Ainsworth Is Trending: EFL+ 23/24

Strolling down Charlton Lane right now, hope in my heart. Said hope being that the deluge promised by the rain radar in about ten minutes doesn't curtail proceedings.

Anyone else feeling ready?

we've made one new signing, a loanee from fellow strugglers Stoke. Being up at the top end of the FFP compliancy table doesn't win you shit. Pre-season wasn't that bad, but not much get's learned from putting 10+ goals past drunken Cornish pub sides. Still got that fragile hope that they at least aren't going to be shite season, we'll soon see though.

Getting your biggest away trip out of the way early I see

it's probably less of an arduous trip going to France

Watford
1
Queens Park Rangers
0
Dele-Bashiru (1'minutes)
1 min

that were quick

I fear this thread title has peaked early

heh! gone by teatime

ffs! make 'em walk home.

Cambridge beat Oxford 2-0, take that Sunak/Johnson/May/Cameron/Blair/etc.!

This popped up as a result of a the involvement of a couple of ECFC loanees but I was taken aback by the very specific googleproofing, is it a family thing?

Your starting lineup away at Frome Town in our final friendly today 💪#WsMAFC ⚪⚫ pic.twitter.com/aIdoAxvCLW

— Weston-super-Mare AFC (@WSM_AFCOfficial) July 29, 2023

Our policy of rarely giving out contracts longer than two years means every summer is a transitional summer. This year we lost some important players to us (youth team grads, like Josh Key to Swansea and Archie Collins to Posh, plus Jevani Brown after a saga which was foul, he was brilliant for us but overall I'm glad he's gone).

I was vaguely hoping for a noticeable strengthening of the squad after then Ethan Ampadu transfer to Leeds netted us £1.4m, but it looks like it's been put aside to fund future years of us paying more in wages than our 6.5K crowd average can sustain - the economics of football are properly insane. We seem to have picked up some promising loans, and signed a few previously unheard-of-by-me players, plus Tom Carroll who seems to be fit, for now. We are playing a very high-tempo game that I don't think our thin squad will be able to maintain for a full season. Nevertheless, a win away at Wycombe on the opening day and progress against Crawley in the LC last night, mustn't grumble.

Brought a debutant on late doors last night, it was the lad's 16th birthday - he got booked, lots of amusing jokes about unwanted birthday cards obv

looool you'll be delighted to know he has a brother called Louis who's also a footballer xxp

there's been a drawn out transfer non-saga between our lot and exeter over sam nombe, culminating (for now) in exeter's social media team absolutely dunking on both us and an exeter fan account who'd been claiming for sure he was off before the last psf. OUR NEW OWNERS AND THEIR MILLIONS WILL PREVAIL or something. actually we've now been linked with a jamaican league top-scorer, which would be a fun signing

that's if we can recover from the mortal blow of going out of the efl cup to newport. believe it or not some of our fans are already in a stage of malcontentment

James 0000
James D00D

My understanding is that we have. very clear sum in mind for Nombe and will sell the minute that sum is bid he'll be off (I'd guess that is somewhere between £800K - £1M but I've no inside info). I believe the thinking is: if we're a selling club it's better for us to miss out on a fee or two than to get the rep of a club that will sell cheap if you negotiate hard enough. The policy of stashing windfalls like the Amps money means we are rarely in a position where we *have* to sell. I think this is the right answer but do sometimes dream of an extra half mil in the playing budget.

Duke Roll - the fan account you mention - is interesting in ways I don't think I can satisfactorily explain.

rumour is we missed out on a "free" transfer because the club wasn't willing to pay the £1.5m and another 400k on agents fees that West Brom did. I thought they were supposed to be on the verge of administration ffs. I hope they boing boing their way to a points deduction.

£1.5m signing on fee I should add

Missed the emergence of the thread because I was away at the weekend.

We had Jacob Jagg3r at our place and he was ok - 20 appearances, no goals or assists, a bit lightweight - but the real name on that team sheet is Kieran Thomas who imo is a league quality right back although his game went back a bit after the end of competitive drop balls which he loved and I once saw him sprint 60 yards for.

