MightyOwl

I didn’t mind McNeil taking it. It’s good he had the confidence. I think he needs a season of regular starts in league one next season and then who knows. Would have done him a world of good to get a senior hat trick but hopefully he can still see the game as a positive. McNeil is one of a small handful of players that could play a staring role next season that we need to stay behind. Also btw Inglesson was never gonna take that pen. He was just protecting the ball and penalty spot to then hand the ball to the taker

In this league most teams ease up 3-0 up which is why you rarely see bigger score lines. They had an opportunity to really go at us all game, missed out there.

My take is that Wilder has had two weeks and set them up perfectly. We only have one way of playing through certain passing lanes. They pressed well and shut them down. Bannan and Amass weren’t given an inch as the only two with enough technical ability to play through. Gave Fusire all day coz he knew he wouldn’t do much with it. No plan B. No one to hold ball up. No one to run at them. Add in Iorfa having a mare and Cooper so rusty. We were doomed. My only big criticisms would be Ugbo and their heads dropping for the third. They are professionals and should have stuck to task better.

Bannan wasn’t the problem. Basically man marked out the game. There was no space to receive it in so that’s why he went wondering to try influence the game They pressed well

He’s a pure finisher who at the minute gets jelly legs the minute the ball goes anywhere near him. Just look at the pen he ballooned over the bar last season. We all want him to start barging into defenders and winning flick ons like a prime Stephen Fletcher but it’s never been his game. Honestly as a fan base we maybe just need to learn not to pressure the club into buying goal scorers as always a waste of money

I’ll be boycotting. Fully behind the trust. Anyone thinking of going, please remember, with no one there it will be extra cold, the atmosphere will be like a morgue and we’ll get stuffed. Then have a think about what better you could do with your evening.

Just on the early bird tickets, if it gets to that point it will be an easy decision not to buy one. If a new owner comes in, they will almost certainly re-launch the season tickets at the same price so you wouldn’t lose out. If Chansiri stays you wouldn’t want a season ticket anyway because the football would be crap and you’d be harming the club putting money in his pockets. No excuses for anyone buying early bird.

Nasty tackle that. Used the heavy touch as an excuse to go through him as hard as he could. Unnecessary force to win the ball

Why did he extend the contracts of players like Windass if his end goal seems to be to get rid of the first team and just play with the youth academy on the cheap for a season? If the idea was to sell Windass, why not pay players like Lowe and let them leave for free when you could assume they would be worth a small fee? Make it make sense

I feel for the players. Can imagine they’ll be an initial tiny bit of optimism at being back at Hillsborough. Then we won’t be able to get the ball from the opposition, crowd will initially have a bit of a chuckle. There will be a period of apathy after Stoke bag the first. The second will go in and the anger will build. Stoke bag 3 or 4 and the place will be venomous. Rinse and repeat but skip straight to the apathetic/anger phase for later games. Players like Bannan, Windass, Smith, Pato were our only salvation as the fans would stick behind them and they had qualities to drive the team. Ugbo, Chalobah, Kobacki etc will wilt. Anyways that’s my excitement levels for the season summed up haha

Hypothetical scenario at present but there’s no way he’s getting away with flogging early bird season tickets this year. He’ll be lucky to sell one. This must worry him and I hope focuses his mind on a sale. It actually possible from here that the fans put in zero money. Don’t buy shirts, don’t buy food/drink in the ground, don’t buy tickets. Boom. He’s on borrowed time.

This statement is odd in so many ways. The jigsaw pieces about what is going on are really hard to piece together. Here’s my thinking about what is going on. 1) Chansiri is obviously absolutely skint and is actually desperate for a way out. His own cash flow has decreased, no money has come in for Röhl and he’s facing upcoming costs to maintain the safety of the north stand. 2) There was early interest from the Walter group as per the bizzle. This big American juggernaut are looking for a global brand in English football and we were worth exploring. I imagine following the latest statement this has fallen through and Chansiri is desperate. 3) The Florida ‘consortium’ are a group of people with reasonable wealth but not on the same table as most football club owners. What they want is to agree a deal and then get the outside investment from people joining the consortium. Obviously giving 5mil up front is odd anyway but doesn’t work well with this approach. 4) In the background I imagine the vultures are circling but haven’t yet declared their hand. 5) Chansiri is stuck and trying to do a deal with the Florida group but given the ‘consortium’ it’s proving very difficult. Shaw is effectively a middle man

Shocking decision! Dunno what others think but whenever someone’s pings a ball on the deck with pace and accuracy into the top corner from distance like Windass, it’s way more impressive than swinging a foot a at a flying ball. Gimme enough goes and I can recreate that winner. I could never do what Windass did in a month of Sundays

He’s done absolutely everything he can with this club and had 18months to learn the championship and coach all the players to perform as best as they can within his system. A player here or there on a free ain’t gonna change the trajectory of this club. It needs significant year on year investment to push towards the play offs. He knows this ain’t coming and I don’t blame him for wanting to leave. He’s ambitious and ready for the next challenge which would be competing for promotion and the pressure that needing to win every week brings. From there he would hope that springboards him to the prem and ultimately a club competing in Europe.

I think ones Danny to Southampton is announced we’ll get one of those DC rant posts like after Moore left. ‘I do best for club but other people try and bring us down. Fans angry but I do best. Danny leaves despite received all the promises. I spent big on striker on his recommendation…….’ Etc Always an entertaining read. Wonder if he’ll consider someone giving it a proof read for once

All respect for Röhl. Brilliant brilliant manager who has done everything and more that he could possibly achieve here. Röhl has been captaining the ship beautifully through troubled waters only for Chansiri to come and say he’s throwing the crew overboard and aiming the torpedos back on himself.

