Great result and a nice boost after a couple of difficult league results. Expect the likes of Siggy and Moran will be a lock for starting places now, and hopefully there will be a lot of confidence taken from tonight from the likes of Markanday, Tronstad and Garrett who have only been on the fringes of the first team thus far. IMO we need a few of the established names on the team sheet to feel some pressure from players behind them.

Well, if your ambition and expectation for the club is to avoid relegation from this league for the next ten years then technically it's an optimistic take and you could post it in the optimism thread. Otherwise it probably belongs in this thread 🙂

It's some wave of momentum Ipswich are riding right now. It'll be interesting to see how they respond once they hit a sticky patch, but for the moment they're absolutely flying.

Just realised I forgot to include Friday's match... Birmingham's momentum continues to dissipate as they laboured to a 0-0 home draw against QPR. After the weekend's results this means Birmingham now slip down to 10th, having only picked up two points from the last twelve available. They've also only managed eight goals so far this season, which will be a concern as it ranks pretty low in the overall competition. QPR meanwhile are 18th having picked up a slightly better five points from the last twelve available. As for today's matches... Stoke continue to struggle as they were soundly beaten 3-1 at home by Hull, who are flying at the moment. Defeat for Stoke means they've lost four of their last five matches, drawing the other. Much like Birmingham, their tally of eight goals scored is amongst the lowest in the division, and they currently sit in 20th position. Hull meanwhile move up to fourth, having only lost one of their first eight matches. Sunderland's recent good form came to an abrupt end as a resurgent Cardiff City side stole a 1-0 win at the Stadium of Light, with an 87th minute winner. Sunderland had dominated the match, but seemed to have learned some of the wrong lessons from Rovers in midweek, as they spurned their chances and were made to pay late on, having left themselves open to a sucker punch. Despite the defeat, Sunderland remain in 5th, whilst Cardiff's fourth win in five matches pushes them up to 7th in the table, only outside the playoff places on goal difference.

My understanding is also that Smackdown was very good during this period, but I wasn't really watching any wrestling between mid-2002 to mid-2005, so I missed the majority of it. I've seen some of the better matches from the PPVs and such, but not the actual Smackdown shows.

I think regardless of how JDT tweaks things, we're probably looking at 10-15 shots being registered against us per match if we want to continue creating enough chances to score. If the opposition has poor strikers or doesn't hit the target often then it isn't such a problem - as it was in the case of Watford and Boro - but in situations where that isn't the case I agree we need a better goalkeeper between the sticks. We really have to hope Leo is capable, because I I think Pears has too many mistakes in him to deal with that kind of sustained pressure on our goal.

A lot of our defensive issues come down to how we're being set up to play. I don't think it really suits the personnel we have. I get why JDT is going with this attacking style - he knows we typically need a lot of chances to score goals due to our limited firepower - but it's leaving big gaps which exposes our defence. Our standard midfield duo of Travis/Wharton don't seem capable of doing everything that is being asked of them. This is borne out by the amount of shots registered against us in games so far this season. Hull - 19 shots Watford - 24 shots Plymouth - 23 shots Boro - 21 shots Ipswich - 29 shots I feel like most defences would struggle with this kind of bombardment, and we need to reassess our gameplan.

A question for the tech fellows.... I moved some posts from the optimism thread to the pessimism thread, but as some posts came before Jim's original post it's now changed the thread starter to the person with the earliest post. Is there any way to amend this to put Jim's post first and/or label him as the thread starter, or does it just have to stay like that?

Moved the above post to this thread, as it was originally in the optimism thread but doesn't really fit in there. It was in response to @JohnD commenting that we scored three goals.

Nitro from 1996 - 1998 and WWE from 1998 - 2000 are my all-time favourite years. After that it gets a bit spotty. WWE in 2001-2002 was alright, but losing steam. TNA from 2005 - 2008 was pretty fun. Smackdown's August 2016 - March 2017 run was great. I enjoyed AEW until around autumn 2022 when the CM Punk brawl out stuff started. Nowadays I keep up with the news via reddit, mostly, but don't watch any of the shows.

Hedges is alright as a squad player. He's not especially consistent but he has his moments. For a £250k purchase from Scotland he's done quite alright. The fact he's considered one of our main men these days, however, seems to simply be a sign of how much our squad has regressed. Appreciate Moran started ahead of him today, but even so - his competition is a 21 year old lad from Brighton who's just getting his first taste of senior football.

OK, evidently I hadn't been keeping up with the optimism thread, so I've moved a bunch of pessimistic posts to here instead, hence the sudden additional posts. Apologies to Jim whose first post is now bumped down by a few, even though he was the thread starter.

I've moved a significant amount of posts in here to the pessimism thread, as that is where they belong. This was supposed to be kept as an optimism-only zone, but I haven't really been checking it, so my bad. Instead of hiding a significant amount of posts I've moved most of them to the more relevent thread.

