The Cunt With The Bell: Resurrection - EFL+ 24/25

I guess we're all ready right? Okay cool

Looking forward to tomorrow. We have a big enough squad and a short term loan to cover the injury from pre-season, plus an announcement today that Ceesay has signed back on after his move to the French league fell through.

How are Coventrys chances of promotion this year?

Fans broadly upbeat for a playoffs place but likely formation is Simms on his own up top and the rumours of him to Bournemouth won't go away which will knacker their season - either they'll have to try and play without him which could well result in next to no goals, or they will have to overspend late to replace him which would be a disaster given their already precarious finances.

we held and contained top of the championship table Blades last week to a 1-1 (which sent their manager into a deep gloom) during a solid pre-season in which we also beat US Lecce and Hertha Berlin. so we're going down, obv. Got one great striker with injury doubts, the rest aren't worth talking about. Can't speak for the Irish kid we just got from West Ham, but he has been scoring and creating against L1 opposition in the Trill budgie-food cup or whatever the fuck its called these days.

"How are Coventrys chances of promotion this year?"

they signed one of the problem players off us, Rudoni to replace O Hare, for a fee which I thought was at least double his true value. Should have realised what a wanker he was when he first signed and was asked: it must been tough getting relegated last game with Wimbledon and he replied not so bad, because at least I scored a goal in that game. And then he developed a knack for missing gilt edged sitters in pivotal 6-pointer games for us... again and again and again.

The BBC website said Blackburn had recorded a thumping win over Derby and I was like ah "thumping" means 4-0, then I click through and see that, well

Good finishing from Blackburn tho, last one was super classy

Leeds have hit the crossbar 3 times in the first 6 minutes, and now they've scored a pen. the cunt with the bell not clanging anymore.

probably is now tho

really enjoying the Radio Leeds commentary team's despondent mood change after seemingly thinking this was going to be a stroll in the park because they are class above Pompey for the first 15.

oh ffs, I cursed it

Barry Fry is still the DoF at posh and despite this they always seem to pick up shit-hot non-league prospects that progress to the bigtime. I'm slightly nervous really, need to dig out my Believe shirt.

omg Fergie jr is still there, talk about scraping the barrel

embryonic L1 table otm imo

hmm

the highest goal bonus in L1 history was activated, yet Brum just about scraped a point at home. More of this please. Wednesday managed to spend their way out of this league with a terrible manager, don't know if Davies is that bad, but he's a rookie who probably knows little about this league, as a former big club cone organiser who has never achieved shit as a head coach.

oh yeah them failing would be incredible

passing it to nowhere while others shithouse to glory (hi)

Steve Evans typically gracious in defeat.

them failing too would be excellent, ty for your service

Talking of Wednesday, they seem to have done a pretty comprehensive job on the greenies in poor old Wayne’s first game.

those match stats are brutal and reports say it easily could have been much worse.

Xps about coventry, a few bookies have us around playoffs again, I'm not so confident but looks like we have a decent your gk this season at least

*young

Overall I think our team is slightly weaker than last two seasons, but the league might be a little easier

Coventry have started badly the last two seasons iirc

Yes we were relegation zone end of November when we eventually made play off final

Couple of attacking signings in Mason-Clark and Thomas-Asante tho I'm not too familiar with their game to have an opinion

there was a great keeper moment for us yesterday with Nicholls, not a miraculous save or anything but just a supremely confident feint that sent the Posh striker sliding past him as he was kicking the ball out, without breaking a bead of sweat. A tiny moment in the game, but I loved the swashbuckling arrogance of it.

Nice result for Hereford yesterday.

Great game, first half was pretty even but they might as well have not come out for the second half. Could and should have been 5 or 6.

They're a good footballing side and Bartlett looked just as sharp as last year. If we get the same outcome against all the other playoff candidates then it's going to be a great season.

Mason-Clark was quite possibly the best player I saw in L1 last season

yikes! just saw the Wednesday/Plymouth highlights. Can see why Miller turned down a contract extension there, shambolic defending. Rooney, why do you keep doing this to yourself. Well because clueless fuckers keep offering him jobs of course. He needs to try something new, maybe enrol on a b-tec photography course or something!

