Dan

Eh?!

It's definitely too easy I agree. It's different now I have an actual good team but my first season up in this league was stupid, we were dominating most teams.

Them and Stoke = very similar. Both started well and both gone to pot. We failed to take advantage against Stoke. I have no faith whatsoever we'll beat Preston. None.

Will be sealed a good 2/3 weeks before Blackburn.

Baffling how TV don't want anything to do with us now. We're objectively hilarious viewing.

Assumed an 8th placed finish yet after 7 games had 1 point and the worst defence in history at that point of a season. And the manager kept his job. And they think that's a mitigating reason.

Said it years ago - they've got the worst traits of Arsenal and a fraction of the talent.

I've lucked it on timing really - can justify playing on the rest of this season but there really is nothing more to do with these. Have had good runs in all three European comps, won one league, two cups, won the super cup (finally). I'm going to win the league again this season and have basically made the cup final too. Got a cracking team and a tonne of money now but it's beyond being rewarding. Mountain climbed. The only thing I haven't done is won at flipping PAOK. I just cannot win at that ground.

It's piss poor in many ways. As ever the ME I thought was OK and fresh at first but it's gotten a bit repetitive and predictable. Some of the bugs are just so unacceptable - how they've still not sorted the jumbled subs is beyond me. I've given up on it from a neatness perspective. It's a shambles. But I'm done with this save. Mentally checked out. Nothing more I can really do with Kallithea and I'm due a new one, but I'll wait for the new squad update. God sod all on over the weekend so will probably finish this season.

I knew you'd be a fan of this as well. I posted exactly this in another thread.

Out and will never change.

If we do it's the same way Tottenham seem to only get good results which help Arsenal but back them up by losing to everyone else, giving themselves the worst case scenario. That's what we're doing with Coventry.

Perfect timing. I've won it all in Greece now and just been knocked out of the CL by Lyon in the last 24.

Actually wonder if there's a chance how he ends up back at Spurs if they go down.

McKenna's still not beaten us in five games. We've definitely been a bit of a bogey team for him. You would think surely that ends Saturday.

The fairest play-off system I've ever seen by the way is this. They've scrapped it now, but the Italian Serie B you used to qualify for the play-offs or not based on how many points within 2nd place you got. It had a dynamic number of teams in it so one year you could have just two teams, another you could have seven etc... it was quite complex but it's probably the fairest system I've seen.

Dilution to the importance of games and VAR are the main reasons football feels shit now rather than tactics. I think tactics are pretty cyclical and this season does appear to be a particularly drab one but I don't think it's necessarily the future. But loads of meaningless games is an epidemic. If you had the top three go up, which I'd agree is a meritocracy, you would have far more dead rubbers. You would have to cut the size of the league. Birmingham for example now - 12th in the table, 13 points off 3rd, 15 points ahead of 22nd. Their season is as good as over. Playing them would be an advantage. But this is also overkill. 8th potentially going up is absolutely ridiculous. They just can't help but tamper with it can they - it was always getting voted in because it gives more clubs a chance and by extension more of them are going to vote for it, but that doesn't make it right or fair at all. The play-offs work. They're one of the highlights of the season. So naturally they can't help but piss around with it.

Will say what I said a few weeks ago and stand by it - I don't want him anywhere near us, but he's better than what we have. Well, less bad than what we have anyway.

You actually can't see a way out of this. Their squad isn't good (it's worse than the one we went down with comfortably imo). No obvious manager alternative. Tonnes of injuries, a club renowned for struggling under pressure. This really is on. They're ****ed.

Not broken at all so obviously they'll have to try and fix it. Just another safety net.

Just remember as well that Winks was in the aftermath of the 2022/23 debacle where we had supposedly reviewed our errors.

Technically true.

Update: Did not step up his game. Allowed the relegation to take place. Rewarded those responsible for it.

Signings of this ilk have done absolutely nothing for us. A big part of why we are where we are. Also in a position we don't need either. I doubt there's actually anything in this, but our inability to identify and strengthen our weak areas in the team is a serious problem. It's such a basic principle in recruitment. It's why I never got the point of Aribo at all - why are we signing Aribo when we have this chronic an issue at full back and no defensive midfielder? And the striker situation is so laughable it's bordering sabotage. Would be a total waste of some of the 10% of time that we actually function as a club for.

It's worked out but I stand by it should've just moved incase. One less sleep for everyone until the next trip down misery lane at least.