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.

no it should be a story and there ought to be a grovelling apology from the chairman and the commercial dept. I'm getting even more angry about this - feel like switching my allegiance to Bradford Park Avenue it's pissed me off that much. Not just the proud anti-GRT stuff on their twitter banner and the pro-Trump stuff and the fact that leg-breakers are even lower vermin than payday lenders. I perhaps naively expect better from a club that makes so much noise about all their outreach work in the community blah blah blah.. oh just fuck 'em.

plenty of 'strikes' going in today

I believe it's often referred to as "sowing and reaping"

omg come on Millers, one last push and you get a trophy

Still no tickets on sale for the Trophy final. Rumours beginning to circulate the FA are making it closed doors because it's only non-league.

just adding a thank you to Dejphon Chansiri for helping to bring Sheff Wednesday back to where they belong.

I don't really dispute that they're a big club to be in the third tier, but my word, they do seem to spend a lot of time in it

i recall their on-live-TV sliding-doors-moment relegation playoff against your lot 11 years ago with a certain measure of distaste aye

the Millers have a golden opportunity to not only dump the Rams into L1 but also take a dump on that ridiculous hair weave made out of transplanted arse hairs tonight. I hope they're ready.

hmm it's still on - unlucky Rotherham were denied a goal by a fingertip save and GLT. In fact Wednesday could still win and stay up or win and go down - I didn't realise their gd was only one worse than Derby. The last playoff place in L1/L2 still alive as well.

We’ve a chance at (what’s becoming) an annual playoff humiliation again. Can’t believe I want it to happen but I do.

I can't believe it was only four years ago I was getting drunk on rioja and beer on a chartered train en-route to Wembley. It feels more like a decade ago at least. But most of the enjoyment of the playoffs for me was the travelling and boozing and stuff..

That’s the best bit generally.

(For me, I mean. Occasionally football itself is really exciting I suppose.).

three of our playoff final wins have been where both sides are insanely cautious and paralysed with fear by the occasion and it's gone to extra time and pens. Including the epic shootout against the Blades where even the keepers had to step up. We've been quite lucky in the playoffs - but the games have generally been absolute garbage, but still quite exciting.

In fact Wednesday could still win and stay up or win and go down

Rotherham away to Cardiff who've found a bit of form since Wednesday did them 5 nil so could well be a straight winner stays up shootout between Derby & Wednesday.

come on Millers, hopefully the Cardiff players are already at Butlins.

Wembley have given up on selling direct and are giving them to the clubs. We've got 3000, which suggests they're going with the roadmap 10k - a ridiculous decision since they'll have had 20k at the FA Cup Final the week before and 22k three weeks later for the Croatia game.

That’s infuriating.

I think we've got about half that in season tickets and volunteers. There's definitely not going to be the demand of five years ago but we could probably sell double our allocation.

I just can't understand the logic of dropping the numbers when there are test events either side - bearing in mind there were 4k 'locals' at Leicester/Southampton and it's a Vase and Trophy double there's little chance it wouldn't have sold 20k.

Millers 1-0 up, come on lads make this happen!

Koroma is back!!

so glad this is a nothing game. The ref is a cunt and it was a disgracefully soft pen. But still Town can't defend for shit.

Wednesday 1-0 up now, this could be a perfect afternoon.

shit I cursed it. But still Derby down as it stands.

fuuuuvk!!!

2-2

this game being 10 minutes behind all the other champ fixtures today feels like some kind of fuckery

Seriously

Wednesday find out they're down, give up etc

3-2 Wednesday

gtf in!

1-1 Cardiff!

3-3!

ffs!

Kachunga a late sub for Rhodes - jesus no wonder Wednesday have been so shit this season. And apparently the not very colossal Rhodes is coming to back to us this summer.

worst league in the world

cambridge could be promoted today, unbelievable after how reliably shit they've been in the 5 years I've lived here. this area turns into a giant car park every home game and today it looks like it did in pre-covid times.

even a win wouldn't have done it Tim :( But at least fucking Salford City are going miss out as well!

There weren’t any good teams in L2 this year as far as I can tell.

Cheltenham and Cambridge looked big and strong and well-organised tbf.

I’m disappointed but wasn’t looking forward to another playoff humiliation.

pre-emptive yeah didn't want the playoffs either

shame there'll be no Exeter fixture next season tho. if we get FGR any excuse to return to the wonderland that is Stroud tho

I did want the playoffs, a lot, but in the way I often want beer a lot, in the certain knowledge that it’ll be painful eventually.

Wembley ticket secured. Assuming I go to both matches then I'll have seen 4 (four) games in person this season.

EXCLUSIVE: Derby could still be RELEGATED from the Championship after EFL win FFP appeal

this diabolical season could still be saved

Seeing Wembley on the telly today made it all the more remarkable that I'll be there next weekend.

well done on getting a ticket!

I'll wave on the telly.