MATCHWATCH : Stoke City (h) sponsored by Dylan Kerr

[Hound]

Holmes as well tbf

[Notts Royal]

Really wish Puscas or Joao would move off the ball, miles too static today

Baldock came on, ran the channels and made some good runs in behind. The problem is Baldock lacks the quality to make the next step which makes his prior work slightly redundant

I agree with that assessment of Baldock - he just lacks that quality in front of goal. But he’s a good link player and very good off the ball.

But I did think Puscas showed good movement in the 1st half at times

[SCIAG]

Stoke, 3 shots on target

xG is trolling us

Yeah but watch that prick on The Second Tier posldcast say he was right. The entire reason he was against us was our xG and shot numbers. Now that we have a high xG and high shot numbers while other teams just take their chances against us he's gonna say how amazing his insight is.

I have no idea who this chap is but he’s clearly got a better understanding of regression to the mean than you do

We weren’t likely to sustain that level of over performance and our last few performances vindicate that. But we also probably won’t sustain a longer period of underperformance. It’s more likely we’ll have a mix of games where we underperform and overperform, and our final position will relate to how we actually perform. (Although possibly not particularly well - even in the Championship, football seasons are very short and luck can play a large role)

[Ascotexgunner]

Unreal some of you, Rafael is one of the best keepers, if not the best in this league, and you want to drop him?.....FFS get a grip.

[windermereROYAL]

Blocked the resident gimp, that`s better.

[Sutekh]

Football's funny isn't it, distribute those 3 losses in amongst the first 8 games and no-one bats an eyelid

I was thinking this earlier, and would have much preferred that.

Unless your San Marino any team losing 3 games in a row, 2 of which at home, against average opposition is always going to suck.

Especially for a team that was top of the league.

The losses aren't of any concern to me, it's what they mean for the rest of the season. And three in a row in that manner has really bad connotations, whilst three scattered throughout the games so far would be of no concern at all.

Can only go 2 ways now. Meite and Ejaria return for Bournemouth and the club put in a sterling performance to get something out of it, then continue in a similar fashion for Millwall, Bristol etc. Or go to Bournemouth flatter a bit but lose and then do the same at Millwall and then the wheels really are starting to fall off and next there’s real danger of resuming the cr@p of the last 3 seasons and VP could be struggling to keep his job.

[Hound]

I was thinking this earlier, and would have much preferred that.

Unless your San Marino any team losing 3 games in a row, 2 of which at home, against average opposition is always going to suck.

Especially for a team that was top of the league.

The losses aren't of any concern to me, it's what they mean for the rest of the season. And three in a row in that manner has really bad connotations, whilst three scattered throughout the games so far would be of no concern at all.

Can only go 2 ways now. Meite and Ejaria return for Bournemouth and the club put in a sterling performance to get something out of it, then continue in a similar fashion for Millwall, Bristol etc. Or go to Bournemouth flatter a bit but lose and then do the same at Millwall and then the wheels really are starting to fall off and next there’s real danger of resuming the cr@p of the last 3 seasons and VP could be struggling to keep his job.

We’re top of the league. Talk of pauno losing his job is utterly ridiculous

There are about 100 different ways it could go, not 2

[Mid Sussex Royal]

This season because of the compressed runs of games are going to be all about survival of the fittest. If we get players back in a couple of weeks we will be fine.

Take Sonko, Sidwell, Little & Convey out of 106 side (nearest equivalents to players missing today) and its a pretty average side left

[leon]

I switched off a minute ago. Who was at fault this time?
An awful eight days for the club.

Gibson miss hit a back pass

Jeez. Truly shocking today.

The team had a few youngsters in it and was lacking leadership. I think we are missing Moore more (ha ha) than we think.

[Sutekh]

The losses aren't of any concern to me, it's what they mean for the rest of the season. And three in a row in that manner has really bad connotations, whilst three scattered throughout the games so far would be of no concern at all.

Can only go 2 ways now. Meite and Ejaria return for Bournemouth and the club put in a sterling performance to get something out of it, then continue in a similar fashion for Millwall, Bristol etc. Or go to Bournemouth flatter a bit but lose and then do the same at Millwall and then the wheels really are starting to fall off and next there’s real danger of resuming the cr@p of the last 3 seasons and VP could be struggling to keep his job.

We’re top of the league. Talk of pauno losing his job is utterly ridiculous

At the moment yes. Another month of cr@p results and it’s not so ridiculous.

