Exactly this. It's such a circus that you just tune out and stop caring. Long term we stand to lose a not insignificant number of fans. The last two years my kids have both been less interested - they often say the can't be bothered to watch as it'll be crap football and they're fully aware it's run like a joke. A new signing or manager used to get them asking all about them, now it's an eye roll and a comment like "well they'll be crap" or "he won't be here in two months".
Yes, that was awful. More inept, rather than the not bothering to attack we’re seeing at the moment. Although HB1 will remind you we were cheated out of a point by the officials.
Would be an excellent appointment, but unfortunately I don't see him wanting to come back to this madhouse. I can see him at Everton when they inevitably sack Lampard.
It really doesn’t matter who the Manager/Head coach is, when the team comprises of a cobbled together mismatch of carloskickaball’s which we have, it’s just a matter of getting out for some fresh air for us fans (and paying for the privilege)
Such a malaise around our club at the mo, look at this thread! 3 pages and this is during Christmas fixtures. What we all hoping for? Five solid lower prem/championship players coming in What will be get? Bacuna This club just sucks
The Premier League breaks clubs, partly by forcing them to over-stretch financially in order to stay among the elite. Smaller clubs are only ever two or three poor decisions away from disaster. Looking at the Championship today, it's a graveyard of broken dreams. Birmingham's ground is falling apart; Hull have been through the mill; Huddersfield are sinking fast, Wigan's ground looked empty last night (except for the away fans). Cardiff, Stoke, Bristol City, Reading are all just plodding through the stodgy gruel of another Championship season. Watford, Norwich, WBA know that the clock is ticking. The 'dream' is getting back to the Premier League for another season of being pummelled repeatedly. The 'nightmare' is staying in the Championship and slipping back to square one again. If there was a satisfaction survey of all Championship supporters, I wonder how many clubs would come out with a majority of supporters feeling positive about their team? Burnley, Sheff Utd, Sunderland probably. Anyone else? In a sense, we are in danger of becoming everything we used to ridicule. The likes of Bolton, Portsmouth, Derby and others, who got relegated and whose squads were still packed with the detritus of an unsuccessful Premier League season. Some expensive, some injury-prone, some completely uninterested. Some all three.
Wise words from your kids RP. It'd be the same old same old new manager sack manager new old manager sack manager new older manager sack manager new young manager sack manager same old same old players Cathcart Sema Sarr etc etc same old same old and repeat till retire or new South American wonder kid then sell same old same old etc etc any ex manager is new manager till....??
RobertPeel said: "Exactly this. It's such a circus that you just tune out and stop caring. Long term we stand to lose a not insignificant number of fans. The last two years my kids have both been less interested - they often say the can't be bothered to watch as it'll be crap football and they're fully aware it's run like a joke. A new signing or manager used to get them asking all about them, now it's an eye roll and a comment like "well they'll be crap" or "he won't be here in two months"." I've grappled with thoughts like this a few times over the years. In the early 90s, when it felt like we'd never see the top flight again, the football was often terrible but we sort of knew what we were. The seasons of least satisfaction for me are when the club's self image does not match the reality. The Vialli year is a good example. I remember a significant number of our fans thought this was it, the big time, that we had transformed into a sort of Hertfordshire Chelsea and there seemed to be a rush to distance ourselves from the brilliant underdog days of the two GT reigns. Then we got humbled by teams like Crewe, Millwall, Burnley, Barnsley and couldn't take it. There were some decent players in that side and some genuine club heroes, and yet it was also (for me) one of the least likeable sides in modern history. I disliked the Boothroyd era for quite personal reasons but at least there was a sense of reality about what the club was and what it stood for. During the four-year slog with Rodgers, Mackay and Dyche there were at least no delusions. The ground was falling apart, the team was patched up by loanees, anyone who was any good got sold pretty much as soon as possible, most of the drama was all the boardroom wrangling first getting rid of Simpson and Ashton, then the Russos, then bonkers Baz. But among the fans there was a togetherness, perhaps because expectations were so low.
It's the lack of effort I can't forgive, coupled with a disconnect with the team and owners, plus the ever smiling social media crap the club peddle. 90s were awful, but you knew Porter, Hessy, Foster, Nogan etc. would put a shift in. Like you say, we knew what we were - a late winner v Southend was enough to spark a pitch invasion and it felt great. Was talking to one of my uncles over Christmas who is a big Doncaster Rovers fan. He was saying that they are crap, but at least they give it a go each week. I tried to convey to him how bad the Millwall debacle was, but it was hard to get the depth across
Well goodness knows how people would feel if we were mid table in League Two after a poor relegation season . He probably wished they were 4th in the Championship.