One game into the season

Preston North End have confirmed Ryan Lowe has left the club by mutual consent

they got beaten by a parachute money side that played in the prem last season, so hardly a disgraceful result. They have been the second most boring opposition side to watch, next to Swansea for me in the last couple of years, so I don't think their fans will be crying.

Didn't score in their last five games last season with five losses
No idea why they didn't do it in the summer

I wonder how long till Wazza gets put out of his misery, it was 2 wins in 18 that finished him at Brum.

embryonic L1 table otm imo :p

looking pretty grim here - fourth loss on the trot for Cambridge this month (Stockport and Crawley, QPR in the league cup and a 6-0 pre-season drubbing from Colchester) - everyone looked miserable trudging out of the abbey stadium.

we conceded a penalty in the last 40 seconds of play with a combined keeper going through the player + Spencer dragging the fucker down at the same time. Same kind of shit they were dishing out to us for 90 mons, but never mind!

got a strong feeling that Hull City's flirtation with the play-offs last season was a one off

league 1 will be very tight this season, especially considering rotherham's inevitable promotion

good luck huddersfield and charlton x

we've got the first manager since the 1970's who has won their first 3 games in charge, and still he's moaning about how shit they were in the 2nd half today. He's won me over.

a Hull City fan I heard was saying they fear Medya is getting bored with the project and the common theme in this summer's pre-season prep was top-down inertia.

yeah that seems very plausible, it's felt like a vanity project from day one

embryonic L1 table otm imo :p

― vodkaitamin effrtvescent (calzino), Saturday, 17 August 2024 20:11 (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

okay I'm listening

good luck huddersfield and charlton x

― nxd, Saturday, 17 August 2024 20:31 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

churlish to omit Devon's bastion of pure-hearted working-wonders-on-a-tight-budget goodness imo

(but ty lol)

oh of course my apologies - good luck exeter too!

What on earth has happened to Sheff Wed since last week

diagnosed with a severe case of not playing a team managed by wayne rooney

Okay calz you can almost say the line now

really flat, listless performance by my lot today. But fuck it, the embryonic L1 table is still otm!

lying in bed this afternoon getting over (prob) covid, heard a bizarre succession of sounds coming from the Abbey Stadium, seems Cambridge were playing Blackpool, went one nil down after five mins, got an equaliser, then let in three, then scored three, to finish up 4-4.

enjoying the total absence of madcap thrillers from our season so far ngl

Four games so far this season we've been 1-0 up in each. the first we won and in the three since we've gone on to lose 2-1. This is annoying but doesn't yet feel like a disaster.

On a happier note, I went to see our women's team play at Lewes yesterday, very pleasant day out indeed drinking Harveys Sussex Best on the terrace with the South Downs forming a picturesque backdrop and watching our lot win 4-0 to stay top of the league after two matches. Our manager more or less promised we'd get slaughtered by Ipswich next week.

Lewes is a lovely town! The Snowdrop Inn is one of my shouts for 'best pub in England'

I always enjoy visiting Lewes but I have a more conflicted relationship with the place (I get that pleased-with-itself feeling which makes me itch a bit). I like the Snowdrop too but it wouldn't be in my top three pubs in Lewes even. I recommend visiting the Dripping Pan if you get the chance, it really is a tremendous ground.

I get that pleased-with-itself feeling which makes me itch a bit

oh, totally get this. think when i visited Stroud in 2018 it was at its peak, literally on the cusp of this exact heelturn

three pubs in Lewes better than the Snowdrop? crikey. that's a pretty good hit-rate. although i've now recalled Derby's Exeter Arms (and Alexandra) so it's probably over for most other English pubs

Birmingham have bid something in the £10m range for Fulham's Jay Stansfield, what league is this again. Some of their fans seem to think their owner's bogus sponsorship deal or whatever the hell it is will insulate them from any inevitable FFP issues down the line if they get promoted.

bid rejected, maybe £20m will cut it.

