Canary Wundaboy

I agree with you on that. He just has to retain composure and every time Delia opens her mouth more fans will turn against her.

1100 fans will travel to Bristol City this weekend on Sunday, for a 1:30pm kickoff. In the freezing cold. They're obviously devoted fans who put money into the club coffers when buying their tickets, and go to support the team. So they're the "good" 80%. If we concede several goals, if the team look disinterested, the tactics are non-existent, the fitness looks poor and the subs are rubbish, they'll be singing "Wagner Out" and "Sack the Board", do they then magically transform into the "whinging 20%"? Of course not. That argument is insane. The fans react to what they see on and off the pitch. If the team play well and tried their best and we lose, we applaud them off. If they play well and win, we cheer. If the game's absolutely turgid and we draw there'll be a few disgruntled boos but mostly people will just sigh and wander home. When the club is showing a lack of direction, a head coach remains in charge with one of the worst records in modern history, the plays cant be bothered on the pitch, the style of football has deteriorated into something that's actually painful to watch and the approach of "youth first" has been abandoned so the average player age on Saturday was the highest in 40 years, THAT's when fans start to voice discontent. We have the highest season ticket prices. We have an ownership that lacks any kind of governance. We have had a Sporting Director who felt no qualms in only offering 90% and who said he could leave whenever he felt like it. Delia and MWJ's time is up. They've poured fuel on the fire with their comments/interview last night and they'll be a backlash against Preston. No wonder Attanasio shuffled uncomfortably every time Delia opened her mouth.

I'm with you here, I worry that the club feel they can do this better than established, mainstream providers who have massive advantages in terms of investment as well as technological and analytics expertise for whom this is their only job and product. This feels like the same sort of technological vanity project as the Soccerbot.

I am stunned reading that. Not just the responses which are almost unbelievable, but because Connor had an absolute wealth of counters and failed to press them in any meaningful way. What about the lack of a Chairperson since Ed Balls left? What about having 2 married couples making all the decisions related to the football club, resulting in a complete lack of partiality at the board level? I wonder if Attanasio shares the other 2's comfort at the governance setup in the club?

Delia and Michael calling Wagner to tell him that his job is safe and he’ll be given plenty of time has stacked the deck against him before he even started. Absolutely unacceptable from the owners, they’re happy to completely abdicate responsibility to Mr “I’ll walk out whenever so feel like it” Webber but tie the hands of the incoming Knapper because Wagner is such a nice guy. Out of touch, past their time, need to go. Not in 3 years time, now.

Smart Hive thermostat, alarm system I can control via an app, a Google Nest doorbell and a bunch of google home minis dotted around the house. a lot of it makes life just a bit easier, although the doorbell I struggle to recommend as i get more notifications about it losing wifi connectivity than I do that someone's actually at the door.

I'd honestly forgotten how good Saka's 2nd (England's 4th) was. Great goal.

If you feed the goat, he will score.

My wife found out last week that her company is effectively being mothballed and a bunch of people were being let go, her included. She was 2 weeks away from going on maternity leave, no discrimination involved however as everyone in the European operation was being let go. While they've promised to sort her out financially it's been a kick in the teeth as she now has to worry about finding work after 6-9 months and until then has the worry about whether we can afford our household outgoings on my single salary. Wouldn't have been an issue but thanks to the exorbitant cost of childcare in addition to the Truss budget's effect on interest rates things are going to be a lot closer than comfortable for the foreseeable.

Feels like a massive slap in the face to Everton fans. Not because they don't deserve it, but because the Man City's and Chelseas of the worlds have gotten away with far worse.

Honestly, think my last game in person was the Spurs cup game before COVID lockdown. I took up golf during the pandemic and combined with commitments with my daughter I can't spare the entire Saturday to travel to/watch/travel back from the football. I used to get very emotionally down watching us lose, so I cant say I've missed it that match. My dad has a season ticket in the upper Barclay so we exchange messages during the games and I cant say he's been enjoying it too much either recently!

I’ll never wish us to lose, even to get rid of a manager. But frankly, it might be the best thing to lose this game and see the back of him. Besides they don’t need us to wish anything, they’re perfectly expert at losing games regardless of anything our fans do.

I think that, along with Webber's other favourite phrases, won't be heard much any longer!

Because they've been forced into a change of plan by the situation on and off the pitch. I bet the current ownership would still have liked him to stick around but his very presence is generating toxicity and they've belatedly realised Knapper needs every advantage they can give him, meaning as few distractions as possible.

And Webber will be gone on 11th after the Cardiff game.

You could have any one of the great football keepers in history in goal for us at the moment, if they’re facing 20+ shots a game and a defence that disappears like a puff of smoke in a breeze they’d be conceding at a similar rate.

The self-funding model was us swimming against the tide Nutty. This is where’s it’s gotten us. Modern football is broken, no doubt about it, but trying to pretend that we could be the single exception to the rule was suffocating the club and has resulted in the position we’re in now.

Another happy Octopus customer here.

Bridget was spot on. Articulated herself very well.

Paralysis of indecision: Head coach doesn’t know any other way to play and won’t change his tactics, see previous positions as evidence. Sporting Director handed in his notice almost 9 months ago, won’t make a decision. Plus the coach is his mate. Under no pressure to make a decision as the ownership would rather he stayed regardless of how “checked out” he is. Ownership in place abdicate all decision-making to the Sporting Director, see point b). New part owners aren’t officially in place yet and are bound for 3 years to vote the same way as the existing ownership, hands effectively tied. You’d never run a business like this, no-one would make a decision, the people that could don’t want to/aren’t incentivised to/don’t want to impede their successor.

Apathy. There isn’t enough feeling to manifest itself as anger and that should be a real worry to Attanasio because if the consumer base for the product he’s just bought partial ownership of no longer cares then his investment will take a swift nose dive. This situation is the result of the self-funding model being shown up as a ruse to try and pull the wool over supporters eyes, the “top 26” goal being laughably presented as “ambitious” only to fail to reach that bare minimum standard and the tired and responsibility-abdicating ownership having put too much faith into a man with no love for the club or its fans. This won’t end at Wagner. The club is rotten up to the top table and a full overhaul is needed. The board can forget any ideas of a timed and lengthy handover process now, that idea is dead in the water. Change is the only solution.

Paddy’s HT verdict should give you a flavour: https://x.com/pinkun/status/1721148399427182998?s=46&t=9kL-bVioPCCrNmWoUZ01qg

I always thought the Rashica thing was smoke and mirrors from the club, he wanted gone, the buying club knew he wasn’t wanted here, there’s no way we got more than half our initial outlay.

My daughter is 4, she's too young for videogames, theme parks or football streams, and the only thing she wants to watch on Netflix is Paw Patrol on repeat. She absolutely loves the fireworks. Your post has a very "get off my lawn" feeling about it, I think you may need to spend some time with the kids!

No issue with it being restricted to organised event and banned from public sale, personally. However in my local Facebook groups the very fact that fireworks go off at all is enough to send some sensitive bleeding hearts into a maddened frenzy, apparently a few days of discomfort to their autistic child or overly-sensitive pet is enough reason to ban fireworks entirely for the vast majority who enjoy them once or twice a year at organised displays which help fund charities and small businesses.