Emerson Thome

A few weeks, maybe no harm done. Am concerned about us signing crocks though, hopefully we’ve done enough sober assessment and he’ll be fit enough to play. If he is fit, god knows we need a bit of attacking quality the likes of which Redmond had in spades before his injuries.

We basically need to sign an entire new squad, it’s easier to list the players who will still be here than all the ones who will leave. There are a few like Charles, M. Lowe, Valery who will leave because they don’t want to play L1 (although we should try and persuade them if wages aren’t too crazy), some like Ingelsson, Ugbo and Otegbayo we just need to get rid of. Who will be left? A few young guns like Fusire, Brown, Weaver, Cadamarteri, although let’s not expect them to be core players… let’s keep Bannan if we can, Cooper if he proves himself and otherwise we’ll need to sign an entire new squad. A few old heads needed, but if we have the budget, some younger guys with resale value and the ceiling to do well in the Championship would be great.

Horvath: 8 Iorfa: 7 Cooper: 7 M. Lowe: 7 Fusire: 5 Amass: 7 Valery: 6 Bannan: 7 McNeill: 6 Ingelsson: 6 Cadamarteri: 6 J. Lowe: 7 Palmer: 6 Thornton: 6 Johnson: 6 Miles (ref): 5 Under a lot of pressure but they fought hard. Pressure told in the end.

Copy and paste player ratings: Horvath: Iorfa: Cooper: M. Lowe: Fusire: Amass: Valery: Bannan: McNeill: Ingelsson: Cadamarteri: J. Lowe: Palmer: Thornton: Johnson: Miles (ref):

I can see the advantages of this…. On the plus side, this means we didn’t just lose 3-0 at the weekend, we either won, drew, or it didn’t happen (all fine outcomes by me). Also, if the league allow us to merge our point tallies (and to keep the 3 points from beating ourselves last week), we are up to 9 points in the table, just 3 shy of Norwich in second-to-last! (Although the -32 goal difference needs a bit of work).

Would assume Cadiz isn’t fit enough to play 90 at the moment. He’s been picked over Ugbo when he has been fit. McNeill hasn’t shown much either. There is no one else aside from 16 year olds I think?

I think we just have to accept he is a sunk cost. It could be worse, in 2000 when we went down we had about 10 Ugbo’s stuck on long contracts. Loan him out or sell him if we can. Otherwise stick him in the reserves and only play him if he forces his way in through performances weight of goals in the reserves/ cups. We don’t have to use him over a Cadamarteri or a Brown (or potential new signing) just because we are paying him more.

There’s not much more any coach could do with these players. But…. If you are coming in as a new Chairman and trying to get out of League One, it’s a whole different task than the current damage limitation. The expectation and pressure is to win. If Pedersen wasn’t already here, none of us would be screaming at our new Chairman to give him the job. We’d be thinking along the lines of either: a) the next breakout coach looking for their first job in management…. I.e. the next Kieran Mackenna or Danny Röhl or b) a promotion specialist who has a track record of getting teams up, e.g. Paul Warne or possibly at a push: c) a manager with a good lower league record who then failed in a big job, but has experience at a high level and is looking to rebuild their career I’m not sure Pedersen is any of those things. They would have to be really sure of the impact he is having behind the scenes as it would be a bit of a punt to entrust him with a L1 promotion campaign. We should also remember that Chris Turner and Alan Irvine both showed signs of galvanizing the team in the Championship and went on good runs of form towards the end of our relegation seasons (with similarly poor if not quite as threadbare squads) and they were both a disaster when they went down to the league below.

Highly skeptical. But this would be the sort of sort term panic strategy that would be a disaster.

There’s not much we can do, our squad is dreadful. The one thing that confuses me is how competitive we’ve been away from home. Based on our resources, I expected us to be garbage and nearly every home game we have been. Just surprised how many point we’ve picked up away from home and even some of the close defeats we’ve had. Not sure why the away performances have been so much better… often you would say it is the pressure of being at home and being expected to attack, but with our situation the fans aren’t demanding we play champagne football and if Pederson wanted to line us up much more defensively like an away game then no one would have a problem with it. We would all know why. But he hasn’t and I do agree we’ve been guilty of trying to play a bit too much football.

No one is buying the club because they took a look at our playing squad and thought…£30 million, what a bargain! It would be stupid if the EFL put some sort of embargo in place, but even then, it only lasts a season or two more, which isn’t too long in the grand scheme of things. Assuming it isn’t too draconian, even if we are limited to frees and loans there is a lot you can do in the window, especially as we have such a small wage bill now and so many players out of contract. Like Moore’s first season in L1, I’d expect almost an entirely different team to be lining up next season unless the EFL put a total ban in place.

My argument would be what you’ve described: a winger/attacking midfielder who’s final ball is shocking and doesn’t know when to release it….you’ve just described a bad player. It’s not like he’s McNeill who’s young and only played a handful of games and you might be hoping he’ll improve. He’s 27 (28 by the time next season starts) and played 300 career games. If he can’t do it now, it’s unlikely he’ll learn. He can kind of do a job a bit deeper in CM if we don’t ask him to attack as much, but considering the last time we were in L1 we could call on the likes of Byers, Hutchinson, Luongo and Vaulks to play in there… I don’t see Ingelsson tearing the league up.

He's got the touch and finesse of an elephant. I think the only goal he ever scored for us was straight down the keeper's throat but it took a massive deflection. People keep saying he'll be useful in L1, but as we found with a few of the guys in the 2000-04 era, a bad player is just a bad player, however many leagues you drop down.

This reminds me of when I lived in London and went to get some photos developed from the Snappy Snaps near Baker Street. Alongside the 30 or so photos of mine I was expecting there were 10 random photos from the enclosure at Wimbledon. The photos featured the ex-Sports Minister and 606 host David Mellor, a lady who I presume is his wife and some bloke of South Asian origin. Slightly bizarre. I was developing the photos to stick up in a montage on my bedroom wall, so for a couple of years I put Mellor in there in pride of place for no particular reason.

Amass also did one of the best blood-thundering tackles I've seen all season, which I imagine woudn't get many points on a stats site, but as a fan was the highlight of the game for me.