We get a decent percentage of any Stanno profit Fulham might make, still I’d rather see him sit tight and establish himself at Fulham tbh. Love the lad.

we've got a loan move for Luton's Joe Taylor being held up until they've resumed whatever business they are doing. He apparently did the medical yesterday and had to return to the club in case they require him on the bench tonight. One of them potential transfers just designed to collapse at the last minute. Or maybe Birmingham will swoop in with an insane 11th hour offer.

kerching! Tim

Guess so, and we seem to have "invested" some of the spoils on a child from your third team. Happy days all round.

tbf Pat Jones was always more on the periphery of the first team, and if not for injuries etc.. He scored an incredible individual goal against Norwich on his debut. There is a player there no doubt.

I should add he has shown lots of flashes of potential since but his development was also hindered by a succession of fuckwit managers and all the usual stuff when a club is in a period of decline. He could be potentially be a fantastic player in L1.

think the gambling commissioner should have a look at this

Hahahahahahahahaha wtf is going on here fine the lot of them pic.twitter.com/nOOX3G5x4r

— jakefloyd_97 (@j_floyd97) September 14, 2024

that is one gk who won't be getting a good night's sleep tonight

Both our goals against them were from them losing the ball at the back. Evatt surely gone by the morning

otmness of table alas short-lived

about time Wrexham got a reality check, although Brum with 15m worth of J Stansfield could be a bit much for a lot of us

"Both our goals against them were from them losing the ball at the back."

both Posh and Bolton played out from the back very badly. It will play into the hands of any half decent, well organised high press.

Idly watching Wednesday v Baggies in the pub, and I love how every fucker tries to play out from the back in 2024

Lol lovely route one action to Windass for Wednesday's second tho

I'm not going to comment on opposition sides pissing about at the back and presenting easy goals to us anymore. I jinxed it last week and one of our duds did a suicidal back pass that led to a goal and today we've conceded an equaliser while pissing about at the back. At least it's good to have a manager who get's furious with the players when they do this and calls it out as dud and seems to want to coach this shit out of them.

I'm pretty cool with playing out from the back and it's fun to watch, I've been getting pissed off with pundits tutting about how inappropriate it is for the little teams to do it, they should know their place and hump it forwards at every turn unless they're a proper Big Club, which is stupid as fuck at least in part cos the effectiveness of a tactic is as much about who you're playing as anything, if you wanna try Pepball in the Conference you gotta remember you're also veong pressed by teams at your level so why the fuck not?

Also the Windass goal was a lovely treat

our back line has too many garbage footballers with less passing ability than the average under 9's side for trying anything other than quickly getting it forward, preferably not straight to an opposition player!

Don't get me wrong watching Sam Johnstone with the ball at his feet is taking years off my life and he's only been with us for 2 months

I think if we concede a goal like that, Nathan Jones will personally eat the player responsible. The karmic cost: we simply don't score from open play any more

Albion back in this ffs come on Wednesday you feebs

not mentioning a pleasing current scoreline here because I don't want to curse it

look at Brum, a £30m squad and they can't even muster a shot on target.

the gaudy arrogance of the club last Tuesday night. Flashing their stadium lights and serenading their undefeated galacticos like it was last game of the season. I knew this was coming.

I didn't!

God they were hilariously shit though. And to think I thought we'd gone off the rails

they were bang average on Tuesday night as well, unfortunately we were still going through a cursed run of pisspoor performances at the time. The funniest moment was the highest paid striker in L1 managing to intercept a goalbound shot and nodding it over the bar. But in the end we still let him through for an easy goal 15 mins later. Useless fuckers.

Didn't do so badly today! Table slightly more otm than it was yesterday

correction: the 2nd highest paid striker in L1. Stansfield probably has a wardrobe full of gold bullion bars.

Couple of them must have gotten nicked given how he went off at the final whistle

I'd be absolutely delighted for any club to win this L1 title and would forget all historical grudges, barring the current top 2 - both of which I fucking despise and wish nothing but failure upon them.

I'm surprised the Wrexham promotion bump has been so sustained. They've gotta start running out of juice soon. They're our next home opposition, bring it on tbh

yeah tbf on them it seems to be more a case of winning momentum rather than thermonuclear transfer splurges. But tbh I've hated them since their Lee Trundle era and the current ownership are despicable.. so fuck them!

Wrexham apparently were p bad today

great result for Charlton that, love to see it

Yeah I hope their fans enjoy the ride and I look forward to them going bust.

