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Lambert: We Kept Knocking and Got the Rewards
at 21:48:00

We can laugh, It truly is comical, But we should be seriously concerned! The guys may be willing but the formation and tactics are bizarre! We had 11 days off with no important international call ups. It should have been an opportunity for intensive training drilling. But for most of the game today we played like strangers. How can this be explained away! And how come we picked up more injuries during this time. Something is profoundly wrong!
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Bishop: I Don’t Think I’ve Ever Scored a Header in Training
at 11:38:45

I‘be been saying it for ages now but we don't get enough goals from midfield! So it was good to see them pushing on yesterday!
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Lambert: Downes Faces Fight to Get in Team
at 12:39:04

There are no winners in this situation! Downes wants away and Lambert doesn't want him around until he is prepared to commit fully to the cause! Evans appears not to want to let him go cheaply! I can appreciate all their points of view! But it means that in the meantime he won't play so the team and the fans lose out too!
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Young Quintet Left Out of Photo Call
at 17:26:06

This is too bizarre for words! Excluding the lads from a pre-season photograph is just vindictive! No rationale at all. There is no limit to numbers of players in a photo! I suspect there is a power play going on between ME (who wants to develop players from the Academy) and the Manager who feels under pressure to produce results! Unfortunately for all of us we now have to suffer another long debate about when the manager passes his sell by date!
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Dundee United Eyeing Blues Duo
at 22:29:38

I would say it's too soon to panic! We have a playing staff who, IMO, apart from an obvious few, have limited futures in football even at League 1 level. The fallout from the pandemic around the whole Football League will see many exciting young players cast into the twilight zone! We are told that we already have a core of good young players who have the wherewithal to claim a future in the game. What we need now is a visionary manager who can inspire these young players to bridge the gap to League Football as well as bringing in and integrating other hungry ambitious players desperate to prove themselves in the game. IMO we have too many people at the club who are not really committed to improving. When a manager can no longer improve performance of a player it is time for either the player or the manager to move on!
PL should note that there will be a massive need to improve and his performance in ensuring that players follow a development process is a key objective!
News
Comment
Clubs Threatening Strike Over Costs But Not Town
at 22:36:20

The EFL has significant problems and need to be creative in dealing with issues facing all the clubs within their league structure. The EPL are driven by money and with their massively increased costs are unlikely to provide significantly increased support for League 1 & 2 clubs. The Championship could well become Premiership Div 2 and break away from the EFL. The EFL are already spending time and effort to prevent this. In the short term it is possible (some might say quite likely) that the L1 & 2 2020/21 season will be suspended and replaced by a series of competitions open to clubs who are able participate on a relatively regular basis.
The potential financial implications to L1 & 2 clubs are horrendous and no club will be able to survive a prolonged period of inactivity! Until crowds are allowed back into stadiums (social distancing or not) there will no match revenue! Without games there will be no sponsorship revenue! And if clubs cannot generate income players cannot be paid and there will be no employment security with large numbers leaving the game!
The EFL have a huge challenge ahead to ensure that League football as we know it survives the pandemic. We must hope and pray that they understand the responsibility!
News
Comment
Fans Could Be Back in October
at 18:42:20

This might work for cricket but it will be a disaster for football! Spontaneous celebration will be non existent if the closest person is two seats away! While it will be great to get back in the stadium again I suspect it will be quite joyless particularly if we happen to be losing!
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Town Announce 2020/21 Squad Numbers
at 17:58:15

If Squad sizes are restricted this would seem to be the limit of our playing squad for next season! I am always optimistic but this might be another cause of sleepless nights!
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Some Fans Could Return for Start of New Season
at 20:16:56

The whole game experience will change! No food or drinks! No banter with other fans! Impossible queues for the toilet! Social distancing will make it impossible to buy stuff from Planet Blue! But you can bet on Town chucking the game away week after week! Some things will never change!
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League One Salary Cap a Step Nearer
at 22:08:37

I am not as pessimistic as some! A salary cap will level out the playing field and will in the fullness of time see a greater emphasis on building a team through good coaching and inspiring man management. Squads will be smaller and contracts on offer will be shorter! A new meritocracy will evolve where player reward aspirations will be achievable only if they can earn a contract with a club in a higher division with more leeway salary wise! In such an environment, with an enlightened manager with a much larger pool of unattached players to draw from augmented by a productive academy, we should be capable of being competitive! Lots of ifs and buts but that is what Sir Alf achieved in the days of the maximum wage!
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League One Salary Cap Proposed
at 17:50:37

