| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... 09:50 - Sep 27 with 6265 views | itfcjoe |
.....as we approach the end of the second month of the season, there seems to be little pressure applied to the club at the moment.
For me tomorrow is an absolute must-win game, if we go into October with just one win under our belt and in the relegation zone then we are basically out of automatic contention, and the play offs will be a massive stretch.
On the flip side, if we win, which we undoubtedly should do, then it's 7 points out of 9 and things feel a bit more positive - we need to start stringing proper runs of wins together though or we are going nowhere |  |
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| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 10:59 - Sep 27 with 1852 views | chicoazul |
| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 10:53 - Sep 27 by BlueBadger |
Christ alive, I am sick to the back teeth of 'free hits'. 'Free hits' is what got us marooned in the third division in the first bloody place. |
I agree. |  |
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| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 11:04 - Sep 27 with 1843 views | LankHenners |
| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 10:37 - Sep 27 by Fixed_It |
Not sure who you are referring to by 'even the section of the fanbase which appears to have watched this season blindfolded will get restless'. Is that the section of the crowd who can see promising attacking moves that don't quite come off yet, or the section of the crowd who were expecting everything to click straight away despite the massive overhaul within the squad?
Yes - we need to start winning games and climbing up the up the table sooner rather than later. But only a blind man would fail to see that there are promising signs in a lot of what we do, and hopefully the results will start to reflect that. |
I know you like to jump down the throat of anyone not being a total acolyte to the club and in some respect I do admire the ability to be that positive all the time but come off it, there's been plenty of people straight up refusing to accept there's been any negatives and just washing away any concerns with 'it'll take time', which is who I was referring to. |  |
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| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 11:07 - Sep 27 with 1829 views | GeoffSentence |
Too many draws.
We've lost the same number as Rotherham who are sitting comfortably in the play-offs. |  |
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| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 11:40 - Sep 27 with 1770 views | ElderGrizzly |
| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 10:53 - Sep 27 by BlueBadger |
Christ alive, I am sick to the back teeth of 'free hits'. 'Free hits' is what got us marooned in the third division in the first bloody place. |
And I don't think Cook has a free hit at all.
He'll be gone if we are bottom half at Christmas, if not before.
They simply can't afford to sit in this division. Non-promotion means a lot of these better players will agitate to leave too. |  | | |
| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 12:21 - Sep 27 with 1726 views | HighgateBlue |
| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 10:37 - Sep 27 by Fixed_It |
Not sure who you are referring to by 'even the section of the fanbase which appears to have watched this season blindfolded will get restless'. Is that the section of the crowd who can see promising attacking moves that don't quite come off yet, or the section of the crowd who were expecting everything to click straight away despite the massive overhaul within the squad?
Yes - we need to start winning games and climbing up the up the table sooner rather than later. But only a blind man would fail to see that there are promising signs in a lot of what we do, and hopefully the results will start to reflect that. |
He may be referring to those who, when challenged to consider what unjustified optimism might look like, refer only to attacking quality rather than realising that our defence is much much worse than last season. All this "starting to click", and "promising signs" stuff is only ever trotted out in relation to the idea of trying to score goals, and seldom in respect of trying to keep them out. |  | | |
| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 12:23 - Sep 27 with 1724 views | Guthrum |
| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 10:23 - Sep 27 by Herbivore |
Hull and Peterborough won 27 and 26 games last season to go up automatically and neither broke the 90 point marker. If we fail to win tomorrow we likely need another 25 wins and you'd think the majority of those will need to come at PR given that most sides wind up getting the majority of their points from their home games. It would leave very little margin for error at home, we could probably only afford to drop points in another 3 or 4 games at PR over the rest of the season and some of those would need to be draws. I think in that context taking 3 points tomorrow against a bang out of form Doncaster is imperative. |
But they probably had more losses and fewer draws. Most important to avoid being beaten, which we've managed a couple of times already.
Not suggesting for a minute we should be sanguine about dropping points in a match like tomorrow's. Just dislike every game being hyped up into a "must win" when that's not strictly true. Simply piles more pressure onto the team when we need to relax* into playing comfortably as a unit.
* Calm decisionmaking and good plans being well executed. |  |
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| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 12:30 - Sep 27 with 1715 views | NthQldITFC |
I know we've been over this time after time, but personally I think the fundamental truth is that you need time to completely rebuild a squad and get it functioning well, and eight games is an insanely short period to even start considering whether it is working or not.