So we started the season with 1 (one) player from last season. Saw pre-season and we looked good against West Brom although it's hard to tell as their best player went off after 10 minutes. Overall we apparently only looked less than good at one PSF, although we lost a few players to injury and have actually had to get a couple of loanees in for the first month just to create a bit of depth.

First match was a 2-2 draw at Kings Lynn which, if you'd offered me it last season I would have snapped your hand off but apparently was a bit unlucky not to take all the points. Darlo at home this weekend who got battered last week.

Hoping for the playoffs I think.

ainsworth: not dead yet

it must have been the white haku man doing the team talk yesterday

That was much more like it, I had forgotten what it was like to be entertained at a football match. (Downside, the pub was weird with nothing to complain about)

Created lots, would have been nice to have scored more and I didn't even mind the (poorly taken) penalty being saved because it was very soft. We've definitely got a few dark arts players this season, Cowley leaving one in after 4 minutes that made Darlo rearrange their whole midfield because they saw cards coming as a result, and Cranston getting away with a kick out then stamp that everyone in the stadium saw except all the officials. Pond doing the Jordan Pickford fall on the ball is going to get old pretty quickly but if he keeps on performing then I'm not sure I care.

Special shout out to the referees who, to a man, were the most inept I've seen in years. Missed fouls, deciding after the event to play advantage, dead balls given the wrong way and a whopping 12 minutes of additional time played of the 8 indicated.

I very nearly felt sorry for their physio, one of the fattest blokes I've ever seen involved with a football club (easily 26 stone) but every time he got called onto the pitch it was on the other side.

I was tickled when we had Stanley and Livingstone on the pitch together, but I suspect that was just me.

I have a Player To Watch candidate for you all this season btw, Harry Smith of Sutton United, a Giant Bastard of the finest quality. Here we see him last week at 0:45 with some Completely Unnecessary (and Obscenely Protracted) Shithousing, immediately marking him as a man of profoundly low character. Later in the game of course (at 2:15) he scores a Giant Bastard Header, leaning on his poor defender as one might upon a gatepost to survey the scenery

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFIVMKbU4pc

Followed up this week by some heroic Ultraviolence in the first fifteen minutes. The camera unfortunately misses everything except the prelude and the aftermath, beginning at 0:06, but I almost find the jump-cut between initial grappling and opponent writhing in agony to be more evocative than had we witnessed what transpired. It's a crying shame we will now be deprived of him for three games

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GBQ39F7IpE

Harry Smith was at ours for five minutes last season but we changed managers, he apparently couldn’t settle in the west country (can’t hold that against him) and back to Orient he went. Shame, I had high (>6ft) hopes for him.

Last season we quite often had a Harper Collins central midfield.

we've got 6'9" of player (the tallest in the UK) in striker Kyle Hudlin, he's only made one appearance from the bench from which he scored against Boro in the cup no-one cares about. Most of the comments on him so far are of the cliched "tidy feet for such a big lad" variety and it seems he doesn't have much at all in the way of effective aerial presence. Might be a good 'un though, he seems have kicked on a level since last season after an unremarkable loan spell at Wimbledon.

I'm getting reports that Ross McCormack is not making the anticipated impact some thought he might have in the 8th tier of the efl at Liversedge fc.

an avid 'Sedge fan says that McCormack was absolutely appalling at the weekend - bloated, unfit and fell over the ball a few times much to the amusement of the crowd

Tuesday march was not all that to be honest, the lack of an out and out striker through injuries just left to a total loss of shape and press, and it was an absolute mugging for us to take the points.

Fair play to Caddis though, not many managers would take a player off after 40 minutes. Blyth on Saturday will be interesting.

In other league news:

Alun Armstrong says Scunthorpe are unstoppable winners after they took Darlo apart.

Southport have sacked their manager after losing the first three.

Southport docked 10 points for not paying the taxman.

Not Southport, Southend.

EFL sack race WINNERS, such a cool functional club I AM DYING OUT HERE

(he sort of deserved it tbh)

so every day your caretaker manager wakes up, he takes his medication

spends the rest of the day waiting for a new striker

we've got a manager who was already a bit too unfiltered even before the cognitive decline. Like when a player he has targeted all summer turns us down for a fat signing on fee/better wages and a better chance of being in the top half of the table, he says quite cheerfully "I always just think ‘well, something will happen, they’ll get injured or something’".

lmao, a true poster

The late goal Charlton conceded deprived us of reaching our highest-ever position in the league.

