J. James

As you are no doubt aware you are not alone in your diminishing love of the game, l firmly believe its the same thing ruining our game as ruins virtually everything else, money, greed and the desire for power and influence. Those that run the game love to feel that they can make changes - "improvements" which as night follows day are ill thought out and inevitably make the game worse. I too used to watch lots of games but now l often tune out after a few minutes - I'm of the generation that didn't cheat at sport or feign injury so that aspect of the game also makes me turn off too. Watching the Olympics makes me realise that true sportsmanship still exists and watching the Rugby WC that behaving like an adult is not dead. Sadly football is becoming less of a fair, competitive sport with each passing season.

🤔 Is he giving him a reach round with his left hand?

Just a joke bud.. In fact the results were shit, the performances were not.

# Although results are sh!t.. Finished it for you... 😐

This is you you isn't it...

I'll bet Enzo is still shaking his head at that unacceptable performance from his former team...

God yeah, l hate fast food that's not geometrically aligned too.. Lettuce was probably non symmetrical and the tomatoes the wrong shade of orange to boot.. Just unacceptable.. 😐

I thought the stats from the Soton v Forest game were jaw dropping, this nonsense of ball possession needs to be binned and fast, it means zero if - as is usually the case - teams do nothing in the box, like Soton.

Well it appears so, but - how often do we fans criticise managers - England managers in particular - for picking 11 "great" individuals (often because they would be hammered by the media for leaving out a teams star player if they lost) but not picking a team. Successful managers pick teams, Pep regularly benches Foden and he's the player of the season! Cooper sees what we clearly do not, Ric and Mav are two of my favourite players so I'd like to see them start too but we must trust the bloke to pick a team.

I can't quite understand the outrage and apparent surprise from some posters. Only a deluded fool would have thought we would be anything other than dreadful this season and, well, we clearly are. This is not down to the players, and Cooper is doing his best with one hand tied and the other with restricted movement. I was hoping for Corberan like many but Coooer is here for good or ill. Frankly we all have a good idea where the blame for our problems lies. As soon as it became apparent that the owners were going to let the fraud take us down, our trajectory was obvious and our downward ride is not over yet, like all successful businesses upward progress is slow and hard, but the downslope is fast and easy. We armchair experts may not agree with Coopers tactics/signings/provenance/looks, but his knowledge of the game and the financial realities are immeasurably better than anyone on here. His remit is keep us up, nothing more, nothing less and that is how he and we will have to judge this season.

Albrighton on City’s relegation in 2023🎙️ ‘We were going into games, fearing teams that we should never have been fearing. Going into games… not really knowing what we were doing.. and that’s not on Brendan Rodgers.. we were just lost’ Well personally I'd say that is 100% on Rodgers, i can however understand Marc not wanting to throw proverbial stones but come on, if thats not a coaches job first and foremost what is? It was then exactly as it appeared, they couldn't play the way that stupid stubborn idiot wanted and frankly it was obvious to everyone except one man.

Still chuckling at this now 🤣

I dreamt l was out on the lash with Grealish and we got chased by a load of crocodiles... Hope one of our dreams comes true.* * Not mine. ** apparently it's not "a load" it's a "bask".

Yep, spot on. Unfortunately for Maresca (in terms of popularity) he came along right after the fraud and his style of play and persona gave lots of us uncomfortable flashbacks of the BR/BS period. Enzo's "my way or the highway" also revived past trauma. Cooper's style appears to be closer to the Leicester city idea of perfection.. i.e the big man!

Weaker on paper for sure but in reality the difference in ability between Premier league players is miniscule - it's not what you've got, it's how you use what you've got. The fraud proved that having "talented players" at your disposal is no guarantee of even moderate success if their strengths are not used. Cooper's most famous predecessor at Forest proved that even "mediocre" players that are well coached and motivated can be much more than the sum of their parts. Alonso proved the same point at Leverkeusen last season. Personally l dont mind arrogance as long as there is an equal measure of genius to go with it, BR had lots of the former but precious little of the latter and managed the rare feat of making a silk purse look like a pigs ear! Cooper seems to be less self obsessed, more humble and - fingers crossed - closer to the real deal.

Lets hope it's goals!

The first bits positive! In a relative way.. 🤔

So, after all that, the good news is:- lose by less than 3 and we're not bottom, lose by 3-0 and we're alphabetically bottom, lose by 4+.... Ok, we're bottom then 😕

Lol.. Oh dear, a vote of confidence from Chris Sutton?

The problem is any talent knows we are a basket case and will also be told by their agents not to come here. Even if there was any desire to invest - which l don't believe there is - we will only attract mediocre (at best) players. Lets not kid ourselves here, we are going down and going down badly, accept that and anything better is a bonus. Support the lads wearing the shirt but call out the Donkeys running (destroying?) the club.

Lol.... "A" north Korean dictator? Are there more I've not heard of? 🤣

Sadly it's a no win for us now, the buyers (when it is actually sold) will almost certainly be Yanks with 100x more money than sense/morals/knowledge, Saudis or other arab butchers for whom decency and morality are total strangers or oligarchs by proxy who are quite simply gangland criminals in league with the boss of bosses-Putin- such as Abramovich. This is the state of football in England now, debased and for sale to any piece of sh!t that has the coin. IF any of the above buy our club now or in the future, l for one am done with it.

Jared Gillett? The best a man can get.. 😐

Absolutely correct and his defence at Chelsea is and will also struggle and concede frequently with this awful boring style.

Yep, sounds right to me. I posted this last month along the same lines - "Is it conceivable that the owners have accepted we are already down and are saving their money? The way they mismanage our club, I'd put nothing past them." Most successful people are realists, and whilst Top is patently not the businessman his dad was he does have a modicum of sense and likely knows when to desist in the deceased equine lashing. The contempt for us fans is astonishing, raised prices in our situation is close to fraud! Sadly we are now reaping what the idiots have sown. 😒