Tricky Tourist
Viv Anderson
Pretty much how I see it. I didn't mention Serge as I figured he's either off to Saudi or, as you note, he's way down the pecking order at right back now.
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The Mood
- Thread starter Alf-engelos Mindminackers
- Start date
Tricky Tourist
Viv Anderson
As I wrote, if Aina can recapture his early season vibe he's a shoe-in as first choice full back. Sangare was decent against Newcastle, but I've seen nothing from him yet that I'd describe as excellent. Hopefully with Mangala gone he'll be able to show why the club spent so much on him, but right now he's well behind Dom and Yatesy for me.
Stocky Red
First Team Squad
It’s not so much the individual players and whether they are first choice or not (and I think 3 are first choice) , it’s the fact our team has looked dead on its feet , eg second half on Sunday. Feels like we are limping through this week as well until we get the numbers back.
It must have come as a real shock to the club to suddenly find that AFCON took away so many players leaving us short on numbers.
Gyros Peter
Sauce salad?
My biggest worry about the Newcastle game is how leggy we are looking in the late stages of games - they've a full week while we have another grueler tomorrow. I know winning breeds winning but it's a tough line up to pick if we want to succeed in both...
Stocky Red
First Team Squad
Sure, but not helped by injuries, inability to close out cup ties, and the Ivory Coast stumbling their way through the competition. Feels like the footballing gods are against us a bit ATM, but things change quickly.
Monkman
Grenville Morris
I'm sure every football fan feels like this most of the time, but it does genuinely feel like we haven't had much luck all season. We could really do with a jammy narrow win where we come away chuckling at how we got away with one.
Shearstone
Misses the champ
I tell you what if your moods down and you think I'll watch some season reviews of the promotion season to cheer mysen up.
DO NOT DO IT!
It will make it worse. Knowing what we have lost. That team was perfect and would have walked the league, logic be damned. I'm not crying you are!
DO NOT DO IT!
It will make it worse. Knowing what we have lost. That team was perfect and would have walked the league, logic be damned. I'm not crying you are!
Gareth Edds
First Team Squad
Worried...thats how i feel. Not just the immediate chance of going down but the long term future as well.
I feel this year we have lost some of our best players from last year, we don't have the steel we had the last 2 seasons and I'm not sure what the long term planning is. I feel im ready for some stability.
Of course i keep supporting because its in the blood, but the massive hope from last year at present has been replaced by trepidation. Hoping Nuno builds a similar siege mentality we had under cooper. Our recruitment becomes more structured with a end goal and that we start to trust in the players we have. I look forward to when new players come through our academy into the team again and that we finally get the go ahead for the new stadium. But most of all, i look forward to getting the unity back together again from the team and the supporters.
I feel this year we have lost some of our best players from last year, we don't have the steel we had the last 2 seasons and I'm not sure what the long term planning is. I feel im ready for some stability.
Of course i keep supporting because its in the blood, but the massive hope from last year at present has been replaced by trepidation. Hoping Nuno builds a similar siege mentality we had under cooper. Our recruitment becomes more structured with a end goal and that we start to trust in the players we have. I look forward to when new players come through our academy into the team again and that we finally get the go ahead for the new stadium. But most of all, i look forward to getting the unity back together again from the team and the supporters.
Gyros Peter
Sauce salad?
Last night? Those chances in the second half of ET should have had City through without pens really. Hopefully Morgan is OK and it was just a weird cramp/spasm thing.
Monkman
Grenville Morris
Yeah I guess. Was hoping for 3 flukey points in the league!
Chappers85
Can't Play Left-Back
You know what, if we go down, f*** it! At least we gave it a good go. Over the last 2 years we we've beat Arsenal, Chelsea, Man Utd, Liverpool and Spurs (in the cup), reached a semi-final, survived relegation and have seen the best players we've had wearing the Garibaldi for 20+ years.
Don’t get me wrong, The Championship is a hard slog and we were stuck down there way too long, hamstrung by bad management, a reactive rather proactive owner, a mental owner who didn't really have that much money, and then having got an owner with money (who may still be a little on the mental side admittedly) to compete against sides with parachute payments we can't because of FFP. IF we go down we've got assets, we'll have money, a little bit of infrastructure and we'll be in a much better position than we were before we came up. We might still f*** it up, but we shouldn't be slipping to Championship mid-table mediocrity immediately.
I've prepared myself emotionally and mentally for it so if it happens, oh well. I like 3pm Saturday games and mid-week games. Also, I'd take relegation if it meant winning the FA Cup.