As it stands, the last time we were second in the 3rd tier, The Winner Takes It All by Abba was number 1.

right now we're just fucked up inside!!!!!

god fuckin defend me I'm at such a loose end I've gone to the fuckin Dulwich Hamlet game

the irony being that despite my somewhat aloof attitude to it all I currently look like the most Dulwich fan who ever walked this earth

luckily decided to support Chatham and was duly rewarded with a whole bunch of goals down the end I was standing, a couple of them really pretty good

York sack Mikey Morton.

Wouldn't be surprised if Caddis doesn't see out September, the past few games have been dreadful.

just had a worse transfer window than several of our relegation rivals. So I guess the next best thing we could do is appoint a Director of Global Brand. We had our global moment 20 odd years ago when one of Htoo twins (those guerilla kids that led the Christian armed revolutionary group in Burma) was filmed wearing a HTAFC Panasonic home kit. The "global brand" has been all downhill since that moment, because funnily enough the rest of the world don't give much of a fuck about shitty little division 2/3 clubs.

Tough times at Enfield: https://fanbanter.co.uk/worrying-developments-as-8th-tier-club-issue-statement-with-fans-hoping-they-survive/

Bad business at Scunthorpe: https://unexpecteddelirium.substack.com/p/will-the-real-david-hilton-please

Puts our current injury crisis into a bit of perspective I guess. Wish we didn't have an injury crisis though. We had a player injured while on international duty this weekend. That's a first! Frankly the international duty os almost a first.

Reading have a points deduction already and apparently if their dysfunctional owners don't comply with the EFL order to deposit 125% of wages into an account they'll just keep on deducting every month. They might be working towards the earliest relegation in league history.

Warnock is going to manage what will likely his last game at Town on Wednesday against Stoke. He wouldn't comment on why he's leaving and said it would all be announced at a presser on Monday and he wasn't going to comment any further. This is the really chilling part. Nathan Jones was pictured at the game today 🥶

he's been gone too long

I've just seen the Nathan Jones pic debunked, it's an old pic of him at St Mary's. But then some spoilsport has said - old pic aside - he was actually at the game today.

phew! it's been confirmed by an itk source that it definitely isn't going to be Nathan Jones

General consensus yesterday was this Cheltenham side were as bad as any we’ve seen in League 1, probably the worst. We’ve hated playing them because for a while now they have seemed keen to make the game as sterile as possible, scuff a goal and then waste as much time as they can. Without Alfie May the scuffing a goal element seems to be out of reach.

For all that, I find myself feeling sorry for this dude. I thought about putting this on The Wisdom of Gaffers but it’s too tough a watch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2t0GhQmVCQ

(The only goal in their “for” column this season’s n was an og)

there might have been a time when being MASSIVE + owned by billionaires would have some pundits suggesting Brum's stay in L1 will not be long. But now 2 of the shitest, worst run clubs in the Champo (now of L1) are both owned by US billionaires and I wouldn't tip either of them to be top 6 next season.

Apparently SE London needed another League club

(I guess SW London lost one. SE win! Nyerrr)

Leeds deserved to lose just for that embarrassingly awful Sunak chant

... which was?

leeds shat that game. their play in the final third was embarrassingly inept.

xp

they were singing

we are Leeds, we are vile
Rishi Sunak is a paedophile

I'm deeply embarrassed typing it out

lmao oh those silly lads

well we all got what we wanted out of the day

don't know what's wrong with me in my old age but i wanted Leeds to go up. the Leeds players obviously felt differently

I love that they finished a season on 90 pts and achieved sweet fuck all for it

gives me a warm, reassuring feeling of stability seeing Leeds bottle it in the championship playoff final again, nature has found its balance

606 is excellent value tonight, first caller a Southampton fan calling for Russell Martin to be sacked, now there's a Leeds fan booing about the injustice of the playoff system, real greatest hits stuff

How didthat sunak chant scan?

https://x.com/The_Forty_Four/status/1794677820305879059

ffs

“We are Leeds, we are vile”

“Rishi Sunak is a peadophile” 😂
pic.twitter.com/bq4eqkRfD2

— The 44 ⚽️ (@The_Forty_Four) May 26, 2024

Corbyn had football fans chanting his name, the Kieth supporters are calling ppl paedos!