I don’t know much about this stuff, but do we reckon the worldwide stocks crashing makes him even more skint and could be a catalyst for him finally selling? Am I being optimistic. In hindsight the writing was really on the wall when he flogged the third kit with the old badge, 6 months in advance, without even a design. Talk about desperate and a feel sorry for the fans who have paid premium money for what may be a big standard plain white training top with the old badge plastered on, available elsewhere for a fiver

People forgetting how far we’ve come. Their team of scruffs, and all the money they’ve spent, resulted in a game where they will count themselves a bit fortunate to have left with 3 points. That’s my main disappointment that I felt we deserved at least a draw. That was not a backs to the wall performance and we were in their faces for vast periods creating plenty of chances. Yes they had periods of pressure but never did I feel we were properly under the cosh. Proud of the players who wore their heart on their sleeves and gave it their all The football we play is really impressive at times but we are never winning crunch games with our current defence - everyone can see it.

It’s crazy to think Röhl watched him for 6 months in training, thought him worthy to spend almost all of his transfer kitty on, and he’s turned out this bad. He’s not had an injury so presumably physically he still has the same pace and strength. He’s playing in the same league with the same teammates so presumably knows the exact runs to make. You’d think these two things would mean he’d at least have scuffed one in or got an assist. I agree with what’s being said in this thread that he’s just not trying. At this level of sport you probably need that absolute aggression and determination to fight for every ounce of space otherwise nothing happens for you. His response to the pressure seems to have been to just sack it off, go through the motions, enjoy his comfortable life on a long contract and be safe in the knowledge he’ll be raking it in until his late 20s and then go play back in the French second division

I don’t think we know how to play on the front foot. Whenever we try and put pressure on the opposition and get in their half, it feels like we are more likely to concede than score. Our main way of scoring is generally on the counter. Playing quick transitions to get someone running free at their defence, play it wide, square it. Has been the case for quite a while now. When teams defend a bit more doggedly at Hillsborough we huff and puff a bit unable to get around them. Leave ourselves a bit exposed. Defence is spread so one mistake and they are in and score. It’s not terrible, we do create chances, but it’s very very frustrating to watch.

Feels like a dream but I’m sure I remember him last season controlling a ball with his back to goal and swivelling to smash it past the keeper in one movement like a top class striker. In another game he powered a header in at the back box rising high to bundle ball and defender into the onion bag. Ugbo now is just a mental wreck. Not anticipating anything. Not wanting the ball. Always on the back foot so looks weak. Afraid to do anything other than keep it simple. I could go on…..

I feel like Röhl has us doing the hard stuff with beautiful attacking transitions and ability to make chances as a team. We are then let down by being absolutely powderpuff in defence and individual mistakes. Honestly think Röhl can spend as much time as he wants on the training ground but until he gets some talented CBs to work with we’re gonna continue shipping goals. I’m at peace we have built well this season and if Röhl can give us one more year we will have a genuine punt at the play offs

My take on the second half was with those subs we took a sledgehammer to the midfield, removed our main attacking outlet and best player on the pitch, lost any kind of out ball with Ugbo’s disappearing act and succumbed to just sitting deep and praying they couldn’t score.

It's just a theory but I feel Chansiri had already annoyed Röhl far before this and this dispute is just Röhl engineering a move. I reckon in November they had a meeting to discuss the upcoming window. Chansiri turned into a petulant man child saying that he gave Röhl a chance and he wasted money on Ugbo so he was taking back full control of transfers his way. You then get a breakdown of communications and escalating tensions in press conferences. Southampton job comes up and Röhl wants to talk to them. Maybe at this point he doesn't even want to go but to use as leverage to see if Chansiri will then give him back more control. Chansiri becomes even more deranged, refusing Röhl any chance to negotiate and threatening legal action against Southampton for their approach. And this is the situation we find ourselves in. I honestly believe this would all be avoided with a competent owner willing to acknowledge Röhl and give him appropriate backing. Chansiri backs himself into a corner by the ridiculous way he behaves.

I think people are being a tad critical of Röhl We went more attacking against Preston but ended up conceding loads of chances, didn’t look compact and should have lost. I felt like playing Ugbo, Smith, Gassama with Windass as a link to midfield was an experiment to see if we could go two up front and two wide players but it didn’t work. He wants to go to a 4-2-4 like we played first game against Plymouth but it just isn’t working. Against a good team last night he pragmatically dropped back to more of a back three just to keep us in the game. We don’t have players currently who look confident opening championship teams up and scoring goals so any efforts to go more attacking could leave us getting thumped and sliding down the table. I think we should have won more games at home against the likes of Cardiff and QPR but equally we’ve been a tad fortunate on the road which means are position in the table is fair. The next step in the progression of this team would be to get some forwards hitting a bit of form and backing themselves. I think you’d see the team build in confidence and start to believe the play offs are reachable. I don’t know how we do this though. Crying out for a loan wide player in January and maybe a forward if the budget could stretch. Musaba just might discover some sort of form but it seems unlikely. Getting confident attackers is the hardest part and I think the fans need patience. Röhl has built a reasonable platform in defence and the midfield of Charles and Bannan is decent (let’s pray Charles isn’t recalled). Lots of teams end up in this position in the championship. The solution generally is to spend big, get the best prem loans or get lucky with an academy player. Without any of those I think Röhl has them competing and tbh it just is a bit boring watching a lower midtable team scrape results. One last note is we need to look at what Arsenal are doing with set pieces as nothing gets the crowd going more than putting teams under pressure with big CBs charging at set piece deliveries. My only criticism of Röhl is that he is a bit of a football purist and maybe we need to look at this and more of the dark arts to scrape a few more points.