Sunderland 'Til I Cry: EFL and beyond 19/20

Who was ready last weekend? I mean, Fulham weren't

West Brom looked pretty slick vs Forest. Huddersfield were unfortunate last night.

Obviously looking forward to the Cocu / Rooney coaching team Derby are aiming to line up before the window ends.

lol all three relegated prem teams lost right?

do unfortunately think sunderland will smash l1 this year

I'm ready... it's our fuckwitted backpassing to rookie goalkeeper, english cb that isn't! But despite a mixed performance and still looking toothless/clueless in the last 3rd. Diakhaby's lightning pace and Grant's cool as a cucumber, totally confident penalty strike tells me mid table is doable!

Bradford Park Avenue sack their new management team (appointed in May) after two consecutive 5-0 losses.

Is the first week a new record?

There was famously a same day sacking years back but I can't remember who

Rosenior, brilliant

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2007/may/21/newsstory.sport5

Norwich's climb from the nadir was triggered by the insta-sacking of Gunn after a 7-1 opening day defeat to Colchester

Robins had a nervous breakdown and walked after an opening day 4-0 home drubbing against Bournemouth. The chairman said he was a brilliant technical manager who lacked people skills and cited his refusal to high 5 the jovial Jermaine Beckford on the training ground as an example of this.

You can probably trace a fairly steady decline for Colchester since that 7-1 too.

Beating someone 7-1 and having them immediately nick your manager will generally have a depressive effect, as will having your stadium miles out of town in a weird car park

Our pre-season optimism lasted around 35 minutes into a display of deep ineptitude against a rubbishy Macclesfield; by halfway through the second half my drunk mates were reduced to complaining that the yoof are not as good at singing songs as we all were in the old days (NB not true at all in my estimation but wevs) then we spawned an 87th minute winner and joy was very nearly unconfined.

Ah yes, Macclesfield - dear old Sol is ready

Won't (strike thru) Will always be fooled by an unbeaten preseason, and then feel all optimism drain away in first 20 mins of match 1.

Yeah. After the first game is much too early to be giving it the "gotta grind out points in this league" gubbins also.

Just passing Elland Rd ont bus and have a gigantic bamford head peering right at me at the traffic lights :x

Some lovely old buildings in Holbeck tbf

"Most of my constituency know I am not a football expert but it's my job to take up concerns when they are expressed to me and I have had a confidential briefing.

"I want to be satisfied that the sale was done by the book. The fans deserve to know that the sale of their football club has been done by the rules. I am not making a judgment."

The Examiner understands Mr Sheerman has not been in touch with Huddersfield Town directly to discuss his concerns.

A Huddersfield Town spokesman said: "The sale of the club has been ratified by the FA and the EFL as is part of the process."

lol the legitimate concerns of barry sheerman. just for some clarity our club used to be fully owned by a full on scumbag capitalist who utilised zero hour contracts and outsourcing to ruthlessly destroy his business rivals on the depleted high streets of the UK. And now the club is 3/4 owned by some amoral ambulance chaser who looks like a class a cunt as well. barry sheerman is the first mp to declare himself a professional lobbyist and now admits he doesn't know the difference between the Hudds and S Weds shirts after humiliating himself in a pub a couple of years back.

Did somebody say...'surprise package'?

you've totally cursed it now.

"We'll go for it," he told BBC Radio Suffolk. "Too many people come here and don't try to play but we'll go for it. We're playing rock and roll football."

presumably if other people like it, that's a bonus

https://hastingsflyer.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/30564_image_45647377_1898502896851441_4403624492505497600_n.jpg

Richards gone. Would have been nicer to have done it during the close season but we said that last year too.

Siewart gone.. never thought this golden era of 1 win in 8 months or whatever the fuck it was would ever come to an end!

You get beat again? 2-1 down last time I looked

yeah finished 2-1, fucking Cavelerio finished us off! lots of talk of the players despising the manager, our chairman was on the verge of sacking him after the league cup defeat the other night. Always had a feeling it would be all downhill after Wagner went. Or at least normalis negotium as pom would say!

just for Bacuna's dopey assist for the Mitrovic opener - I seriously never want to see that cunt play for us again, and him looking like a L2 player and giving the ball away umpteen times a minute. While we were in the prem our recruitment was fucking shocking.

there are reports he was sacked on wednesday, but the chairman told him: seeing as he'd already picked his team for tonight he might as well stick about for another game before getting pumped.