We’ve just scraped consecutive 1-0 wins against poor poor teams (Orient, Cambridge) but I will take the inflated league position all day long.

Dicing with making the trip next month...the game sounds like it's going to be a bit of a grind

our first choice colossus gk legend Nichols breaks down in prematch warmup and needs surgery - out for ages. Our no.2 keeper is recovering from an inflamed heart and is currently restricted by protocol for how long he can even train. 3rd choice keeper Chapman steps up - everyone fears the worst. Turns out he's a pretty good allround keeper who isn't only NOT shit but also growing in stature, game by game. Like it when stuff like this happens

Cambridge really circling the L1 drain this time, just one point from nine games. My son is no longer asking to go, he says he wants them to go down to the national league again so he can come and be their star player in 2032 or so and get them promoted to the championship, then get a transfer to Liverpool. But yeah for this season, if you other L1 people want to have an almost guaranteed win away day I would recommend it, good transport links and the computer museum is ten minutes away. Food at the stadium is crap though.

Bojan Radulovic, our Serbian/Spanish striker was doing an interview the other day. Generally these player interviews are so anodyne, but this lad delivered, bigtime - it was very funny. He said life was hard for him at first because he was living in Huddersfield and that is so crushingly dull because it is such a boring place to live in, with nothing to do there, no fucking hope, a grey hopeless shithole! But now he has acquired a flat in Leeds he feels alive again, thank fuck I got out of that monotone shithole (just slightly paraphrasing), he was basically saying, without realising how much trouble he is in now!

lolll

i mean, serbia

I think his parental home is in Spain, and he was just missing his supermodel/influencer girlfriend or watev. But I'm old enough to remember that Denis Law lodged in a very average terraced house in industrial Milnsbridge when he was a Town player. In an an era when it when it was a much greyer and grimmer, sootier, an altogether more fucking disgusting place to live!

thought thread bump might be for this
https://www.charltonafc.com/news/mark-goldbridge-valley-wrexham-clash

the glitz, the glamour

Not too proud to offer Tim some congrats for belated supremacy. Decent outfit this season looks like. You will say nothing about our own playing style that I do not already, painfully, know

― imago, Saturday, 9 November 2024 19:33 (twenty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

we beat Tim's lot quite comfortably but I still wouldn't call us a decent outfit, in fact I'd go as far as saying we are often inconsistent and frequently mediocre. We beat Barnsley twice without even getting into 2nd gear and they are above us. This is Wycombe's league to lose! (which kind of cheers me up - cos anyone but Brum)

hoping to pick up the Wycombe boss as the other bookies favourites look awful

hold out for R Martin tbh

Inconsistency is the name of the game in L2, we were apparently schooled by Hudds the other week, we’ve had a few games where we’ve really got going and mostly we look tidyish but not-quite-there. Dimitri Mitchell back from injury might make a difference.

I wasn’t there today, my friend said “We won a 0-0 there and got 3 points, been on the wrong end of many of those”.

this playing-a-bogus-fixture-against-some-fucking-ManU-U21s in the autoglass trophy is a new indignity for me. I refuse to acknowledge that this is a real fixture win, lose or d. As far as I'm concerned it was a behind closed doors game to improve match fitness and couldn't care less about the result. I will never accept bullshit fixtures like this as legit.

REG dive secures massively undeserved penalty equaliser lmao

followed by a weird red card for our captain

it sounds like your headcase manager is still riling up players to commit gbh!

congrats to the Shrews for such a good result

for both the pen and the red were from completely unnecessary challenges

we never get more than a point against 10, often we get nothing. Literally no advantage for us!

was starting to think our injury woes might be over, the starting XI barring Helik on the bench, was for the first time in ages, our strongest. Then Healy and Taylor both limp off sounding by worrying comments form local bbc, looking long term injured ffs

Leaburn has gone close twice now, should have just equalised then!

so as you can see, we play extremely lovely and effective football

should have drawn though, our expensive summer striker missed an open goal from 2 yards...again

thank fuck our keeper was awake for that quickly taken free kick at the death, that would have hurt

i'm taking a sabbatical

I'm Frankie Lamps

Fwanks for the memories

frankly my dear, I'll be gone in march

There are boos from Plymouth supporters as Wayne Rooney's Pilgrims are are thrashed by Frank Lampard's Coventry City.

it could be 15-0, Coventry fans are still going to be furious about being called "Frank Lampard's Coventry City"

yup

Delightful result.

