One great thing and one terrible thing

Friday night football looks interesting next time around. Bristol v Boro and Burnley v Sheff Wed. A draw bonanza would be nice given a home draw would be incredibly dispiriting for a lagging Burnley

I was hoping we would reproduce some of the football in early stages of the first half once we got back underway in the second. We had looked very potent with some slick forward passing until their guy went off injured and then we just didn't get back to that and the game never really got going again. But credit to the players (and probably the coaching staff, too), the reset did them good and they went for it again when they came out. It could have been one of those where the away team decide they are going to make a go of it if we hadn't made our moves. Perhaps we were fortunate their danger man had gone off but in seemingly more relevant was that they'd only had half chances and we had always looked the better side. Good time to play them I think. Teams at the bottom don't put long runs together, especially when they are bottom of the away table

In fairness to him he's not had too many games with that many minutes so part of the lift could have been being allowed to settle into the game. That's his first league home game with longer than a half's worth of football. Also, the longer he's been a the club the more he will settle. I'm sure we will see more good stuff from him although he will likely mainly be used from the bench given Tronny is coming back and Buckley has been doing very decently. But it's not necessarily as simple as him raising his game against his former team

It's like he's finally worked out the most dangerous spaces to run into. His footballing intelligence has come on significantly this year and his control has got far closer. He's obviously been working hard on those things as they don't click without work. Very happy for him

Swansea away, Norwich at home, Derby away against a manager who knows us, Stoke away. Now there's an unpredictable run of games. Could be points galore or very tough indeed

If the top two do pull away I'd be very interested to see if Burnley manage to rely on their late goals and wearing teams down if they have little to play for. Can see them dropping off to an average level (which would keep them well clear of 5th) but it's so hard to then pick it up when the play offs comes. Really hoping for Leeds on Monday night against Sunderland

Nice

Would have to disagree. There's no moral obligation when you yourself have been lied to. He left us in a safe place at least. And football fans should be unembarrassable. There's nothing embarrassing about being badly run or being let down by a player, manager or owner. That's not on the fans. Embarrassment for fans is reserved for teams whose fans let them down, like Burnley's recent fly-over, Millwall's seemingly ever present racism or certain clubs hooligan element. It's not embarrassing if fans support teams owned by questionable owners if they are realistic about what is happening and not rolling over and getting their belly tickled by evil sugar daddy's. But what's to be embarrassed about for a manager leaving us for a team lower than us? That should be embarrassing for the owners. It won't be, but that's up to them. I refuse to be embarrassed on their behalf. Angry, yes, and wistful of previous times but not embarrassed.

I think the two most likely to pip us to the post are Boro belatedly finding form at the right time after a kick up the arse any time now and Sheffield Wednesday. Coventry I can see going off the boil after peaking too soon, Mowbray bottling it and Bristol just not having the players capable of staying up there. Likewise QPR. Norwich and Watford remain unpredictable

Simon Jordan truly is the unthinking man's thinking man. Every time I'm forced to listen to TalkSport at work it's agony listening to him think he's right just because he can formulate an argument with a sound logical structure but that falls short of actually being correct

Need to get his chant to Enya's Orinoco Flow (Sail Away)

Benni McCarthy at 20/1. A pair of Big Macs at the club?

My choice wouldn't be for Lowe given all options but him as short term caretaker has to sit higher than Allardyce or Warnock bundling in. The fact Allardyce is top of the pile is pure nonsense given some of the names on there who have won promotion or reached the play offs more recently

Seems unusual not to have Lowe as caretaker to the end of the season and then see from there as an option in the poll. Caretaker to permanent was the only option. I had clicked Carsley as my choice (it still is irl) but can't believe the likes of Warnock would be chosen above seeing the season out with someone who knows and who has coached the players under the system we are currently playing. So I've clicked David Lowe permanent to give him a boost in case he ever looked

This one is winning

Your has more legs in it than just being one line though

I can get much worse. Oh I, Travved the time of my life And I owe it all to Lew

If I can't Trav you, I don't want nobody baby

Would see no benefit to Warnock as manager over Lowe. He's already retired twice and has now moved to Torquay behind the scenes. His last job saw him acquire no league wins

Woken up and confident of a win. One potential kicker is how much work Eustace had done with the players specific to the Brom game. They will have benefited from that but won't have that advantage against Plymouth. I'm sure there will have been some work on it amongst the coaching staff but this might be where we see how good they are at transferring that to the players. I still think Plymouth's away form is key. Bottom of the league on that and any team near the bottom is unlikely to get a long run going so they are due a defeat given recent results. Can't see them getting four wins on the bounce, three of them in one week. It's hard for even a play off level team to get that level of consistency. I previously said 2-1 but can feel a 3-1

Carsley hasn't needed a budget before and didn't have access to Gueye in his previous jobs. It's a no brainer

I don't like him as a person as well as the other things

Do you remember the previous seasons?