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Reply | Pony Up: Dunne's a Pro, Blades for show Fred
at 20:30 28 Feb 2026
Agree with all of that except “ Very disappointed with Kolli when he came on. He and Bennie didn’t work hard enough and I don’t think Kolli influences games enough.”
Neither played very well but working hard is ALL they did do. Numerous times Kolli was back battling for the ball towards the left back area . Saito completely awol. Kolli also made run after run after run to try and get in behind and not once did we see it or attempt it .
But more to the point , one of the guys on one of the midweek podcasts mentioned that no matter who plays that second striker role, be it Kolli, Bennie , Kone , Vale, looks a bit lost and unsure of their role . They play in a bit of no man’s land disconnected to almost all of the action.
JS has to get a grip of this . Burrell is not available.
Adapt!
Change the system.
Put another player in midfield .
Do something different .
The injury situation is unprecedented. Its a disgrace actually.
But…he didn’t HAVE to start 3 teenagers today .
Mbengue, Smyth and Cook all on the bench. (another game where Cook is a sub but only gets up to warm up once with no intention of playing …or really warming up. What’s all that about?) |
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Reply | Pony Up: Dunne's a Pro, Blades for show Fred
at 14:28 28 Feb 2026
One of the very few tiny positives from Tuesday that I saw was Bennie trying to get in behind and timing his runs pretty well. Wouldn’t be surprised if that got him the nod today . We do need to turn this lot around , some how |
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Reply | Will Chair be back to his injury free best?
at 11:59 28 Feb 2026
I’m caught between a rock and hard place with this sort of thing.
On one side I’m sick to the back teeth of the constant injuries and disruption to our squad , snd feel like a big big change is needed in our set up and conditioning models overall. But on the other , I talk to a lot of football fans and watch a fair bit too, but can’t imagine and of course I’m probably wrong , many other sets of fans reacting to a footballer playing 5 full games in a row as .. ‘terrible mismanagement’ .
Thats his job!
Now you might well be fully right, with every case being different and the fact he has been out since might well suggest so (might not be linked at all , we don’t know ) and it’s not in anyway directed towards you but the bigger picture for an old sod like me is 5-10 years ago , once players had returned from injury , then that’s it …they are fit to play and off they go .
Now we are obsessed with managing minutes of certain players (RND for example ) but balls to others (Jimmy, Madsen eg ) . I don’t really get it .
In short , I think these players are molecoddled to death by an army of ‘performance and fitness ‘ folk who I think are on a bit of gravy train…especially at our club.
Players have gone elsewhere to get fit recently , that says it all .
Try and get there early and watch the 4 stage ‘warm up’ they will do today ..especially the back 4 .
It’s worse than anything I can remember doing 30-35 years ago . And we have been doing this for nearly 3 seasons . |
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Reply | Will Chair be back to his injury free best?
at 19:26 27 Feb 2026
It’s very strange isn’t it.
Apologies for repeating myself but even his exit from the field in the game he got injured in was peculiar .
2 minutes to half time , didn’t try and make it to the break, didn’t go down , didn’t get any treatment, didn’t see if he could run it off and didn’t even grab or comfort the part of his body that was apparently injured , as you do when in pain or discomfort as far as I could see. The ball went out of play and the 4th official held his number up .
It’s just odd.
As far as I can see there has been no official statement that it is his hamstring. It might be?
Maybe it’s nothing , his had a setback and we’ll see him in a few weeks.
But if you leave a void to fill by fans wondering what on Earth is going on because you refuse to give them even a morsal of info (now also see Cook and Smyth) about what the injury even is , then it will be filled .
Some will disagree but I don’t think it’s good enough .
Edit: unless of course it’s a very personal or psychological matter.
In which case I will apologise of course .
But even then something can could be relayed to the fanbase just asking for patience and privacy .
But that is a more difficult situation admittedly [Post edited 27 Feb 19:40]
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Reply | Madsen hamstring
at 13:33 27 Feb 2026
I don’t know about training .
What I will say and I’ve mentioned it before is that pre match routine we go through for 20 minutes or so is the biggest load of rubbish I have ever seen.
