Arne't Crawley supposed to be the Man City of the Conference? I mean, bottomless pockets and arrogant, buying up all the good players just by outbidding? If so, I will go against my usual desire for upsets and demand a Derby win!
Ha ha thanks for that! The manager says that apparently when he got the job at Derby clough said "At least I won't have to go to Crawley anymore." which he said was disrespectful...of course in the saem interview he said "Crawley aren't just some Cambridge or Forest Green Rovers you know"...which seems to be just as disrespectful!
I miss the good old days of non-league sides being absolute gash. Ten years ago even we'd have been looking forward to our inevitable 10-0 win, and now we're praying to god that we don't slip on the banana skin! Their manager sounds like a c**t, so I'd happily take any win tonight and then perhaps Nigel to knee him in the head at the final whistle.
Magic of the Cup eh? The guy who scored the winner works part-time in Boots! It's only magical when it happens to someone else
Magic? Hell Crawley have probably spent more money on players than we have! That's not an excuse, but they're clearly not your average non-league side...of course being beaten by a league 2 or even a league 1 side is still quite embaressment! Not an excuse though, like I say they wanted it a lot more than us. Ah well we can concentrate on the league now
There can be no complaints, they simply played us off the park, which is entirely our fault. Too many players playing out of position and I'm still not entirely sure how Roberts gets anywhere near the first team, he's absolutely woeful. That being said, last night, they all were. Didn't look up for it at all, and the writing was on the wall from the first minute. The only real surprises for me were that it took them as long as it did for them to win the game, and that anyone really considers this a shock. The penalty wasn't a penalty, Porter took a tumble, and Commons' effort was straight at the keeper. The two-footed tackle on Savage was probably as red card, although you could probably make an argument against that on the basis that his feet never left the floor, hence it probably didn't look to the referee as bad as it actually was. A defeat is disappointing, but ultimately within the realms of possibility, a defeat where you've been played off the park by a non-league side, completely unacceptable.
Yeah, can't disagree. When you play with a right back as centre half and a midfielder as right back...really hard to find anything good to say about any of them. I just don't know where to apportion blame? The players for not turning up? Nigel for having no plan B, the board for leaving us so starved of investment? Comes to something when Luke Moore, who seemed to make a huge difference to us, we can't sign and goes to Swansea! I've defended the board a lot, I think there's a lot of merit in not living beyond our means, but right now we're like misers scrimping for every penny and if we aren't careful we'll end up relegated. Nigel has proven he can find/nurture talent but he needs to be able to bring in real experience, and real pace, and that means having to spend some money. Really I think its time Clough turned some of the ire he directed at certain players onto the board.
I really didn't get why we moved Brayford into the middle. Presumably Leacock was injured or suspended, but what about Anderson and Buxton? Or even O'Brien (it's a cup game afterall, blood him FFS!). Playing Brayford there mean't that we had to play Green at RB which is a complete waste of his talent. Blame all-round last night. The players were dire, with little effort and application. Nigel certainly has us playing pretty football at times, but you're right, there is no plan B, and let's be honest, what were the chances of being able to play pretty football last night? Against a non-league side in absolutely dire conditions. It was never going to happen, but it seems to be the only way we can play, and when it doesn't work, we look completely ineffective. I'm not a fan of the board to be honest, or our owners. They take a lot of credit for the financial stability of the club but in truth most of that is the legacy left by Gadsby and the Premier League money. When Gadsby et al took over the debt stood at £55m. When GSE took over it stood at £32m with two parachute payments to come (£8m each). GSE recently announced that the debt is now down to £15m, which is just the mortgage on PP. So in essence they've actually reduced the debt by £1m themselves. Well done! That's not to say though that they haven't actually put money in, they have, but look at where that money went - large amounts on funding Jewell's signings, and then another amount paying them all off when most turned out to be sh1te. The board have said on numerous occasions that we need to be patient in terms of major investment on the pitch. Well, we're still within touching distance of the playoffs, in what has to be the most open championship in years, where there's no team that's running away with it. If the time isn't right now I can't see when it ever will be. Given that we're in an open transfer window I can't wait to hear what BS Glick Turpin comes out with to justify NOT spending. AGAIN!