This may be an old-fashioned attitude, but that doesn't necessarily mean it is wrong. And I'm in the camp that says, fundamentally, last season is irrelevant given the turnover and the inherited problems.
My personal opinion is that all this repetitive angst on here, before Christmas at least, is nuts. Of course, as ever, I reserve the right to change my mind and/or be 'proven' wrong. |  |
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| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 12:53 - Sep 27 with 1676 views | IP4_Blue |
| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 09:55 - Sep 27 by chicoazul |
I think they have already decided this season is a free hit for Cook. And that might not be unreasonable either. |
While I agree we need to give abit of time to Cook I personally do not think that this season should be a free hit for Cook |  | | |
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| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 12:54 - Sep 27 with 1679 views | jayessess |
| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 12:30 - Sep 27 by NthQldITFC |
I know we've been over this time after time, but personally I think the fundamental truth is that you need time to completely rebuild a squad and get it functioning well, and eight games is an insanely short period to even start considering whether it is working or not.
This may be an old-fashioned attitude, but that doesn't necessarily mean it is wrong. And I'm in the camp that says, fundamentally, last season is irrelevant given the turnover and the inherited problems.
My personal opinion is that all this repetitive angst on here, before Christmas at least, is nuts. Of course, as ever, I reserve the right to change my mind and/or be 'proven' wrong. |
It's not a "fundamental truth" though, is it? Wigan are top of the league after completely rebuilding their squad. Lincoln had a similarly excellent start last season. There's very little correlation between Summer player turnover and performance.
I don't think there will be much angst if we steadily improve between here and Christmas. There will be if we sustain our current form. That's only realistic. Teams that are rubbish until Christmas don't usually get much better. Managers who start with 2 sustained periods of failure don't usually come good. |  |
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| Surely "too many draws" is just..... on 12:59 - Sep 27 with 1666 views | Bloots |
| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 11:07 - Sep 27 by GeoffSentence |
Too many draws.
We've lost the same number as Rotherham who are sitting comfortably in the play-offs. |
...a different way of saying "we haven't won enough sodding football matches, that's why we are in the 3rd Division relegation zone"? |  |
| "The sooner he comes back the better, this place has been a disaster without him" - TWTD User (July 2025) |
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| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 13:03 - Sep 27 with 1648 views | NthQldITFC |
| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 12:54 - Sep 27 by jayessess |
It's not a "fundamental truth" though, is it? Wigan are top of the league after completely rebuilding their squad. Lincoln had a similarly excellent start last season. There's very little correlation between Summer player turnover and performance.
I don't think there will be much angst if we steadily improve between here and Christmas. There will be if we sustain our current form. That's only realistic. Teams that are rubbish until Christmas don't usually get much better. Managers who start with 2 sustained periods of failure don't usually come good. |
Fair comment. Perhaps I should have said that it should not be surprising that getting them to start working well as a team, perhaps in a new system for some of them, might take several months, and not necessarily click straight away. | |
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| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 13:22 - Sep 27 with 1613 views | Herbivore |
| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 12:23 - Sep 27 by Guthrum |
But they probably had more losses and fewer draws. Most important to avoid being beaten, which we've managed a couple of times already.
Not suggesting for a minute we should be sanguine about dropping points in a match like tomorrow's. Just dislike every game being hyped up into a "must win" when that's not strictly true. Simply piles more pressure onto the team when we need to relax* into playing comfortably as a unit.
* Calm decisionmaking and good plans being well executed. |
I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a must win game but our poor start, especially at home, does mean that each game becomes more important in terms of recording a win. We'll only have 17 games to go at home after tomorrow and I think we'd need to be aiming to win 14 or 15 of them if we want automatic promotion. That's a tall order. |  |
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| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 14:13 - Sep 27 with 1527 views | Bluefish |
| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 09:55 - Sep 27 by chicoazul |
I think they have already decided this season is a free hit for Cook. And that might not be unreasonable either. |
Every year seems to be a happy clappy free hit since mick left |  |
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| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 14:15 - Sep 27 with 1511 views | chrismakin |
Also incredible. A win tomorrow and sat and we could be just 1 point off 6th after the start weve had. |  |
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| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 14:18 - Sep 27 with 1515 views | Swansea_Blue |
| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 14:15 - Sep 27 by chrismakin |
Also incredible. A win tomorrow and sat and we could be just 1 point off 6th after the start weve had. |
Only if nobody else picks up any points, which is probably a little bit unlikely. Not that I'd turn my nose up at 6 points from the next 2 games of course. |  |
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| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 14:20 - Sep 27 with 1489 views | chrismakin |
| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 14:18 - Sep 27 by Swansea_Blue |
Only if nobody else picks up any points, which is probably a little bit unlikely. Not that I'd turn my nose up at 6 points from the next 2 games of course. |
Of course. But it does show its not that far away despite an awful start.