Usually meet my son for lunch on a Saturday and then we get in and get a cup of tea for roughly the same time the players come out to warm up.
So I’ve watched this ‘warm up’ quite a few times over not just this season, but the past 2 or 3 , and it blows my mind completely.
I’ve started comparing drills to the opponents on the day and it’s shameful .
The players are going through the motions , same old same old .
They do this weird defence v attack ..but walking, where the defence stands still and we are allowed to play out wide and get crosses in and put it into an empty net .
What on Earth is the point of that ? On so many levels.
The players look lethargic and end up strolling about then go in .
Every week I just watch through my fingers …and it’s only the bleedin’ warm up !!! 🤣
No wonder there are injuries and we often start slow ( though for some reason we are snail like at the start of the second half ).
Once again , no standards . 5 or 6 coaches out of the field , most with arms folded .
We have to do better than this . |
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Thread | ‘Methodology’
at 19:46 26 Feb 2026
I’ve been thinking about this for a while and to me this is a question or questions that really should be being answered at ‘fake’ forums or otherwise .
Yes, I’ve been banging on about it for a while but what exactly is John De Souza’s role at the moment?
Because theoretically Stéphan made him redundant after the Coventry disaster didn’t he?
Pre Cov we all knew what the methodology was . It wasn’t working …but we got the idea . Play the same way across all the teams so it’s an easier step for all the players to move up and eventually into the first team .
But Stéphan threw that all in the bin immediately after that game .
So from that shellacking , until New Year’s Day, did JDS then get all the sides to play with a really quick striker to run in behind and have an incredible work rate so all the teams in the club could go much more direct ?
And what about right now ? No Burrell so what’s the ‘club method’?
Stink the place out especially away from home and try to get a 0-0? Because if the youngsters have to make the step up….?
Ok so I’m Being slightly facetious.
But you see my point ? If the head coach changes the direction of how we play then surely the methodology has to follow , doesn’t it ?
Otherwise what is the point ?
And if the answer to all the questions above is no , then what exactly is this role he is in?
For a home game we lost recently I sat close to the posh seats so I could see him during the game .
He couldn’t have looked more disconnected and bored if he had tried .
Didn’t talk to the laptop / stat bods (including Bould ) sitting in front of him once and was more interested in the TV above his head .
Now I might have that last paragraph wrong . I can’t know or see for sure from Where I was .
But we really need some clarity going into next season what on Earth his role is , especially when the head coach throws it all in the bin , because the rest of the club can’t surely be playing the same way it was when the first team aren’t doing that anymore ?
If we are, then Stéphan isn’t seen on being here very long either.
Feels like a shambles to me . But maybe I’m wrong.
Would be good to find out . |
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Reply | Walsh
at 19:20 26 Feb 2026
The more I think about it the more I think there is a chance that Hamer plays on Saturday . |
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Reply | Five-star Saints whitewash wretched Rangers – Report
at 14:17 26 Feb 2026
Tough report to do i’d imagine , but spot on as usual.
Something that alarmed me this week was my non reaction to the result and performance.
Admittedly I was doing something else Tuesday evening and I had it on in the corner of the room to check every few minutes , so I wasn’t completely entrenched in the match as I normally would be , but after Coventry I was absolutely livid…fuming …over the top if I’m honest.
But Tuesday was a shrug and moan under my breath .
I thought about it over the last 48 hours and I think it’s just the fact that I know this team under JS has this result and performance in them . It’s not a surprise. The Cov game was at the beginning of something new and I had hoped that the gob-bumming 2 or 3 times a season had stopped (stupidly I admit after that pre season). But it hadn’t and here I (I can only speak for myself ) am again resigned that under another head coach and another group of players, we will do this and it really is no surprise.
However, upon catching up with people’s responses and reading different angles from different fans on here this week I’ve felt myself getting more annoyed again.
I know it’s easy to write the word ‘standards’ sarcastically after another lacklustre performance or heavy defeat, as some do, but it’s relevant . It really is .
Clive hinted at it but how many more times must the incredible support inside the stadium and thousands and thousands elsewhere have to feel the embarrassment we do on such a regular basis? How many times must we put up with the upper school end celebrating wildly as we trudge off in silence numb to result and the noise still inside LR ?
