Turned up today £33 for this one.

For me...
1. 85/86
2. 90/91
3. 86/87... finished 15th in the now Championship. Our then lowest ever finish. After finishing in the top 4 of the top flight just 6 years before.

Daniel Farke has left Russian club Krasnodar without being in charge of a match. Would he be of any interest to us if Bruce does leave,has a excellent record in the championship, still young at 45 seems to get the best out of his players.

Driver at the Commonwealth Games.

I would like to thank my parents, friends, and Sheila Taylor Driving School of Bilston for their help and support.

Cheers

Cuzer

Just shows that great cricketers don’t make good prime ministers. The shit cunt Khan sat there with Putin signing an agreement for Gas to be supplied to Pakistan, while that wanker Putin wages war on Ukraine. Most of the world are putting sanctions against Russia yet Khan is openly going against this by signing an agreement. Sorry Pakistan but this is wrong.

The numbers look so encouraging lately, don't they?

For me, it would seem worthy of a Bank Holiday or, at least, some sort of recgonition.  Certainly moreso than Lizzie wearing a crown for 80 years or whatever.  We've all been through so much, it looks like we're coming out of it, it's worth pausing for a bit and reflecting/celebrating imo.

Sort it Bruce.

Having already given up watching my team score goals in football matches, I can eat what the fuck I like.

Probably last chance saloon to get a run going and we should try something different and give them a bit more to worry about.   We should also pin the responsibility largely on the senior pros. 

We need to be robust at the back but have more creativity in the final third.   Mowatt/Molumby/Reach does not work/lacks quality and Furlong/Townsend have been a disaster for months.  Ajayi is an absolute liability and couldn't pass wind. 

                                               
                                Johnstone 

O'Shea        -       Kipre      -       Bartley    -      Clarke 

                                Livermore  

Diangana                                                         Grant 
                                Robinson 

                         Carroll        Tulloch 


O'Shea and Clarke to push forward when they can but we need to be disciplined and get back into shape when out of possession.   Tulloch to get a full debut.  Let's see what he can do.  

That's what I'd do - nowt to lose.

Some have told me to let go on this topic and I've honestly been trying to, but I keep seeing sweeping generalisations like "he was the worst manager in 20/30 years", "teams sussed us out after the first 10 games", "we couldn't create anything" and so on. All those subjective assertions can reasonably be challenged. Although this has been a lot of effort for me, I'm sure no-one is going to change their mind on the basis of this post, but doing it will get it off my chest, so  

Let's look at Val's final 10 games with us, by which time a lot of people regularly claim the wheels had come off. They had to a degree in terms of results, but the  underlying stats tell a different story. I wish you could do HTML tables on this forum, but it seems you can't, so the data I've compiled can't be presented very well sadly. Anyway, first we have the data headings and then the values for Val's final 10 games (sources - WhoScored and Infogol):

Game                       Shots For  Shots Against   xG For   xG Against   Actual Points   Expected Points
Albion 0 Forest 0            16                9              1.18         0.57               1                         1
Coventry 1 Albion 2       10              12              1.53         0.88               3                         3
Albion 1 Reading 0         25                4              3.11         0.55               3                         3
Barnsley 0 Albion 0         16                3              1.75         0.09               1                         3
Derby 1 Albion 0            19                3              1.16         0.2                 0                         3
Albion 1 Cardiff 1            13                6              0.99         0.21               1                         3
QPR 1 Albion 0               12                9              0.95         1.26               0                         1
Albion 3 Peterboro' 0      27                1              3.91         0.08               3                         3
Albion 0 Preston 2            8              10              0.33         1.79               0                         0
Millwall 2 Albion 0               7               9               0.39         1.9                 0                         0
                                     Avg           Avg               Avg          Avg            Total                    Total
                                     15.3           6.6              1.53         0.75              12                        20

The data is hopefully self-evident, but just to note that we averaged twice as many goal attempts against and the average xG for was twice the average xG against. Remember that the equivalent stats from earlier in the season would look even better than these. Apart from our failure to score from enough of our attempts, there wasn't really anything wrong until those final 2 games. I believe the fans' negativity plus the Johnstone toys out of the pram episode had got to the players by then.

It's clearly apparent that the wheels only actually fell off in the last 2 games, but the fans had already turned toxic before that - people will no doubt recall the mass booing and negative chanting during the Peterborough game before we scored, despite the flow of the game actually being a procession towards the Peterbrough goal throughout.

Now, let's move on to Steve Bruce's first 5 games:

Game                       Shots For  Shots Against   xG For   xG Against   Actual Points   Expected Points
Sheff U 2 Albion 0            12             13              0.73         1.44                0                         0
Albion 0 Blackburn 0        13             10              1.46         0.69                1                         3
Luton 2 Albion 0              16               6              1.69         0.71                0                         3
Middlesbrough 2 Albion 1   8               8              0.58         1.39                0                         0
Albion 0 Swansea 2          12             15              0.77         1.2                  0                         1
                                     Avg           Avg               Avg          Avg            Total                    Total
                                     12.2           10.4            1.05          1.09                1                        7

What's clear here is that Bruce's stats are worse in every single respect compared to those for Val's last 10 games.

In brief conclusion, I feel that the fans turning on Val so soon, when they knew the club was trying to implement a long-term project for once, was largely unjustified and unfair. Much more patience was needed and warranted than was shown. The players also eventually downing tools (which they've yet to pick up again) was an utter disgrace.

As the new manager Bruce also deserves some patience, but the worse stats and just 1 point in 5 games, combined with a refusal to change obvious personnel failings in the side plus making a previously solid defence look shaky and become leaky, mean that he really needs to try something different immediately if he is to deserve some respect going forward.

I'll be steering well clear of responding to the Val-bashing comments from now on. Thank you to anyone who made some effort to consider the stats!