Think everyone agreed Sept was key and how we went into October.. I would say sht or bust time these next 2 fixtures. | |
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| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 14:24 - Sep 27 with 1486 views | jayessess |
| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 13:03 - Sep 27 by NthQldITFC |
Fair comment. Perhaps I should have said that it should not be surprising that getting them to start working well as a team, perhaps in a new system for some of them, might take several months, and not necessarily click straight away. |
Not surprising, maybe. But Paul Cook's probably the best paid coach in League One, rational to expect him to be the best coach in the league, I would've thought? | |
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| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 15:04 - Sep 27 with 1431 views | chicoazul |
| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 11:40 - Sep 27 by ElderGrizzly |
And I don't think Cook has a free hit at all.
He'll be gone if we are bottom half at Christmas, if not before.
They simply can't afford to sit in this division. Non-promotion means a lot of these better players will agitate to leave too. |
I don’t think any of this is true.
We can afford to stay at least another season in this league as our owners are backed by an enormous fund for whom we are a tiny investment; we could be bottom half at Xmas but would immediately have lots of games ahead of us to go on a run; and the players we have signed may be annoyed at another year in division three but are all well remunerated and can agitate all they like, nobody put a gun to their heads.
Many of them signed precisely because Cook is here, too. | |
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| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 15:33 - Sep 27 with 1386 views | The_Flashing_Smile |
| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 14:24 - Sep 27 by jayessess |
Not surprising, maybe. But Paul Cook's probably the best paid coach in League One, rational to expect him to be the best coach in the league, I would've thought? |
That's not rational at all. |  |
| Trust the process. Trust Phil. |
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| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 15:39 - Sep 27 with 1370 views | Herbivore |
| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 14:24 - Sep 27 by jayessess |
Not surprising, maybe. But Paul Cook's probably the best paid coach in League One, rational to expect him to be the best coach in the league, I would've thought? |
Paul Lambert was also the best paid coach in League 1...... | |
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| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 15:41 - Sep 27 with 1356 views | jayessess |
| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 15:33 - Sep 27 by The_Flashing_Smile |
That's not rational at all. |
is it not? Seems irrational to me to pay top dollar for inferior service... | |
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| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 15:59 - Sep 27 with 1322 views | BlueBadger |
| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 14:13 - Sep 27 by Bluefish |
Every year seems to be a happy clappy free hit since mick left |
Much as I hate the term, given that it's usually used by sneering superfan types, 'happy clapper' is an entirely correct epithet for those who applauded us to fight-free relegation. |  |
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| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 16:08 - Sep 27 with 1300 views | chrismakin |
| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 15:39 - Sep 27 by Herbivore |
Paul Lambert was also the best paid coach in League 1...... |
And technically Bennetts was one of the highest paid players ever to play league 1 football. | |
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| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 16:16 - Sep 27 with 1285 views | Swansea_Blue |
| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 14:20 - Sep 27 by chrismakin |
Of course. But it does show its not that far away despite an awful start.
Think everyone agreed Sept was key and how we went into October.. I would say sht or bust time these next 2 fixtures. |
It doesn't really, as it's likely that a few up the top will pick up 6 points and then we're just as far away. Or am I missing something? (likely) | |
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| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 16:26 - Sep 27 with 1262 views | chrismakin |
| Seems incredible that as we sit in the bottom 4 of League 1.... on 16:16 - Sep 27 by Swansea_Blue |
It doesn't really, as it's likely that a few up the top will pick up 6 points and then we're just as far away. Or am I missing something? (likely) |
A fair few where they are playing each other so not all can get max points etc
And no it still probably won't look that much different table wise but the points and the gap could look alot healthier than it currently does. | |
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