Leacock was on the bench, Clough dropped him after the Forest game and has kept him dropped. Anderson is still injured. Buxton was on the bench last night but probably isn't anywhere near match fit. Well it's clear Nigel tried to play differently last night, what with Savage, Bailey and Addison in midfield, but it didn't work. I would have really thought if there was ever a game to play Martin in, this was it. I have to admit that I think I've come to the end of my tether with them. I don't want us to live beyond our means but there has to be some middle ground. Part of me wishes they'd sell us, I'm just wary about who might buy us! Better GSE than another 3 amigos! I like to think there's an alternate universe where Jewell didn't become our manager until after we went down so wasn't tarnished with our prem season. I think he is a better manager than his record with us would suggest.
Personally, I'd probably have played O'Brien. Failing that, Leacock, despite the Forest performance, is a better option than shifting Brayford and playing one of your better midfielders at RB. Far too negative. Three defensive midfielders was always going to give us problems creating much going forward. Besides, even with three defensive midfielders, they still waltzed through them time after time. Martin, probably won't play for us again, Nigel seems dead set against using wingers at all. It's amazing how many people seem to have the notion that we can either spend nothing, or way beyond our means. Why can't we have modest investment? With the purchases of Brayford and Bailey alone Nigel's proven that he can put modest sums of money to good use. Instead, he's given nothing to work with. Re who our likely owners would be if GSE decided to sell up, I'd be very, very surprised if Gadsby didn't come back in. Yes, I'd agree with this. I don't really know how much input Jewell had in the initial signings that were made in the January transfer window of the Premier League season, just after GSE had come in. Whatever that involvement was, the signings, were a huge millstone around our necks for quite some time.
Well it was only really Savage and Tito wasn;t it? Mills was on loan, as was Ghalil (is that his name?) I still think Jewell was very close to becoming a legend, but for a handful of results over the Christmas period I think that season would have ended very differently. We were minutes away from beating Newcastle for the second time, would have likely beaten Blackburn if Howard had put his penalty away when we were one nil up, we were minutes away from drawing with Liverpool, and with Bolton. Don't get me wrong we'd have still gone down, but we wouldn't have gone down as the worst team ever, and it was that tag more than anything else that proved a millstone for the team and for Jewell the following year. We could do worse than Gadsby, but he has to shoulder some of the blame for the 11 point season as well which makes me wary.
I think you were right in your original point mate, it would have been far better had Jewell come in at the end of the season, rather than January. Sadly, the stigma of that shambolic campaign was on him as well, and he never recovered from that disastrous start. Gadsby made some huge mistakes at the time - he seriously misjudged the level of investment necessary to compete in the Premier League, which led to the "We won't be there to make up the numbers" comment. He often let the fact that he was a fan get the better of him when he should have been keeping quiet, such as the "Raise the roof signings" comments. The final mistake was in his assessment of GSE and who they represent. He thought that they had the money, which he didn't, to make us able to compete - on current evidence, they didn't, or at least they didn't want to invest those sums of money. That's why he was vocal of his disappointment in the Americans, to the point of effectively getting booted out of the club, and why he offered to buy us back last year. The thing to bear in mind though, was that current financial stability that we enjoy is largely down to Gadsby. We were also able to compete at Championship level, which we don't really do at the moment. Granted, we were 3rd/4th a few weeks ago, but it's a false position - the league is poor this year, and even then we haven't been able to maintain the form that got us there. To be honest, at the moment, I'd settle for just being a very good Championship side.
Yeah the comments Gadsby made really did backfire on him! I see Glick's been going on about us making a permanant singing...given that Leicester have got Yakuba on loan, why do I think we'll be spending 100K on a striker from Oxford Utd...that said, several of Clough's cheaper signings have been v good.
Well apparently we're looking at a central defender, a striker and a midfielder (not sure where in midfield, he just said midfield). I'd guess at Ben Davies from Notts County as the midfielder. We're also interested in Ryan Harley from Exeter, he's a midfielder as well though, so could be either, both or neither!
I like the way Glick talks about 'quality' loans. Well guess we'll have to wait and see. I notice Craig Bellamy's been arrested, in fairness he's kept a low profile for months so he was probably about due!