Should have known without checking that our lots would be level on points lol. Good Boxing Days apiece at least

Poor old Wayne, hopefully his successor can complete the job, ideally wasting a whole lot of money in the process.

a very grave case of spiritual-baldness-ultima there, sadly. also his terminal shiteness as a manager was not exposed (like his cosmetically covered up baldness) at other jobs because he had decent assistants.

https://images.ps-aws.com/c?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimages.teamtalk.com%2Fcontent%2Fuploads%2F2024%2F12%2F11100930%2Fliverpool-manager-arne-slot-1320x742.jpg

absolute scenes at Hull

Someone called Morley scored an injury time winner against us for Wycombe on New Year’s Day. He then signed for Bolton and scored an injury time winner against us today.

Does it...taste......better......the second time........

Sorry if this hilarious joke is all over Twitter or whatever

Not enough south Londoner ECFC fans for that joke to occur to anyone I fear.

All yours then. Sorry

strange things happening with Frank lampards coventry city

eustace joining derby is fascinating, guess down to the Blackburn owners?

ffs Coventry, way to boost the ultimate Tory boy manager!

I can't help feeling we'd have survived the championship relegation battle if we'd have gone for Eustace rather than the big-name, pompous, grumpy German twat who absolutely fucked us.

our injury record this season has been astonishing. I used to think we had a lot of injury problems because we signed injury prone players on the cheap. But this Jan window we have signed expensive players with no injury record. One of them got his first red on his debut and then got injured. T'other got his first long term injury of his career on his 2nd start. Just fucking cursed with this fucking wretched American money.

can't believe I didn't post here the other day but better late than never: hopefully this weekend's events will, for one plucky East London club at least, put an end to the dismal practice of announcing a man of the match over the tannoy before full time

i mean it was lovely that their keeper heard his name in lights. it surely gave him that extra boost of confidence to deal with an injury-time corner. oh wait, no? alright maybe this other corner. hang on-

QPR doing god's work at the moment, Saito's goal was an absolute peach

haven't even scored at home this year and now Wortho is back in charge ....

Lol I was just looking at your scoreline

at his presser yesterday Worthy said it's shackles off time, he wasn't kidding

We’ve been terrible, just so extremely shit, went 12 league games without a win (the third time this has happened in 3 seasons under this manager) but have managed to scrape together a bit of form which means we’ll likely be safe. We haven’t sacked a manager in the 20+ years we’ve been fan-owned but sometimes that feels like a curse rather than a blessing.

Having said that, it’s not like we have any history of staying in the third tier for long so just keeping us there for three seasons is probably over-achieving. If the losses were spread out through the season it would be much less miserable and terrifying.

if you could use some of that good form to do bad things to Wrexham that'd be dandy ta

honestly how are they up there, they really aren't very good. perhaps I am hurling a stone in a glasshouse a bit here but actually we're genuinely quite good now imho and I'd say if we weren't

there is nothing special about them at all, wouldn't swap one of our average players for their best ones. We should have beat them at home. But we had a flailing manager who'd lost the players and the plot. And a cunt of a referee who shouldn't have let their goal stand - backed up by EFL apologising for the shite ref decision and goal that shouldn't have stood. When you have momentum, sometimes it carries a lot of luck with it as well.