Just having a scan through the opening pages of the Milwall thread pre-match, there was none of the End Of The World, We're Crap And So Is The Championship, I'm Falling Out Of Love With Football style posts. The impact one loss can have is crazy. Win a couple on the bounce and there will be no talk of players not caring about the club etc. Definitely take a draw tonight though, in our current situation. Last game before we get some sort of reinforcements through the door, get through it and pray for no more injuries. Our best player (by far) out in Pedro. Kamara, Kayembe, Choudhury, Hause(!), Gosling, Louza, Cleverley would all be starting/coming off the bench if available. Got to stay within touching distance and get through this absurd period of bad luck with injuries.
Yeah, I know exactly what you mean although Nogan was never that popular at the time, I don't think! Social media, especially, can be a bitter pill to swallow at the moment. Posting a video of Richarlison's belting shot that went in off the crossbar at Swansea during the excitement of the early days of Marco Silva today when we're in such a gloomy period just strikes me as incredibly tone deaf at the moment. It's a tricky one because they can't just Tweet doom and gloom but the disconnect stems from there. Spoon-feeding the masses a load of saccharine pap four days after a truly dreadful home defeat misses the mark by a long way, even if social media admin thinks he or she has done a great job. I suppose the olden days equivalent would be the manager telling the players not to go out on the town after a bad home defeat. Stay in and keep your faces out of sight – or go out in a different town, if you must. Instead, we have clubs putting out content that feels almost like trolling at times.
there might not be any downright negative but look at the amount of comments for a Boxing Day game! Nobody cares anymore it’s like people are just numb to it at this point, we win so what? We lose so what? Such a horrid team of individuals. Meh I say
I do admire your positive attitude WT but it's not just one no show is it? Every time our team fail to deliver it's another reminder to us of the golden opportunity messed up by Pozzo. Hindsight is always 20/20 we know that but just a smidgen of foresight isn't too much to ask for is it?
I don’t know about the split for before and after but there was more pages for it than previous games win or loss. Probably just depends on what people are up to and how they feel ! Seems to me basically it’s pretty gloomy because we aren’t a competitive PL club anymore but maybe now potentially slipping back into an average Championship one struggling for consistency on the pitch and potentially finically off it .
Thank you! No, it's countless no-show/disgraceful performances from individual players/the collective squad over the years. But if you asked the fans of pretty much every other club in the country they'd tell you the same story of similar performances. We're not unique in that regard, imo. It's the same group of no-hopers who couldn't give a **** about the club, who battled to a comeback win at Cardiff last month, to make it 3 wins in a row (including spanking our rivals). It was a similar group of players, in a similar toxic environment lead by an incompetent owner that broke records to achieve promotion a couple years back.
Same team that didn't show up on boxing day. This should be fun. Looks like Blake and AL's love child are filling in some of the holes. Edit: My mistake there is no Sema and Gaspar is starting...
I think this is kind of the point I was trying to make earlier about the Premier League breaking clubs. The connection between supporters and team has come undone. It hasn't happened overnight. It's happened because there's been a churn of players who are not really up to it, while some players (albeit some hard-working ones) have become over-familiar to us. The whole place needs a whirlwind to sweep through it. The culture of the club is reflected in the body language of the players and I'm not just choosing to see the worst but the way they walked in slow motion back into their positions after the two Millwall goals hinted at a deep, deep malaise that'll take some undoing. At this time of year it's natural to look back at the calendar year and if we do that, we can see it's been 12 months of pretty much one-way traffic. January to May was unremittingly grim – a win at Villa and a win at Southampton and three draws (admittedly one of them at Old Trafford) were all we had to show. Fans who only go to home games saw one draw and nine defeats with a goal difference of 6-25. The worst home run in almost 50 years. In comparison, this season has seen some better moments, of course, but the fact you have to go back almost two months to cite a battling comeback win against Cardiff does speak volumes. Of course, someone always has to finish bottom of the Premier League and it's not unexpected that in a bad year in the top flight that can easily be us. And as pointed out earlier in this thread it's kind of absurd that such a misfiring, inconsistent side could go third tonight with a win, but in terms of being a team that commands unconditional support, respect and admiration, this is a long, long way off it.
So this must be 3-at-the-back with Gaspar and Ngakia as wing backs, right? Christ above, Lord help us.
Well. At least expectations will be low. Sema is a loss. Gaspar and Ngakia on the same team! No left back (Morris is obviously not deemed good enough). This will be interesting.