Don’t get me wrong, The Championship is a hard slog and we were stuck down there way too long, hamstrung by bad management, a reactive rather proactive owner, a mental owner who didn't really have that much money, and then having got an owner with money (who may still be a little on the mental side admittedly) to compete against sides with parachute payments we can't because of FFP. IF we go down we've got assets, we'll have money, a little bit of infrastructure and we'll be in a much better position than we were before we came up. We might still f*** it up, but we shouldn't be slipping to Championship mid-table mediocrity immediately.
I've prepared myself emotionally and mentally for it so if it happens, oh well. I like 3pm Saturday games and mid-week games. Also, I'd take relegation if it meant winning the FA Cup.
Frank Clark’s Tash
Jack Burkitt
The worry is that we've failed to compete with lower league sides over 4 matches, despite having £multimillion international players and arguably a top manager. If relegated then we're likely to lose most of these, so it could well end up being a tough old slog. Especially if we're left with the crippling wages of the drek nobody wants and we're unable to shift.
Still, at least we'll always have Harry Arter to call on.
Robertson
Geoff Thomas
So you’re not very impressed with the players or the manager but you’re also worried they’ll all get poached if we get relegated? I think we should wait and see. There’s over a third of the season to go and things should be a lot less chaotic from here with a settled squad.
If we come up short I think us being stuck purely with “the crippling wages of the drek nobody wants” is a massive exaggeration. Lots of the big earners will be out of contract, others will be sold, probably at a profit, and the vast majority of the others will be useful to very very good players in the championship.
Of course we will indeed no doubt still have Harry Arter lurking around somewhere.
Monkman
Grenville Morris
I don't think cup-tie struggles against lower league teams when playing too many games with a threadbare squad and a constantly re-jigged starting 11 is a particularly good indicator of how we'd do in the Championship personally.
Robertson
Geoff Thomas
We had two proper midfielders over 120 minutes last night. One of whom was rubbish and got subbed after an hour. I wouldn’t read too much into it either.
Monkman
Grenville Morris
Bristol City had just put another PL team out and Blackpool did the same last season. Admittedly that was us.
Frank Clark’s Tash
Jack Burkitt
Obviously a number of players have been impressive overall, but these are the ones who are unlikely to hang around (egg. MGW, Murillo). Jury is out on the manager at the moment. After a fantastic start to his tenure we have very much flattered to deceive irrespective of AFCON players being away.
You'd hope our most saleable assets would go for a decent fee, but unfortunately a lot of the money will indeed have to go to paying the wages of those who remain. I can't see the likes of Wood giving up £100k/week to go somewhere else for example.
I'm sure last time we were relegated from the Prem (and indeed the Championship), very few would have thought we'd spend as long as we did trying to get back again with the squads we had. But we all know how that panned out.
Cloughie1975
John Robertson
I think Wood is out of contract-but there will be deadwood difficult to move on because
of their high salaries.
When we were last relegated from the top flight (1999-with a poor squad) I fully expected an
extended stay away from the big time (as did many other supporters).
Robertson
Geoff Thomas
Wood is out of contract at the end of the season.
I'm not claiming for a minute the Championship will be a cakewalk. Nor would staying in the premier league ahead of Leicester, Leeds, Southampton etc. And It's fair enough to be worried about things. I just don't think the size and make-up of the squad next year should be one of those things, whatever division we're in. Assuming Mangala and Worrall don't return, as far as I know we only have about 24/25 players under contract next year, thats including all the randoms out on loan (mostly currently actually in the championship). If we stay up we'll look to move on the weakest players and reinvest, if we go down we'll have to sell a fair few of the biggest earners and rebuild. Some of the players currently considered "deadwood" might yet be useful in that case (O'Brien, Bowler, even Richards). Que sera sera.
Mr. Blonde
Jack Burkitt
Depends whether Origi is still in the squad
PlayedOnGrass
First Team Squad
The AFCON was originally scheduled for last Summer - but re-scheduled due to the rainy season!
As if they didn't know when the rainy season was when they scheduled it in the first place
Robertson
Geoff Thomas
Who are you thinking of in particular here? I guess Turner and Vlach are probably on a fair whack given their apparent (lack of) quality.
PlayedOnGrass
First Team Squad
I didn't think we would bounce straight back - but come on - we had several opportunities in the early years but sold the good players. Nobody expected what actually happened
Robertson
Geoff Thomas
Another way of looking at it is we’re two out of three at getting promoted at the first attempt following relegation from the premier league 