The point to remember is that there will also be limitations applicable to the composition of squads particularly in terms of numbers. Thus the recruitment policy will need to be down scaled and basically the majority of players will In future need to be employed on a short term basis. Home developed players will see that they will have more chances. So academies will be priceless for those clubs that can afford them! Overall there will be fewer opportunities for journeyman professionals and sadly a large number of players currently plying their trade in the lower leagues will struggle to earn a living in the football league in future! Those of us that remember the Alf Ramsey days will recognise the need for a quality manager that can build a competitive team on a shoestring! But at least all teams in the division will be faced with the same problem!
News
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Leagues One and Two May Not Be Completed
at 09:02:01

While accepting the view that for the integrity of the various competitions the season should be completed, it must now be clear that this is now highly unlikely and for clarity a decision must be taken to void the season. The integrity of the league competitions has already been fatally compromised. From a competitive point of view only teams with something to play for will be interested. PL has already hinted that clubs will play fringe players and involve academy players. Effectively acknowledging that these delayed fixtures don't actually matter. The risk to health must be considered a priority over anyone's feelings of disappointment if their hopes and dreams are thwarted. Let's just draw a line under it and plan to go again in September,
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O'Neill: I Can't See Football Returning in Front of Crowds for a Long Time
at 18:04:10

Although there will be a relaxation of the lockdown measures at some stage this will only happen when the NHS can safely deal with a reduced number of hospital admissions. The lifting of restrictions on mass gatherings is a long way off and ‘behind closed doors' games may not be permitted. This virus will not be going away any time soon and until a vaccine is developed or a viable antibody test is created anyone who has not yet contracted the virus will be vulnerable. The players have been kept in lockdown and sometimes in isolation for the duration of the epidemic! Are the clubs likely to expose their players to the virus just in a vanity project to artificially complete the current season?
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Former Boss McCarthy Leaves Ireland Job
at 19:16:33

In the modern game it is a truism that management has a limited shelf life irrespective of the qualities brought to the post by the incumbents! Every ITFC manager since SBR ultimately ran out of time, ideas, and general approval! Apart from Jim M, who maybe should have been given more time, every manager seemed to lose the plot and inevitably paid the price. Even top guys like John Lyall and George Burley who engineered success were running on empty at the end of their reigns! So too was MM and his departure became a self fulfilling prophesy because of his attitude towards the fans! Like his predecessors his time was up! End of!
Blog
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And Along Came Jim
at 18:02:31

Beautifully put! Descriptive magic of the ups and downs of being a Town fan! Totally agree on the influence of JM. He was a one off! No comparable equivalent in the game today!
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Portman Road and Playford Road Closed Until Further Notice
at 22:09:55

FFS Football is irrelevant now. Please stay home and stay safe! Football will return! Hopefully most of our football family will do too!
News
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O'Neill: Sensible Position For Authorities to Take
at 22:14:02

Football needs to get real! The chance of any competitive football in the way everyone wants in the near future is zero! Boris tells us that the tide may be turned in 12 weeks! But that only assumes that the death rate and infection rate is going down by then! It will be many weeks thereafter before restrictions can be safely scaled down! To suggest that there may be a resumption of top tier football at the end of April is simply risible!
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Season Suspended Until End of April at Earliest
at 16:58:10

The virus is predicted to peak in about 4 weeks time which makes it quite unlikely that the leagues will resume on 30 April. By that time players will have not played competitively for 7 weeks. Reconditioning the fitness of players who have been out of action for that length of time will take at least 4 weeks and the EPL, EFL and the FA will not be able to confirm definitively by the end of March that matches will be played at the end of April! In the meantime players will be as exposed to the virus as the rest of us and if any player tests positive the whole squad will need to self isolate, so the timing of any resumption of training will be a planning nightmare and will inevitably be disadvantageous to some clubs. It will not be practical either to play games behind closed doors as there is no definitive test available at present that will reassure clubs that every participant in a closed environment has not contracted the virus! It is predicted that ultimately between 50% and 70% of the population will contract the virus. The football community will not be totally exempt from this even with the most stringent of precautions. I can't imagine that there will be much if any appetite among the players to complete this season now and should probably either be cancelled now or deferred until later in the year with a truncated 2020/21 season following thereafter!
News
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Lambert on Exeter Draw: Regionalised? It's Ludicrous, Absolutely Pathetic
at 13:24:55

The Competition is a joke! The clubs involved don't need it. The costs of putting on these games exceed the revenue earned and the whole thing is rather pointless until you reach the semifinals. And we we don't need the extra games! To ask players, particularly young players, to travel these distances is pathetic! Peterborough is one thing! Let's see if the mood is good when they lose to Exeter and hit the M5 at midnight!
News
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Lambert: It Would Be Great to Go Through and Draw One of the Big Guns
at 11:44:49

MedwayTractor
I hold my hands up to your superior knowledge. Was not aware of (or had forgotten) those records!
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