2nd automatic slot was completely up for grabs this season. still is. even for you if you keep thrashing everyone

with Worthy in charge we might concede too many/frustratingly drop a couple of points here and there. It won't be dull and I reckon there will be the odd thrashing dished out, but I think auto is probably out of reach.

with Joe Taylor back in starting contention, it's quite exciting because we a forward talent like him in donkies years

*haven't had*

see you at Wembley old pal, lol

I'm trying to work out whether I'd take the current table as the final table if offered or if I'm feeling greedy. I feel that given our form I have to be a bit greedy but my god I don't want Bolton sneaking in

xp
I honestly wouldn't write it off, and your manager really hates us ..lol

I think we'd be each other's biggest threat of the current 2-6. Stockport are very very similar to us tbf and have a cracking manager but we have more squad depth. Wrexham cannot fucking prevail

When we played Stockport the other week it was like Superman fighting himself, he knew all the moves, it was one of the worst 0-0s of all time

"I don't want Bolton sneaking in"

not happening on my watch

I Love The Labour Party And The Financial Sector

(I don't, but we need to stoke SOME tension before tomorrow lol)

I mean, you know what we Londoners are like :D

4 - 7 classic owing up imo

it could never be dull, that's for suah

Almost want a 0-0 now

0-0 would have been a near certainty under Duff's tedious brand of inflexible, whingeing dourness. Last time Worthy was in charge, like this time, his 2nd game in charge was a tough away fixture (Southampton). He said we weren't going to park the bus and were going to have a go. It finished 5-3!

one of our lot was describing your manager's style as basically a pretty good kind of "adaptive pragmatism" that our last stubborn manager sorely lacked, and had we had someone like that from the off this season then the squad was basically, even with the plague of injuries - good enough for the 2nd spot. With the caveat that it's a shame that your manager is such an annoying, childish, psycho-dickhead on the touchline every game!

All part of the marvellous theatre of League One football. Preferable to Michael Appleton's hands in pockets nothingness. I see he's back in work now somehow

Shrewsbury is seeing if working their way through all the dud managers in alphabetical order this time will make any difference.

They skipped Adkins!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cx29x6kwyn7o

"My accent and my Scottishness is aggressive" says the purveyor of the world's most passive tactics.

I don't think I've ever seen you this trigger-happy on here before, Tim.

I think I've had the wind put up me by scary Scottish accents.

"Jen (Caldwell's wife) complains all the time how aggressive I am to her, to the kids, to the dog - I think it's the Scottish accent." Reckon perhaps Gary needs to think harder about this one.

"I do have to probably look at it have to change, and probably try and change my accent and be a little bit more 'Englified'."

Ivor Cutler rolling blithely in his grave

jesus!

also yeah, bloody hell

the Darren Ferguson defence

The charitable reading is that this is no more than a dumb joke to make the point that he's being picked on because of his accent but good god that's a dumb joke.

He spends a lot of the time shouting at the officials, its has to be said, but he does seem to get booked and sent off more than other similar ranters like out chums the Cowley boys, so I dunno.

He should make like Nathan Jones and yell incessantly at his players instead!

Weirdly, they seem to really like him. I think he's quite supportive off the pitch?

Caddis definitely gets treated differently to Rooney on our bench by the officials when they're shouting the same things so maybe there's something in it but in Caldwell's example they might just be biased against HEID because of his MASSIVE HEID so I dunno.

Let your consolation be that I entered the ground after 3 minutes

lol, blatant timewasting 11 mins into a game

Didn't miss that one ;)

here we go.. again. pisspoor defending for both

good grief, and we'd be 5-0 down if not for Nicholls. Not postponing any more of my afternoon walk for this shite

:x

I didn’t make it to yesterday’s game, apparently we played better than we have all season. Whether that was due to our manager seeing no reason to persist with his unjustifiably cautious approach given we’re safe, or Hudds being on Exmouth beach, or our feckless bunch only playing well with the din in their backs, who knows?

I am looking forward to rounding off a nothingy season with a trip to Mansfield, mostly because it will be good to savour Argyle’s relegation (the Feast of Snottaredown) with like-minded cider soaked souls.

I didn’t make it to yesterday’s game, apparently we played better than we have all season. Whether that was due to our manager seeing no reason to persist with his unjustifiably cautious approach given we’re safe, or Hudds being on Exmouth beach, or our feckless bunch only playing well with the din in their backs, who knows?

I am looking forward to rounding off a nothingy season with a trip to Mansfield, mostly because it will be good to savour Argyle’s relegation (the Feast of Snottaredown) with like-minded cider soaked souls.