[Hound]

Can only go 2 ways now. Meite and Ejaria return for Bournemouth and the club put in a sterling performance to get something out of it, then continue in a similar fashion for Millwall, Bristol etc. Or go to Bournemouth flatter a bit but lose and then do the same at Millwall and then the wheels really are starting to fall off and next there’s real danger of resuming the cr@p of the last 3 seasons and VP could be struggling to keep his job.

We’re top of the league. Talk of pauno losing his job is utterly ridiculous

At the moment yes. Another month of cr@p results and it’s not so ridiculous.

And what if we have a month of ok results. Or slightly disappointing but not terrible results. Or quite good results?

[leon]

This season because of the compressed runs of games are going to be all about survival of the fittest. If we get players back in a couple of weeks we will be fine.

Take Sonko, Sidwell, Little & Convey out of 106 side (nearest equivalents to players missing today) and its a pretty average side left

An average side with best keeper, right back, left back, Top 5 centre back and centre midfield and best 3 strikers in the league.

Yeah bang average.

[South Coast Royal]

I didn't think Gibson did too badly-one big error when the game was over and hopefully he doesn't join the walking wounded after crashing into the post in an attempt to make up for his error.

As for Cabral and "getting rid of it" by wellying upfield-as Goodman said , their back 3 were 19ft tall so the ball would probably have come straight back.
Some thought should have been given to this issue beforehand, e.g. Semedo perhaps going out wide and doing a Jim McIntyre, at least the balls would have been away from the giants.

Stoke did a Reading on Reading in converting the few chances that they got.

We have done well without Swift, not so well since Ejaria got injured, but in the long run we do IMHO need one or both in our midfield as I feel that our 4 or 5 in there really don't do enough and too much is expected of Richards in the attacking part of his game and Joao to score out of scraps.

For me Bournemouth is the biggest fixture of the season on a personal level and it has now become a very big fixture for the team-the medical staff need to work miracles over the next fortnight with Meite, Moore and Ejaria starting that next game.

[Sutekh]

We’re top of the league. Talk of pauno losing his job is utterly ridiculous

At the moment yes. Another month of cr@p results and it’s not so ridiculous.

And what if we have a month of ok results. Or slightly disappointing but not terrible results. Or quite good results?

Then VP will likely be just fine. It’s football you know what is like if cr@p results continue for long periods. Just depends what the owner sees as being acceptable.

[NewCorkSeth]

xG is trolling us

Yeah but watch that prick on The Second Tier posldcast say he was right. The entire reason he was against us was our xG and shot numbers. Now that we have a high xG and high shot numbers while other teams just take their chances against us he's gonna say how amazing his insight is.

I have no idea who this chap is but he’s clearly got a better understanding of regression to the mean than you do

We weren’t likely to sustain that level of over performance and our last few performances vindicate that. But we also probably won’t sustain a longer period of underperformance. It’s more likely we’ll have a mix of games where we underperform and overperform, and our final position will relate to how we actually perform. (Although possibly not particularly well - even in the Championship, football seasons are very short and luck can play a large role)

No shit we weren't going to maintain record breaking form.

You jump around my point. He picked us out for the very thing both Stoke and Coventry did against us.

He criticised us for not taking enough shots. We now take more shots and lose.

His criticism wasn't made on valid grounds yet no doubt he will be praising the teams we played for doing exactly what we did against teams in the early games.

[Simmops]

Blocked the resident gimp, that`s better.

Which one is that?

[Hound]

I’m pretty confident we’ll bounce back within the next few games. We’re playing ok but just have to cut out the crap individual errors.

Think one of the main issues is other than Joao and Puscas we don’t have anyone who ever looks like scoring starting. Ejaria and Meite back in will fix that

[Simmops]

please stop posting

No. I have a right to an opinion and if I think the keeper was shit I will say it.

You have a mouse and a finger, scroll down if you don't want to see it.

[genome]

please stop posting

No. I have a right to an opinion and if I think the keeper was shit I will say it.

You have a mouse and a finger, scroll down if you don't want to see it.

You called for the manager’s head.

Let me rephrase. Stop posting like a moron.

[Simmops]

please stop posting

No. I have a right to an opinion and if I think the keeper was shit I will say it.

You have a mouse and a finger, scroll down if you don't want to see it.

You called for the manager’s head.

Let me rephrase. Stop posting like a moron.

I didn't, I just said out and posted by mistake it was meant to say

out of ideas