I guess next time someone does a Jimmy Savile chant at an away game they will uh complain as usual.

one of them had a Rishi effigy with "tory scum" on it, could well have been someone who is going to vote for Rachel Reeves to represent them in Parliament

Just spent the afternoon watching Alf play cricket. Just heard him say that he's driving up to Huddersfield after this game and they want the deal completed by next weekend. I've been totally for Alf staying but looks like he's gone #cafc pic.twitter.com/8Kcllnlepl

— Chris Reader (@Tha1ChrisReader) June 22, 2024

I can see the wider picture here, our American healthcare billionaire owner is building a platform from which he can launch an assault on our NHS.

Alfie bowled one over, 1-1, and scored 10 batting at number 5 for Farningham in the Kent County Village League.

Our new head of fitness and performance has clearly determined this is the season his legs go. Shrewd stuff from the owners

it would be our luck that his legs have gone! This seems like a manager signing because Duff has history with him and our DoF only signs players who are either ex-Stoke or are represented by the agency he has connections with.

*nervous laughter*

I'm not too arsed about May tbh. Getting into bidding wars for 31 yr old players and offering them silly wages has been the ruin of many a club.

Better off without him IMO.

we've already got a much better striker than May here, but unfortunately there isn't much hope of him being fit for a full campaign.

Brum's megarich owners are doing some kind of naming rights scam to inject huuuge amounts of money into the club without getting rarsed by FFP (on paper they've got the largest turnover of any non-parachute money EFL club), sounds like a genius scam - just ask Reading. Trying to compete in the transfer market with them is not a healthy pursuit for any club. But at least now we can hate the bluenose bastards even more than previously!

we've lost adi viveash after 7 years which is a little worrying

george boateng is back at least

was he the brains of the operation, while Robins was getting all the credit!

some say

at the very least his chelsea connections were of great use

Godspeed godden, hope he's an asset for you imago

And calzino, how was rudoni last year?

couldn't hit a barn door, he gubbed so many gilt-edged chances - very frustrating player with potential if he gets his act together. Apparently he pissed off the grumpy German by constantly pissing about with his phone during team meetings! It's a shame we sold him though, because a season in L1 would probably have been good for his development.

Brum have retired Bellingham's shirt. He was there for one season.

they did it straight after he left lol

I've just caught up with this news because I'm intensely hating them for likely gazumping us a 2nd time in this transfer window. It's going to be great when they piss L1 and have a load of players who aren't good enough for the championship on 20k per week and then are facing a points deduction.

the word is they offered May (a 31 yr old who never played above L1) a longer contract with 100% higher wages than Town offered.

🔹May was having a medical at #HTAFC on Sunday morning having turned Blues down.
🔹Blues then went back in and offered him double the wages:

16k pw basic
Up to 4k pw in bonuses
500k relocation fee

bid accepted for Antony Evans. I will be genuinely angry if this happens again.

Here you go calz: I am peaceful to all things, but FUCK BIRMINGHAM CITY

Nothing to report here, just Brum getting stuffed 5-0 by a moderately average Bundesliga 2 side.

the Brum owners haven't a clue what they are doing they make our stupid Yank owners look competent. They got rid of Eustace when they were sat in 7th, brought in Rooney lol. Now they are going into a League 1`season as the title favourites with a rookie manager. Bring it on!

Neo Arlee Ifny Eccleston

^^^

great real name

We had West Brom U21s at Edgar Street yesterday and they should all be learning a trade because none of them will make it as footballers. Genuinely wouldn't take any of them on loan for free during the season.

(Routine 3-1 win, 2 up inside 10 minutes and never got out of first gear, learned absolutely nothing about our trialists)

sure that wasn't the first team?

apparently Corberan wants to sign Sorba Thomas and the club are refusing to pay a million for him, which is hardly an extortionate price tag in the current market. He's just spoiling for a reason to have a hissy fit and resign as Baggies boss, the big diva!

The first team were losing at home to Bolton.

new title workshop

some variant of 'birmingham city won't charm anyone at any point' idk

If Only We All Had Hollywood Millionaires