't see that happening unless point 5 gives them all a collective itchy arsecrack and makes Top finally consider selling up.

Fatawu's return to pretty much pre-injury form has certainly boosted my optimism that we could still see the Will Alves we all wanted to. I think after seeing how much Justin regressed post-injury, I'd forgotten that it is in fact possible for players to bounce back. Time will tell, this Huddersfield loan is a great gig for him.

Just seen the score - hands up if you're wasting your weekend watching that?

Exactly this, most footballers in the top two leagues earn more in two weeks than the average fan does in a year. If I could get one year of Championship wages and lived the way I do now, I'd never have to work another day in my life. There comes a point where it's either fuelling a needlessly extravagant lifestyle, or becomes pure greed over professional integrity. Or both..

I reckon this ends up with the same feel as Rotherham away last time out, where we sneak a 2-1 win with an academy lad (Page?) bagging a brace.

I got really confused for a second there, thought you had an irrational hatred of Oxford United

Hot take, but if RVN is in that dugout from game 1 and gets the summer window, we sign completely different players and the outcome is possibly different. Not defending his tactical dumbassery, but there's no way we'd have ended up with Skipp, Ayew, BDCR if Ruud was the one at the helm. Cooper is worse than him for that appalling window alone.

Couldn't squeeze it in to the media schedule, too busy prepping a birthday greeting for Astrit Adjarevic and Roman Bednar

Jinx!

Bellamy mentioned in his post match presser that he gave a few members of the squad limited minutes as they'd had very little time to train due to deadline day, before a 3500 mile flight and one training session to prepare. Considering he came in last minute, I'd imagine JJ was one of those players.

The signings matter as much as anything with that in mind - it's a bit like how it's only from now we should really be starting to form a judgement on Marti since he has players of his own through the door. Cooper is worse than RVN for me, because he did damage to the squad whereas Ruud simply wasn't backed at all. And Rodgers has done as much damage to us in that respect as Peter Taylor ever did, this window is the first time we've done anything to clear out the mess he left and it's been three miserable years now. That's one of the reasons I look back on Holloway's mess of a stint with a bit of a silver lining - he didn't have a summer window and brought two important players for us through the door in January in Howard and Oakley. I don't think we'd have made the waves we did under Pearson without those two. Same logic with Puel who was incredibly underwhelming tactically but brought in the best players of anyone since we first made it to the Prem.

Taylor set us back a decade, set in motion a collapse to our lowest league position ever, and exacerbated the disaster of our administration by losing us our PL revenue for the first season on Filbert Way. If Mickey Adams hadn't got us up we'd have been screwed. He came the closest to literally destroying our club, and for that he's clear on his own as the worst ever. He also signed Dennis Wise so he's a twat just for that. I'd give an honourable mention to Rodgers despite his FA Cup win, because he did so much damage to the playing squad and managed to get a side that still had a bunch of top-six talent on paper relegated. We're still reeling from the effects of that disgusting capitulation today, and we may never get back to where we were. Despite our decent start, there's still a very real danger that a few seasons in the Championship and having our talent poached could lead us straight back to League One. That all started with Brenda, his pathetic man management, stubborn tactics and spending around £200 million on, for the most part, downgrades in every area of the squad. RVN and Cooper were both terrible, the former in a record-breaking sense, but neither were really here long enough to own the failure entirely. Cooper however was integral to bringing the likes of BDCR, Skipp and Ayew to the club for no logical reason, so he's treading dangerously close to Taylor / Rodgers territory for me as he undid a lot of Enzo's good work in rebuilding us in a single transfer window, at a time when it was vital to get it right with the looming FFP / PSR threat.

Are we counting players who were underwhelming for us but went on to be world-beaters? Because if that's the case, I guess you can make a case for Kane and Lookman. Going in the other direction, there was Nobby Solano who was absolute mustard in his Newcastle days but past it by Pearson's second season.

Can't wait to have to explain to my American mates why I'm celebrating on the day

its pronounced "fazz" but point taken