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.

Nothing confirmed yet so hopefully just a horrible rumour

Spread like wildfire if it is

Still shit news but not dead:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/51928263

Glad the story was wrong, hope he makes a full recovery.

Gone now :(

No love for Cardiff but he was a baller. RIP

This season expunged completely for all leagues below NLS Step 2.

Seems like the Prem, EFL and National League 1 & 2 want to complete the season and have asked permission to extend the season indefinitely. Goodness knows what happens to players' contracts, transfer windows etc.

Not terribly stoked for the madness.

The season that never ended

As far as I know nobody in NLN is in a position to finish it and presumably there's no relegation if the leagues below have already been told their league is void so no promotion.

because i need cheering up

Hooray! It's another goalmouth scram...

Oh. Oh my.#LincolnCityFC #Imps #Macclesfield #Silkmen #Crap90sFootball pic.twitter.com/ksXCY0b2RL

— Crap 90s Football (@Crap90sFootball) March 31, 2020

Having spent most of the season in the top 3 in L2, we had a dip in form at the worst possible time and now the season's over we're in the weird playoffs rather than the auto slots (the only reason I care about this is because dirty Argyle managed to worm their way into the autos, the snotrags). All behind closed doors obv, but if we want we can pay £25 to upload a photo of ourselves to some website and they will manufacture a polypropylene cut-out to be placed in the stands to give an impression of a crowd. We get to keep our cut-outs, but the club can't help it if they're damaged. I'm half tempted as a way of bunging the club some case but I'm probably better just making an extra donation to the Trust.

The thought of picking up a cardboard cut-out of myself with half my head hanging off because it had been clattered by a Jake Taylor moonshot from the edge fo the box, such a feeling.

lol beautiful

if i'd got the money i thought of putting my dad in the fake crowd at Molineux, think he'd have enjoyed it

i don't suppose there was any good way of sorting out the broken leagues but i'm not happy with the ways they've chosen

I am not too bothered really - genuinely the only reason I'm bothered about going up is that being in League 1 would provide a one-division safety net for the next time we go tits up. Because of the way we're structured we just have to get used to watching teams piss past us while racking up millions in debt, which we can't do. Most of them will fail eventually but there seems to be an endless queue of rich tossers (at our level, mostly local rich tossers as opposed to the criminal classes higher up) who are happy to waste a ton of their cash on some small scale grubby financial doping. Even the dream of keeping ourselves going on good transfer windfalls (which is what's been fuelling or fairly decent run the last 3 or four years) has been taken away. So L2 or L1 is not that important, mostly it's about having a beer and a jump up and down.

(That last bit's not wholly true. The club's doing a lot of good in the community these days, which I'm pleased about obviously, but L2 or L1 doesn't make a whole heap of difference to that either.)

unlucky tim
good luck in the playoffs!

tim is yr cardboard cut-out watching this

Not in the ground. I have a cardboard cutout here at home to watch the game for me.

magnificent! if you reach the final you should design & print a collectible exeter squad imo

No point. If they were worth anything the premier league would steal them.

we paid u good money to train up your manager as a born winner iirc

oh wait it was a free transfer lol

Fully formed when he left, took us a while to fix him after he arrived back from Charlton IIRC.

i hadn't been aware he was involved in a successful playoff campaign for u as a player

and it wasn't us what spoilt him, it was the motley crew of cheltenhams he struggled thru before retiring obv

sorry i mean 'the likes of cheltenham' pax no returns

great keeping lol

He was in the team that thrashed Charlton 3-0 at yours (the Valley was pretty full that day because you made it v cheap to try to attract some fans for an unattractive game, heh).

football for a fiver! we usually screw those up

(The best team in our recent history met the worst team in yours that season, I suspect.)

(i think you are correct)

in the spirit of the zing, just noticed you are sponsored by a company that literally went bust!

Oh mate. A sponsor zing.

at least it isn't yet another betting firm lol

dodgy keeping at both ends, your lot kept in it by some serious atonement from the gentleman with a religious beard

good tie rly

other one seems a bit tasty too, will tune in now

Talking of men with religious beards:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/53171423

So... this was a "crowdie"? Did someone pay £25 to install OBL on a seat at Elland Rd?

now that's value for money

Osamathumbsup.jpg

covid has completely saved us, got to say

when you hate Boro and their cunt manager but you hate Stoke even more

if last week was the death-blow to Hull then this week is the stake through the heart

Luton look like the ones to watch out for now, glad our GD is so much better than theirs

Saddled with a terrible owner, don't own their own ground, real trouble ahead

so are we going to see the red-and-white wembley playoff hoodoo defeated tonight

I don’t imagine so. Never know though, eh?

based on having seen the semis, exeter are a better and more controlled and classy side, but northampton have strong chaos energy which could prevail

I think that’s about right.

Possession
Home55%Away45%
Shots
Home6Away10
Shots on Target
Home0Away6

Cardboard cut outs sneaking out at half time etc

turn on the stream, northampton long throw causing chaos, exeter flowing passing move leading to nothing

football's a bastard

exeter player going through on goal slows, checks, bundles it out for a goal kick

northampton almost score immediately

exeter's keeper is having an absolute stormer

northampton get the first shot on target at the other end too, just for shits

plymouth's manager here to rub it in from the analysis couch

'keir starmer has modelled his look on morrissey'

no you haven't keir. behold the master of the craft: joey barton