The sun on their backs, that should say. God knows our tactics have put paid to any din.

not to take any shine off your fine home win, Tim. But much more than half of players, especially the ones who must have found out they won't be getting a new contract offer and are leaving this summer. These set of duds gave up months ago. Biggest bunch of wankers I've ever seen in the blue and white. Also kudos to our American owner, who has apparently burnt through £40m to create a side, who in their current state of decline would be certainties for relegation from L1 without that cushion of a decent start they had.

there are pint dispensing machines at the stadium now. A lot of people are waxing nostalgic about the days of long queueing. I just wish this cursed yank billionaire had never turned up.

he hired the DoF guy who turned Stoke into a basketcase, with his brainless, scattershot approach to transfer policy. He'd sign two small strikers, strengthen areas that didn't need strengthening. Just no squad-building thought at all. Just an utter moron who talks his way into top jobs. Spunking a fortune on glass boned wasters over and over again.

Haha I’ll take any win but there’s not much shine at the moment. It’s weird because we know what we are and we know that survival in L1 is quite an achievement for our club BUT the refusal on the part of our team or their management to give it any sort of go against the clubs at the top end has left an oddly sour feeling. And the football, especially at home, has been painfully boring.

Consensus among my friends is that the manager definitely doesn’t deserve to be sacked but we’d be very pleased if he got a different job.

cheer up, at least you'll the Argyle trips next season. I will very likely have to deal with the ignominy of my lot being in the same league as the lowly chickens, although they fucked up their chance of making it a certainty yesterday.

Thinking of going to the Charlton game next Saturday. Kind of ridiculous I've lived in London so long and, apart from a brief period of going to see Brentford when they were shite, I've never bothered going to any football games.

I lived in the Woolwich/Plumstead area for 2 years, but still never been to the Valley. Fuck 'em!

xp I’m not really complaining (much) and some Devon derbies will be v welcome, I’m just noting how weird it is to have a season which would be in our top 5% finishes historically but still feels so flat.

Oh, I understand. Even though we've achieved the same as Exeter this season i.e. not much at all but not going down. But even when we looked a lock for the playoffs the performances were garbage. Sometimes there is just an unpleasant smell around a group of players and a manager, where it's hard to to put finger on it, but nothing is right. Nothing feels good.

Sonny Cox seems like a good acquisition though. Need to check out his hard bop period!

Even I'm probably not going to the Charlton game next weekend due to playing cricket, but if you do attend Tom I hope it's a humdinger. We're not a terrible watch tbf, yesterday excepted. Oh right we're not going to talk about that

Keep my powder dry for Wemberley

Season just petered out despite technically being in the mix until the end. Even with other results going our way we never looked like beating either Kiddy or Scunthorpe, and if we believed we were going to get through the playoffs we would have faced one of them again for sure.

All those dropped points against sides down the bottom we hadn't played before - Needham Market probably being the lowest point - and shockingly bad refereeing decisions - the goal that never was against Kings Lynn, the offside decision at Alfreton - could have seen us go up automatically, never mind the playoffs, but ultimately we're still not good enough. Again.

Even I'm probably not going to the Charlton game next weekend due to playing cricket, but if you do attend Tom I hope it's a humdinger. We're not a terrible watch tbf, yesterday excepted. Oh right we're not going to talk about that

Changed my mind, there's nothing to play for in the game, Charlton are in the play-offs and Burton are safe from relegation. Now, if Orient had been playing at home I'd have gone to that game but they're away to Huddersfield and obviously no way on God's green earth I'd go to Huddersfield (sorry calz). Oh well, next season I suppose.

Excuse me, we're playing for a home semi-final in the second leg!!!

Yeah, I'll play cricket

Tom, you don't want to visit the retail park built on the site of the Leeds Rd cafe where Shanks used to take young Denis Law to, to fatten him up on steak and milk? There is an incredible aura of lost football history in the car park between the Staples and the B+Q.

I've never seen a more gift-wrapped, signed and sealed "L" in my life. Just put a grand on Orient and use the guaranteed payout to fund the beer, food and train tickets for a jolly good daytrip to sunny Hudds!

I see Truro City went up to the National League, meaning they have trips to Carlisle (439 miles) and Gateshead (458 miles) to look forward to, assuming Gateshead don't' squeak through the play-offs into the league.