wormy

Yeah I remember those hirings were seen as a big turning point in each club's fortunes. They parted with Houllier in the summer with a clear succession plan in place of Rafa and won the Champions League. We kept SBR but told the world he was leaving at the end of the season anyway, sacked him a few games in before saving Blackburn, one of the few clubs below us in the table, from needing to pay Souness off for what looked to be an inevitable sacking itself.

Hitzfield. There's a blast from the past. Nothing groundbreaking but when you look at Shepherd's managerial hirings it truly is shocking. I can at least understand Dalglish with his recent pedigree, even if it didn't work out. Sir Bobby was an open goal that he thankfully managed to put away. Everyone else was purely reactionary, going the opposite direction in personality of the previous incumbant. Just desperate every time.

It'll be some bollocks about 'not fair on the fans to be punished for previous ownership's misdeeds' all while footballing authorities continue to spaff their pants rotten over lower league clubs going to the wall because they let the poor sods get taken over by chancers.

The locals have had their chance. If anything the ballots should be weighted by distance to give some non-locals a chance. It's a new era. Bring in the new generation. I vehemently resent in advance any such accusations that this suggestion is for my benefit at all.

I don't remember Ba being particularly dickish but I do recall talk that he made it pretty clear he wanted to play central? I would put a lot of the blame on Pardew not being good enough to manage the situation. Whether it be getting him to buy in or reaching a compromise, maybe mixing up their positions in-game but that would've taken genuine management.

Poor guy needs to see some Sunny days.

Isolation ffs. Stop adding extra syllables and just say one on one you fucking creep.

Right? Gutted I've just scrolled and there's not been any further updates.

Elon Musk. What the fuck is going on.

I heard she shouts at people that stand.

I'll be chilling in the injuries and suspensions thread if anyone wants to join. Much cheerier.

Just do a Renford Rejects when Bruno De Gradi remembers he's Barry Grade. Anyone kicks up a stink? Don't know what you're on about lads. This is Sam Anthony.

I shocked that people are shocked at the idea of hangxiety. My memory very regularly goes walkabouts when I'm pissed these days so I suffer from it immensely. Add the fear of 'what the fuck did I do/say yesterday' to my natural everyday feeling that everyone thinks I'm a twat anyway and it's a recipe for disaster. I try to avoid more than a few pints where possible these days as a result and even then I'm filled with angst in the morning. EDIT: Proper love Eddie me.

Positive runs from clubs in Europa and Conference should still help though, shouldn't it?

Not to head down the never-ending FFP rabbit hole but has there been speculative math done on this? Or is it just an expectation with the amount of commercial deals we've done? Not that I'm knowledgeable in any sense, was just expecting us to still need to 'be resourceful' for a few more windows yet.

I feel you've been scaremongering this before Botman and Isak's first season with us had even finished. Yeah we'll have sold them on the progress we want to make but considering our CL return was clearly ahead of schedule I don't see them kicking up a fuss from one down year while we're clearly still a work in progress. If they do? I'll honestly be content with taking the money and trusting the club to find quality players that want to be there.

Think I've pretty consistently felt from the start that I'd be happy if we're simply in Europe next season, even if it's Conference from finishing 8th. I just want us to be able to keep building our coefficient. That remains the case. I believed the club could hit higher but there's no denying that belief is taking a big hit with the current state of the squad.

There's still time, Stif. There's still time.

How's that going mate?

Bring him home.

I did think this yesterday. For anyone else I'd say at least he can fit in some down time somewhere in the next couple of weeks. But he's got the type of mindset where I could picture him on the job even more to try and find solutions after a result like that.

What's Adam Campbell up to these days?

Still love him of course. I still have absolute faith that with each passing transfer window of upgrades to the squad and season that Eddie learns from these discussions will be redundant.

I'm sure I'm just repeating what others have said but this is all as much a learning curve for him as anyone else at the club. He's never had a four-pronged charge at competitions to manage and he's put his faith in core players coping. Ironically it feels like only a handful of our absentees in this nightmare are due to being overworked. Broken bones, freak mid-game pull ups etc, a gambling suspension can't be mitigated for. The only player rotation (or pack thereof) that I've disagreed with is Burn and Tripps. Feels the biggest issue is when Tripps is knackered it can ruin us in both directions; he gets caught out in defence and also can't dictate things going forward the way we know he can. We look so much more lost when he's not on his game. I'd guess that's why Eddie is so reluctant to drop him to the bench because it means a considerable change in overall approach but if it leads to burnout like this, which is the lesser of two evils?

Never noticed the lad far right waving away without a care in the world.