J*B already did on the first page I believe. I've already hidden a couple from the current page, but will go back through the thread and hide any others not adhering to the guidelines.

An interesting day overall in the Championship. Rovers conceded first against Ipswich and duly lost again. This time upping the goals conceded to four. It would have been an entertaining match for a neutral, with Rovers coming from 3-1 behind to 3-3 before Ipswich sealed the win. They'll perhaps be a little concerned they let us score three goals though. Nonetheless, three points is three points, and it moves Ipswich up to 2nd, edging ahead of Preston in the early standings. Ipswich's four goals scored today makes them joint-top scorers alongside East Anglian rivals Norwich. Rovers meanwhile have now shipped 16 goals in 8 matches, averaging two goals against per game. Nobody needs to be told that this is a bad sign. Rovers continue to drop, now sitting in 14th. Leeds comfortably dispatched Watford 3-0 at Elland Road. The result moves Leeds up to 5th and means they've now taken 11 points from their last 15, suggesting some momentum is building there. It was another disappointing result for Watford, who have only won one of their last five matches and slip to 16th. Leicester picked up a narrow 1-0 home victory against in-form Bristol City via a Jamie Vardy penalty kick, which moves them up to 1st place. Another clean sheet for the Foxes, meaning they've only conceded five goals this season, giving them the best defence in the competition thus far. A first defeat in five for Bristol City, who drop to 8th place in the table. Middlesbrough finally picked up their first win of the season at the eighth attempt, beating hapless Southampton 2-1 at the Riverside. Despite former Rover Adam Armstrong putting the Saints ahead on the 17th minute, two goals either side of the break was enough for Boro to claim their first three points of the season (in a single match). Boro remain in the relegation places, but are now 22nd and just a point behind Swansea. For Southampton the misery continues with a fourth defeat in a row, dropping them to 15th with a -7 GD, and 19 goals conceded remaining the worst in the competition. The shock result of the day came at Home Park, where Plymouth took apart a desperate Norwich team, romping to a 6-2 victory. It was an emphatic way to bounce back after suffering two defeats on the bounce, and makes Plymouth the second highest scorers in the division, behind Ipswich/Norwich who are joint-first. Norwich meanwhile continue to stumble after a bright start to the season, with this being their third defeat in four matches, and a really damaging one. It means they are now level with Rovers as third-worst for goals conceded so far this season. Preston dropped their first points since the opening day, drawing 1-1 away to Rotherham. A disappointing result from Preston's perspective, but they remain the only team in the division yet to lose a match. They drop to 3rd for now. Rotherham meanwhile pick up their first point in three matches, but still fall to 23rd having still only managed a solitary win this season. They are leapfrogged by both Boro and Swansea, and have now conceded the second most goals in the division. Speaking of Swansea, they recorded their first win of the season by defeating Sheffield Wednesday 3-0 at the Swansea.com Stadium. For the Swans it's another step in the right direction after picking up a point midweek, and lifts them out of the relegation zone and into 21st in the table. Sheffield Wednesday now sit bottom of the league - the only club yet to pick up a win, with six defeats out of eight making for grim reading. Not only that, but they have the weakest attack in the division with a meagre five goals in their first eight matches. It's going to take some effort for them to avoid a straight drop back to League 1. WBA and Millwall drew 0-0. Not much I can say to make that interesting, as both teams sit in mid-table doing nothing worth talking about.

Might have been a bit harsh, but there are periods when we become overwhelmed and go into our shells. We have the ability to fight back but give ourselves too much of a hill to climb during those periods when we panic and lose our heads. Have to get it sorted.

We were very lucky to escape with a win there, honestly. Think we had one decent shot on goal and it went in. Going to need a few more games to go like that this season to be comfortable.

Tbf Watford dominated us as well, they just had a Rovers in front of goal.

I would imagine the few of us in this thread are aware of the all time classics mate 😅

Just to note this thread will operate under the same guidelines as the optimism thread - arguing against pessimistic takes not accepted. If you don't want to read pessimistic takes, or can't do so without needing to lash out, don't open this thread. Personally think we're in big trouble. Can't defend, awful attacking options, a manager who, if we're being brutally honest, hasn't been able to get a decent run out of this squad since Dec 2022, absentee owners, no transfer or wage budget, outright admittal from Waggott that there's no expectations being set at all other than to stay in the league... All points one way, and that's down. Might not be this season, but at this rate it's going to happen soon.

Southampton lose again to Boro... wonder if that'll be it for RM? Getting embarrassing for him now.

Considering we conceded first there was only one way it was going once it went to 3-3. These lads can't even ride a wave of momentum properly. The fact we have zero to offer from the bench makes it even worse. Venky's going back to the mid-2010 style of drastically slashing the playing budget until we go down. Learned their lessons? That's a good one.

Maybe he can give Pears some tutoring.

On JDT this. Has to hold his hands up and admit selecting Pears has cost us big time today.

Whatever JDT said at half time has done the trick, just a shame he keeps handicapping us with the goalkeeper selection.