First of all, to say sorry for Ngakia as he’s a human being and this is his livelihood and it can’t be nice constantly being injured. But Jesus, Mary and Joseph why did we ever think about a long contract extension? Another nonsensical decision from people at our club who seem to always escape censure for their lunacy. Fingers crossed we win tomorrow, both to celebrate Tom’s appointment and to end this utterly miserable home run. To have to wait until August for three points at the Vic is unthinkable. It will mean we will have had Christmas, New Year, Valentines Day, Easter, the Euros, the Olympics, Wimbledon and most likely at least 75% of us here will have celebrated our birthdays since the last one.
Interesting to think about just how much football in these "four additional years" Ngakia will actually play? I know it's not his fault getting injured and I would never wish that on anyone - but rushing him back only for him to pull up again was totally down to the poor medical team and assessors. He's still young, and I expect he does want to play as much as possible, but this could just be a case of a constant crock which is beyond his control. We seriously need to consider getting a ready and available RB in during the close season.
Did we rush him back? Obviously I put nothing past our medical team, but for all we know he could have actually been fit enough to play a part on Saturday and then just broke down again in training?
Our medical team is fine and in fact we didn't really have that many injuries in this season compared to a lot of others. I very much suspect that Ngakia is just one of those players who picks up lots of injuries and suspect he may end up retiring early like Tommie Hoban.
For sure a Bayo brace today followed by a last minute winner next week . And then we shall have Bayo trudging out next August however we will all have to wait until Oct\Nov for another goal . But he chases well tho !!!
The landscape changes today. We no longer have an interim Coach, we no longer have a match against a team in or close to the top 6. We no longer have any excuse for not winning today. The hierarchy believe (as many of us do) that TC deserves the job. Today he must start the process of showing us all why. Anything less than a win to break the miserable home run will be unacceptable today.
This game is definitely a much more winnable game than anything we've had since Brum, so there is much less excuse for not winning, but at the same time, now that Clev is in charge, will this make a blind bit of difference to us come August? We finished last season strongly, yet it made no difference for this season
Would much rather Sierralta were playing rather than Porto, hope he doesn't get booked and get suspended for the first two games of next season!
Agree, he's in the matchday squad a lot but finally a chance to shine. Let's hope he can make it count.
Phasing him out because he won't be used next season? Has he got some sort of clause if he plays x amount of games? Just brainstorming
There's no RWB there though. Unless Grieves is shunted out of position for his debut. Otherwise it will be the odd choice of a 433 with the disaster of Porteous at RB again.
We saw Ngakia's signed a new deal, but nothing on Hamer or Livermore, so probably the former? Can't really grumble at that as we haven't had anything major to play for for a while
Imo it matters because we’ve now gone 152 days without a home win and don’t want to make it another 100-120! It matters because this is the first match proper of the TC era. He’s no longer in ‘ex club legend doing the job for only a few weeks so let’s all be nice about him’ territory. The hard work starts from now. We need to see why he’s been given the job. The sentiment has ended, it’s down to harsh reality now. Yes, I agree it will probably have little bearing on next season but I think it would be a useful statement to ourselves to win today.
It might affect the mood come the first day of next season, but if you offered me a choice between winning today and the first home game of next season I'll take next season all day long
Worrying if true... which is probably is. We have one natural RB sat on the bench, Ok he isn't in the best of form but it's still his natural position and I would rather that than yet again play another out of position. Final Shout box of the "home" campaign is now up.
That’s fine my friend but you might have noticed my username besides what I wrote, so clearly I was expressing my thoughts rather than saying what everybody else should think. Enjoy the match!
On a day of the end of seasons awards being handed out - congratulations to Edo Kayembe for winning the 'Stupidest Booking of the Season Award', for in the 9th minute of the game, with the opposition having the ball in their half and us having all our team back, not being bothered to walk more than 5 yards away from the opponent looking to take a very un-dangerous free-kick and thus getting the ball hit against him.
