ClaphamFox

The crazy thing is that in normal circumstances there would still be a sense or jeopardy about tonight’s game. If we win, Blackburn fail to beat Sheffield Utd tomorrow and Oxford get less than seven points from nine, it would still be in our hands. Unfortunately while the latter two outcomes are entirely plausible, the first one isn’t. There are no circumstances in which the team that drew with nothing-to-play-for Preston and already-relegated Sheffield Wednesday, and lost to nothing-to-play-for Swansea and relegation rival Portsmouth, will beat play-off chasing Hull. Nobody within the club, apparently including the manager, seems to believe it’s even possible. If you manage to set aside your feelings for a moment, it’s genuinely fascinating to consider what’s happened to this football club over the past five years. Football historians will study it for decades to come. Documentaries will be made about it. Professors of sports management will gather students around and say in a hushed tone, “I’m going to tell you a story you won’t believe…”

I know some long-term, absolutely dedicated season ticket holders who have decided to stop attending next season. I know others who agonised over it but were unable to take this step and have renewed. I don’t think either of the above groups can claim to better supporters than the other. Everyone has a different tolerance threshold for the kind of shit we’ve been through in recent years. I respect those who have decided to stay away while KP remain at the club but I also understood why those who have renewed have done so. As you say, football is about hope, however unrealistic it may be at times. If the reports that the number of cancellations is far lower than expected are true, the club is very fortunate. It’s possible that the waiting list will mop up the seats that become free and we’ll end up with every season ticket sold, which would be an extraordinary outcome in the circumstances. The club does not deserve that kind of loyalty.

On the BTG podcast yesterday somebody claimed that the club was expecting around 20% of season ticket holders to cancel but it has been well below that.

It was excellent. Piper seemed genuinely taken aback by how honest OPA was. Well worth a listen.

Birmingham are after him, according to reports. In which case we'd probably end up with Chris Davies.

Rowett's contract surely only runs until the last game? Why would they extend it beyond that? And even if it was until July, why would it prevent somebody else being appointed in the meantime?

We're overdue a lucky manager appointment. Maybe the next one will be one of those where we accidentally land upon somebody decent?

Being in receipt of one more year of parachute payments should give us an advantage over every other club in the division. All we'll need to do is make a few shrewd signings and.....ah. Alright, fair enough, no positives.

Yes, I suspect you’re right. This simply wouldn’t happen anywhere else.

Seagrave is just a building and some football pitches. It is not responsible for establishing the club’s culture and maintaining standards. That’s the job of the people who run the club, and they have comprehensively failed to do that. Blaming Seagrave is just as daft as blaming Belvoir Drive for the years of decline that led to the 2008 relegation to League One. We are where we are because we have a clueless chairman who has no idea how to run a football club. It’s got nothing to do with Seagrave.

Seagrave is clearly not going to be sold. Doing so would amount to a massive admission of defeat and loss of face, and Top will not sanction that. Moving the women there and selling Belvoir Drive, as suggested above, is far more plausible.

It is not an exaggeration to say that any other club in the country, including non-league, would have sacked Jon Rudkin long ago. Top is literally the only chairman that would reward that level of failure with a promotion. Any organisation that has no accountability will eventually be overcome by apathy and inertia at all levels. Those stats show just how far along that process we are.

Our club is like a radioactive waste zone. Anybody who comes near gets sick.

He joined us.

They probably weren’t all vile before they joined us. The Palace fans were very fond of Ayew and regarded him as one of their good characters.

Somebody needs to persuade him that the best way to honour his dead father is to sell up to somebody who knows how to run a football club.

He’d be shit anyway. Horrendous manager.

Because Top’s weakness and ineptitude have infected the club from top to bottom. We’re an institutionally sick organisation and we won’t recover from it while King Power remains in charge. No amount of manager switching is going to change that.

It was Ayew apparently. After he’d finished talking the room was completely silent for around 20 seconds, then Luke Thomas stood up and started slowly clapping. Then Mavididi did the same, followed by Winks. Then suddenly the whole room burst into mass applause, accompanied by tears and hugging. Then Ayew raised his hands once more to silence the room. “Alright then,” he said. “Let’s do this.”

The car was written off some time ago. Rowett is just the latest mechanic to look at it, suck air through his teeth and shake his head sadly.

You want energy and fight and you’d bring in Monga?

The EFL’s own rules state it must be imposed this season. If it’s delayed until next season and they end up getting a deduction that would have sent them down, you’d imagine the EFL would be facing serious legal action from whichever club comes third bottom.

I’d be very surprised if went down with 53 points. However this is an academic point as we won’t get anywhere near that.

That reads like it was written by AI.

To be honest I think we'd be hard-pressed to find anybody who can get a tune out of our current squad given the depth of the rot that has infected it. Sure, if we had 6-7 games left I'd be inclined to give somebody else a go, but unfortunately I think it's too late. No point bringing anybody in with a pair of defibrillators now—we've already passed away and are starting to whiff a bit.