Pușcaș looks like an excellent signing for Reading.

As I say that he misses a one on one under no pressure whatsoever.

damn, you can get a shit hot Romanian international striker for €8m these days. I wish our shitty scouting dept knew this last season.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ECW2YhvWsAAH4zO?format=jpg&name=900x900

lool

:D

Looks like dear old Oldham are in a spot of bother, largely flying under the radar AFAICT amid the massive pits of bother that Bury and Bolton find themselves in.

Luckily for the Latics they're playing us this evening and there's nothing we like to do more than donate three dumb points to crisis clubs.

I still can't get past my tribal hatred for Oldham whose fans were very shitty when we were the crisis club and our ex-player Wijnard tormented our dysfunctional defence. Also fuck them for the time they gave a contract to vehicular homicide scumbag Lee Hughes. Hope they go bust!

I've nothing against Oldham but I'd just as soon see them slide ignominiously out of the league as see them go bust in a blaze of Bury-style publicity. (They would be the first team that had been in the Premier League to do so I think?)

I haven't checked but I bet not many clubs have spent as many consecutive seasons in League 1 as Oldham have in the modern era, and if hadn't have been for that meddling amateur Scholesy ....

What is this new Bolton bullshit

they were just calmly preparing to field an XI of children as they normally do and some spoilsport postponed the game!

Squeaky bum time in the most exciting footballing action of the day. I imagine "C&N Sporting Risk, headed by Henry Newman and Rory Campbell" are running round the office printing off bank statements.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/49455433

Reminds me of the collapse of Hereford United where the scumbag owner didn't turn up for refinancing in court as he was "stuck in traffic" and the company was immediately dissolved.

Bury FC Crisis: Company which bought £7m debt for £70,000 and now wants £1.75m for it, reportedly owned by partner of daughter of club owner Steve Dale. Jaw-dropping detail in the wreckage of this football club. https://t.co/IGVPxYAddp

— David Conn (@david_conn) August 23, 2019

EFL did some cracking fit and proper testing on this Dale fellow.

Steve Dale has been telling some media that a deal has been done. The potential buyers have told James Frith MP that's not the case. Yet. #BuryFC

— Chris Hall (@chrishallitv) August 23, 2019

we've had quite a few momentously big scoring win lose draws against Bury in my lifetime - including 0-6, 6-0, 4-4, 3-3 in the last couple of decades. I love Gigg Lane as well despite only going there twice. Good luck Bury.

we are going through the longest period of terrible football and sustained losing since that 70's period that some older fans with a slight touch of grandiloquence refer to as The Great Decline. When the designated disabled area is abandoned by the contemptible prem daytrippers that took over it like a fucking disease - i'll be happy to get a season ticket again, because half empty stands is the only environment that works with the kid. At least yesterday our useless caretaker manager realised Elphick is an old slow liability that is finished at this level, probably finished at L1 level (where we are headed) as well so a complete waste of a wage. It reminds me of when we signed Unsworth when he was an old knackered useless bastard as well.

I've often complained to stewards that there should be an autism friendly section of the ground, and they agreed. But shite football is the only real solution for empty banks of seats.

https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/sport/17751427.middlesbrough-continue-investigate-transfers-garry-monks-time-charge/

he always looked like face from crimewatch did this cunt, never trust anyone who spells Gary with 2 R's and wears wooly cardigans in the summer.

BREAKING: Bury FC Crisis: The proposed purchase by C & N Sporting Risk is OFF; owner Steve Dale was given until 5pm today for it to complete or the club would be expelled from the Football League, so this really could be the end.

— David Conn (@david_conn) August 27, 2019

it looks like Bury will be gone within the hour.

Ugh, I feel very bad for the Bury fans suffering at the hands of a bunch of stuff outside their control.

Having said that, there's a piece of me that would be irritated by their being saved at the last minute, rewarding them for massively overspending to buy promotion last year (my lot finished one point outside the play-off places, remember). I try to keep that piece of me under control because ultimately it's the Bury FC community that loses its club, and it's hardly their fault they enjoyed last season on the never-never.

