02 Feb 2020 19:54:16
Question. Have we moved on as a club? Compared to the last eighteen years I mean. Why is everyone so down? We lost a match and in this league everyone can beat anyone. Let's stick together as anything else is detrimental. Still a long way to go and I'd be more worried if we weren't bossing games. ALAW.


1.) 02 Feb 2020
02 Feb 2020 20:45:13
Corky, yes we have moved on massively, and it can’t be under estimated how immense the turn around has been under Bielsa, in what is realistically, a very short space of time.


2.) 02 Feb 2020
02 Feb 2020 21:11:20
Corky Yes we did move on and in positive fashion but that's no longer the issue right now. It's about good results now, creating and retaining freshness in the squad i. e. rotation and goal threat leading to goals.

Bielsa is to blame. He admits the same himself. Togetherness and unity no matter what only takes you so far in life. Martyn great poster, comes across as genuinely decent, excellent sense of humour and would enjoy a 🍺 or three with him but his self-imposed exile reflective of the truth and what's going on.

Deep down I suspect he knows there's a problem at the club but he opts to sweep under carpet whereas others such as Zooks, CC, Whitey, Hess, Notts and Wex air the truth with varying degrees of criticism. Life and football two-way street and while I do see that lessons have been learned the person who is sadly most accurate on here this season is probably going to be proven correct. Our resident playwright orical.

Selling and not replacing virtually if not our only capable player regarding physicality, defending and attacking set pieces was an act of madness. FFP maybe. Questionable drama with him maybe but you don't cut nose spite face.

My question for you Cork. How many points extra would we have with Pontus in side? Think about it.


3.) 02 Feb 2020
02 Feb 2020 21:22:46
Guess we're so down because the high of beating 'wall, and the hope we had turned a corner was so quickly followed by the despair caused by a fear that the corner may have led to a cul-de-sac.

However, I'd be very surprised if Big Kev is not on the bench on Saturday. He'll have had a further week of intensive Bielsafication and if Bielsa was truly trying to protect him from the crowd, he should have no fear on that account from our fanatical away support - who even stuck with BamBam through his worst goal drought. If he's on the bench and BamBam continues firing blanks, Big Kev will be the only option to change things up.

In a way, I suspect Bielsa kept Big Kev off the bench against
Wigan because he would have felt he would have had little choice but to bring him on (under-prepared, in his mind) if he had been there.

It's also possible that he felt he should have enough firepowerto beat Wigan in the squad chosen and hoped to keep his powder dry in terms of Big Kev and Poveda until next Saturday, so that they remain a bit of an unknown quantity to the Florists and Brentford will also have little time to prepare to face them. Given those games are six pointers in the promotion context.


4.) 02 Feb 2020
02 Feb 2020 21:39:38
Brighty But that's not the relevant issue anymore. It was in 2019 but no longer. The issue is actually very simple. Goes like this. We sold the wrong central defender. Need to comply with FFP? So you sell Cooper. Probably would get just under a million for him and you cut your cloth differently then. In equivalent terms, it's like having Whyte, Fairclough and McClelland but you sell either Chris and retain John. Wrong call! Yes we play very pretty stuff and for 45 minutes Gooners didn't know which way was up but it's no use being the most handsome man in the room if you're going to let an uglier guy score with the models. In the Championship, underestimate need for physicality, set piece attack and defence then you misread altogether the league itself and what will occur after the New Year when clubs regroup and realize this is how you stop Leeds. Bet you opponents couldn't achieve that nearly as often with a scary 6 foot 4 brick heading Swede in our ranks.
We are no longer going 1 nil up in games. We try picture goal score. Sometimes all it's about is penetration and getting it done. We sold our best catalyst for that to the 🐝 and by ❤ Valentine's Day they could well be ahead of us. Pontus "crime" was that he ❤ us but that wasn't to Bielsa's liking. Error.


5.) 03 Feb 2020
02 Feb 2020 22:41:22
George interesting posts but.
Pontus was here all last season and we didn't go up.

Selling Pontus was not necessarily a mistake as I have a feeling he may have been a disruptive influence in the camp. Not replacing him with a similar or better physical defender was a mistake.

But the BIGGEST problem by far has been that none of our team are natural goalscorers . if we had even 2,3 or 4 of those it wouldn't matter about the opposition set pieces as we would still win by 3 or 4 goals per game

Oh yes and the second biggest problem is I am sorry to say the disaster of a goalkeeper Kiko that Orta inexplicably signed and Bielsa inexplicably continues to play instead of the impressive Meslier . it's no conspiracy theory that the FA have spent over 4 months delaying Kiko's ban . they probably will want to delay it even later than this month . expect a final decision in May.


6.) 03 Feb 2020
03 Feb 2020 07:23:28
Some valid points made above by George and others . But in answer to the original post we haven’t moved forward in the last twelve months . If anything we’ve moved backwards . The man responsible is Bielsa . He runs the training everyday, has a massive say in recruitment and retention and picks the team . And unless he dramatically changes his outlook no we won’t be going up this season .


7.) 03 Feb 2020
03 Feb 2020 07:43:03
Administration, docked 15 points, league 2 football, Hockaday as Manager. Of course we have moved on.


8.) 03 Feb 2020
03 Feb 2020 09:21:10
Wow. Zooks, I agree with most of that.
I don’t get the whole Pontus thing. Yes most of us loved him; he posed, gestured, shouted, basically did the right things to get the crowd onside. But he made many crucial mistakes last season in open play, not least against Derby, being out of position / jumping in. Wasn’t even that dominant at set pieces, so I dunno where that fallacy has come from.
As for Bielsa taking the blame, he’s clearly only saying that to protect players, both defensively and offensively, so that’s null and void. He can’t adjust a system to make ten outfield players hit the target. 442? No shots on target. 433? No shots on target. 31312? No shots on target. You get my drift. All above formations defending a corner? 1-0 down.


9.) 03 Feb 2020
03 Feb 2020 10:32:06
Thanks Bright. yep indeed .


10.) 03 Feb 2020
03 Feb 2020 10:48:56
George I would love a ball playing 6:4 CB but we ain’t got one unfortunately. However how many points has Ben White saved this season? And let’s be honest we were hardly impregnable at the back last season with Pontus there.


11.) 03 Feb 2020
03 Feb 2020 18:55:21
George your right how we miss Pontus, big big mistake by Razds.