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.

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.

how can one thread-title keep delivering so much

Good luck Hereford today!

my stepmother is from Hornchurch and has lived outside Hereford for 25 years, suddenly she is interested in lower league football.

Have a mate who's Hornchurch (as said above) so I'll remain diplomatically neutral here

Wembley! I am in you! pic.twitter.com/BsQz1fB88H

— Alan Stephen (@AlanStephen) May 22, 2021

Forest Green vs Newport has been great fun so far.

4-2 at the moment, 4-4 on aggregate, pitch so waterlogged the ball barely rolls.

hah hah what a cruel game the playoffs can be

Brentford are killing Swansea. Inches away from 3-0 already.

Electric stuff

was expecting this to be as dull as ditchwater so I cut the grass instead. Swansea can be absolute pap on their day, it puzzles me how they finished above Barnsley.

It's basically turned into the Ugly Swansea Pressure show since then. There's a red card in this one somewhere by the looks of it

When I first moved to London I worked with a guy who was a Brentford fan so I went to a few of their games and then went all the way to Cardiff to witness one of their regular playoff final defeats, so I'm a long way from counting chickens here.

I didn't exactly 'grow up on the terraces' but Griffin Park was my first ground. I know there are problems with how they're run these days but it'll be amazing to see them in the top division. But yeah, not counting any chickens - they've shit the bed too many times for that.

hah hah I remember the year they finished second in L1 but but got beat in the playoffs. It was the year the prem was formed so there was one less automatic promotion place.

got to say, going to the playoff finals at Cardiff pisses on going to Wembley. the pubs around Wembley are fucking shit for a start.

Pontus Jansson sauntering onto the pitch eating a protein bar and then getting knocked senseless by a goalbound shot from his own teammate is a hell of a vibe

There's the red

Seems harsh.

Didn't look deliberate at all in any of the replays

Congrats Bees!

Nice to see a new name in the PL.

there used to be a Brentford fan on ilx. But haven't seen them post for years.

Swansea. Cost of compo for Steve Cooper and his staff is a stunning 4.5m ...

— Alan Nixon (@reluctantnicko) May 30, 2021

lol wtf... commiserations if this is happening bananaman begins

What a start for Lincoln.

that was coming ..it's been all Blackpool apart from Grant hitting the post.

so hang on, against the odds, Derek Adams has got Morecambe promoted to L1 but now he's going back down L2 to manage Bradford City. Worst of luck to him!

The bright side of Morecambe going up was us not having to put up with Adams for a year at least.

well if Crystal Palace are after a shithousing and Pulisball manager he'd be a much cheaper option than Cooper I hear

we've just signed Ollie Turton and I was thinking where I have I heard that name before and then remembered he was the lad that scored the fastest own goal in playoff final history only 4 days ago. Tbf he was in a bit of a pickle when it occurred and Blackpool fans like him + say he's a consistent performer defensively despite not offering much going forwards and lacking pace. But results suffered a lot when Pipa got injured last season so a fair squad strengthening signing.

sounds like Wagner is going to the Baggies... jeez wtf happened to you Dave? u used to be beautiful

Torquay's keeper scores with the last touch of the ball to take the playoff final to extra time.

Poor old Torkey, out on pens. Guess there was no way to get a police dog to help them this time.

Dean Moxey had now lost playoff finals in three of the last four years (two of them with Exeter).

so Dean is lacking a bit of... never mind

Valerian Ismael to Baggies is looking almost a done deal. He seems like a good manager. He transformed Barnsley from mid-table to relegation fodder dross to a very tight well organised unit that only just fell short of promotion.

will never forget when Barnsley were briefly in the PL and there was a picture in the paper with all the club badges and there in amongst all the iconic designs was this

https://i1.wp.com/worldsoccerpins.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Barnsley-FC-1981-1998-Alternative-Logo.png

https://i2-prod.examinerlive.co.uk/sport/football/news/article12164178.ece/ALTERNATES/s1200b/Logos.jpg

dogs on football badges always looks utterly shite, the Town and Barnsley badges probably had an influence on Northern Independence Party logo as well and look where it got them clowns!

Rhodes has managed to enrage the Wednesdayites by calmly scoring a decent pen against them today. The backstory on this is that he shit it and refused to step up for the pen shootout they lost against us in the '17 playoffs semi. Lol it's certainly not his fault their club's owners were carelessly profligate enough to pay him 5 times what he was worth on a 5 year contract when he was already past his best.