Presumably the ground will be disposed of as part of an insolvency process? That's quite an important factor in any phoenix club starting up.

at Forest Sabri Lamouchi is gone, Chris Hughton is straight in. He was already gone weeks ago really and he knew it.

Southport's feed was useless tonight because they couldn't cope with the demand. They solved this for the second half by... errr... making it free for everybody streamed live on YouTube. Which was a bit of a kick in the balls to people who had paid for it.

We played in the Craig Levein 6-4-0 formation and didn't look too bad at the back but, unsurprisingly, created nearly nothing. It's going to be a long season at this rate.

And now Saturday's match is off, Bradford Park Avenue have a positive COVID test for someone who played last night against Gateshead.

Richard Williams just pointed out Forest go through more managers than kit designs, Hughton is their 30th in the 27 years since Clough retired.

This is a very sick prank by the Oxford social media department.

United sign Baldock!
JAMES Baldock joins United as Club Doctor#AnnounceBaldockhttps://t.co/5wuIl0V74C

— Oxford United FC (@OUFCOfficial) October 9, 2020

George Baldock was a legendary loan signing about 4 years ago

after a very uneventful transfer window our social media dept announced we'd signed a "record breaker" which turned out to be a 16 year old kid called Grubb who got released by Bristol Rovers. I'm not sure if he is a football player or a Roald Dahl character yet.

after a very uneventful transfer window

how dare you do Naby like this!!

there was some nonsense being spread on social media about him running from the scene of a car crash the other night. It was started by a snapchat user named Sniff Lines, Bang Nines was so of course it turned out to be true!

He had a quietly impressive debut by the sound of it and is only just getting his match fitness back and Corberán was impressed, the early signs are positive.

quietly impressive

lol, it will not ever be thus

down with social media depts pranking their fans. how much long must we stand for these pranksters?

the worse sort of irritating clickbait is when they do the same kind of "our latest signing" heading as above but it turns out to be some commercial partnership with a local tile company or a legal firm or something. Fair play to Rona on that score tbf

I'm all for it, punctures the clamouring embarrassment nicely

now have we signed a bloody striker yet

Morecambe are top of League Two with a negative goal difference after 5 matches.

lol Scholesly has installed himself as new Salford City manager, was sort of hoping the Danny Cowley rumours were true because fuck this tinpot made-up club.

that Morecambe thing is mad, 4 1-goal wins and a 0-5 to cambridge

any suspiciously large amounts staked on Chinese betting exchanges were purely coincidental

Clubs need to make ends meet during the lockdown

lol the Bantams beaten at Valley Parade by Harrogate Town. I'd have loved this 20 years ago.

Beautiful #htafc pic.twitter.com/STOPtrI2Wx

— Calum Fennell (@TerrierMulac) October 20, 2020

lovely worked goal and so much confidence returning to the players that Toffolo celebrates his assist before Bacuna calmly slots it in, the last few months have cleansed that foul stench that the Cowley's brought to the club. I'm going to curse the Corberán project now by declaring us a shoe in for the top 6!

beautiful goal

saw that earlier because Naby Sarr retweeted it and I still follow him ;_; note his role in getting it going with a nice loft to the left!

mind you, we're building something pretty swish ourselves

I gave up on the stream because it kept shitting out, but what I saw of him his distbritution is consistently excellent. That Schindler was on the bench and he started tonight says pretty much the manager likes him!

rumour is Cocu will be sacked as soon as Rooney comes out of self-isolation and is then installed as player-manager. You can still get 9/2 for them to be relegated.

Naby straight back into starting XI, puts in a powerhouse shift at Millwall. Town 3-0 winners! That's what I was hinting at on the prem thread t'other night LJ! We lost 4-1 there last season.

Sarr made a last-minute error there for us last season that saw him pilloried and loathed, v glad he's buried his jinx :)

Speaking of things going well, check out that League One form table eh

congrats!

the wall are so predictable but usually quite effective against us with all their height + when they just keep lumping it at that big shithouse Matt Smith, but from the radio commentary it sounds like Sarr was winning everything thing in the air and had that bastard in his pocket!

he's the one who beasted him last year too!

absolutely crooked from the efl. wednesday have to somehow get relegated now still. we are all wycombe wanderers

We had the Spennymoor game called off on the way to the ground (about 200 miles into the journey) last weekend because the National League doctors couldn't deal with an issue in time. Tuesday's game was cancelled as a result and tomorrow was supposed to be but yesterday the league changed their minds and said the game could go ahead after all.