I know it’s football and everybody gets thumped occasionally.
But ours are now really regular and I’m utterly sick of it .
I was really happy after the result Saturday but I wasn’t under any illusion that we were now heading for sunlit uplands. Let’s be honest .
This team for the most part , not always , but for the most part has to wait for an opponent to have a bad day at the office to get a result especially away from home.
We were bang average for a lot of the match and yet I come on to this message board afterwards and fans are being moaned at for simply pointing out things that could be done better by players and staff.
It’s what being a fan is .
A lot on here , myself included are told we are too negative.
And perhaps we are?
But flipping ‘eck, it’s surely only a natural human response to 30 years of mostly poor football and terrible business management and day to day running from a veritable army of mostly useless t*ssers.
And the one or 2 good’uns we looked too as shining rays of hope out of the gloom have for whatever reason, been moved on too now.
I love this club . But boy sometimes it’s hard to answer why at times .
Apologies .
I told you I was getting more annoyed as the week went on 😊. |
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Reply | Stephan
at 17:22 25 Feb 2026
Hmmm. I think a lasting legacy is 1 season of incredible highs out of about 30 seasons of absolute chod.
Can’t speak for anybody else but as a fan that’s the sort of legacy I crave . |
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Reply | Special mention for the kits last night
at 15:46 25 Feb 2026
It’s about the 3rd or 4th time this season that that pink and black kit has been worn but it has certain similarities to our opponent .
Just because half the shirt doesn’t clash doesn’t mean the other half doesn’t .
From the right , our players at a glance last night looked similar to red and white and black shorts .
All very well having these ‘fancy designs’ but if we can’t play against a team in red and white , with 3 kits available to choose from without a bit of a colour clash then something has gone wrong hasn’t it ? |
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Reply | Is it time to give Jimmy a rest ???
at 00:17 25 Feb 2026
Maybe starting to show signs of fatigue .
Very poor tonight and against Blackburn.
Understandable to a degree .
Also noticed that at Hull and at Oxford recently he went down and got up wincing in pain holding and clutching ‘that shoulder’.
I think he’s played with that injury all season . Wouldn’t be surprised to see him have an op in the summer, especially if Ireland don’t make the World Cup or he isn’t included in the squad . |
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Reply | Madsen hamstring
at 00:08 25 Feb 2026
Posted something very similar to the last 2 posts on the match thread .
We were all worried it was going to happen…but why?
Footballers should be conditioned and fit enough to play 46 matches in 9 months!
Ours are no where near it . 3 games in 8 days is way beyond our capabilities. Either physically or mentally .
Again, as I said elsewhere, the best thing CN can do in the summer is move his best mate and his team on, do some homework and get people in the building who are fit for purpose . I think he’d gain a lot of respect by doing so .
Something has to change . |
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Reply | I've not started a match thread before, but I thought f*ck it, why not? v Saints
at 23:55 24 Feb 2026
Spent the evening building an Ottoman bed and whilst I did have the game on the tv, I wasn’t fully engaged …and it seemed I wasn’t the only one .
From What I saw , and it was only bits and pieces, we didn’t look too bad first half .
Terrible second goal and that’s the game done there for me . Got torn to shreds after that .
Not going to pile in on who was to blame and who isn’t good enough.
It’s all been said and not just this evening . Goals around half time continue to kill us and we don’t seem to learn from our mistakes.
Madsen injury is a killer . Not just this season but for our financial future potentially. He has to be sold this summer, simply because there isn’t anybody else who is a sellable asset right now and that might be unlikely now . Unfortunately we come back to Ben Williams and his team really. The facts are there for us all to see. We say , with some truth that Madsen needed to be rested , but why ?
They should be conditioned and fit enough to play 46 games in 9 months .
But they are not and questions need to be asked ….and answered.
CN could gain a lot of favour this summer by doing his homework and growing the pills to move his best mate on, and get a performance and fitness staff in that are fit for purpose. Who have experience in working in the same sport perhaps ?
Seems unlikely though .
We were also told Cook was rested on Saturday ..? Rested for what ? |
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