Chester have called it off 10 minutes ago on advice from the league. No way this season is finishing.

:/

it sounds like a total disaster

Fleetwood owner saying after our match how loads of clubs could really go bust

maybe the lower overheads at NL and lower protect those clubs?

Don't see any of the full time clubs surviving. Money was distributed by the league on the basis of attendance so many of them will be getting less than us. We signed on some non-contracted players to get to the minimum 14 - with only 5 full time I think - and we're on about 50% income afaik.

No money at all for the clubs below, Aldo, but until this lockdown we were allowed fans in. However, they capped it at a third of the minimum ground capacity acceptable at each level, rather than to a third of the capacity of each ground, i.e. in FC United's division *all* teams were capped at 600 supporters. Not a problem for most clubs at that level, but for us it was considerably less than the number of season tickets we'd normally sell and less than a third of the average gate. Kind of irrelevant now as I can't see the league possibly finishing this season, probably not even restarting. We're on the BBC tomorrow for the FA Cup game against Doncaster - special dispensation for the 'non-elite' teams left in the cup to go ahead and play, but in the highly unlikely event we win, our players won't be allowed to train together (or have any matches, obviously) between the 1st round and the 2nd round. Magic of the cup. I'm looking forward to hearing the piped in crowd sounds on TV as we lose 5-0 in an empty ground.

Yes, I should have said it's a farce below. Although of course the vote two seasons ago that brought in playoffs was only announced at the restart of football that "oh aye, voting yes made you elite sport, did we not mention it at the time?" And yes, as with you we had to drop the season ticket sales to the league cap level despite safely being able to hold more, with a cap that benefited just about all other teams (we were capped at 1100, a reduction of about 300 on safe hosting and I think there's only 4 sides that routinely get over 1000).

The FA cup has been daft as well, because when a non-elite side hosts an elite side they were allowed he support but not away support.

I know of one team in our league who were streaming the game on the pitch into the club bar, so you could watch a game in progress inside the ground, just not be able to see it.

I think we'd already sold seven or eight hundred season tickets before they announced the cap at 600, which was awkward (but just about manageable as there's a reasonable number of people who buy them essentially as a donation, knowing full well they won't go to every game).

Some pretty good Torquay bizarro this afternoon. Finished 5-6 to Crawley aet but it took me a fair while to work out how the game had gone from the goal timings; 90+18 minutes happens before 102 minutes obv.

HT: 2-0
FT: 3-3
AET: 5-6


Torquay 5:
Nemane (18' minutes), Whitfield (24' minutes), Umerah (90'+18 minutes), Hall (102' minutes pen, 107' minutes pen)

Crawley 6:
Nichols (83' minutes pen, 108' minutes, 113' minutes), Watters (90'+14 minutes), Tunnicliffe (90'+21 minutes), Nadesan (118' minutes)

lol i take it somebody's been stretchered off

"Torquay bizarro" feels like a thing that is only a thing to Exeter fans, lol

mind you that is pretty excellently daft

Not even a “thing” to Exeter fans tbh, but there has been some good Torquay bizarro over the years.

Also I’m not having any football related lols from you this weekend lj. For shame.

Plymouth put out an unchanged team! Entirely not in the spirit of it, lol

Boston Vs Darlington cancelled in the 87th minute following an injury to a Darlo player. Fan accounts say the ambulance took 45 minutes to arrive.

I should be excited about getting to go back. Unfortunately I have watched streams of our games so I'm not.

Round 4 - Match 5

Otto Versfeld (26) vs Hugh Sproat (32) pic.twitter.com/Y1FlDQEuuX

— 80s Footballers Aging Badly (@80sAging) November 23, 2020

I'm against appearance shaming in principle, but I'll forget that for this hilarious FA Cup of badly aging footballers competition.

lol dourly holding on for a point against a side with Akinfenwa in it, we've come a long way since 2009!

try losing 4-2 to a team bottom of the league who've had a covid crisis

it wouldn't be any fun if we won every game, we'd become as insufferably smug and full as shit your average Spurs fan!