TheBoyBeevers

Windass and Bannan both benefited immeasurably from Ingelsson. His forward forays created little pockets of space all over the place in the middle and final third. So many excellent individual performances, but the balance of the team was the thing that excited me most yesterday, and if we can maintain it will give our better technical players like Bannan and Windass the opportunity to thrive.

Intensity. The whole thing was purposeful and played at pace. In and out of possession, for the full 96 mins. Don’t remember us setting up like that in a very, very long time.

If I was a Preston fan I’d have some serious concerns. They have been absolutely horrendous.

Neither a criticism not a defence of the club per se, but another reason I hate modern football and what it has turned into. We’re in a rat race spending millions on a player just this week, and paying most of our players many thousands of pounds a week. And yet we’ve got independent experts saying our infrastructure has the potential to lead to loss of life and the almost universal agreement is that cost is prohibitive. And I get that, I really do. But the prioritisation is a depressing indictment of what football has become- our club (and others, it isn’t whataboutery to say other clubs such as QPR have stands which have similar issues from my experience) is almost compelled to channel our revenue straight into first team expenditure. The more direct criticism of the club is that LL and the North Stand are unsustainable, and yet there remains no plan on what we do next. Repeatedly reducing capacity is not a long term strategy or solution.

I don’t think we’ve had a string of overseas central midfielders play for us, so it’s a bit of a red herring comment IMO. We’ve not had many succeed or fail, we've just not had very many, period. Excluding foreign nationals brought from British clubs (Semedo, Bannan, Abdi, FDB etc), it’s only Momo Diaby, Lopez, Pelupessy and Paul Corry off the top of my head in the last decade. Maybe a few short term loans I’ve forgotten.

As has been said, I’m just glad we’re underdogs. For the derby games and the season as a whole. They might get straight back up, but when you’ve followed Sheffield football for a while you do get these occasional seasons where you have a sense that the pendulum is swinging. And this season feels like the start of that to me.

Pigs ripped the ******** out of us a good few years back when (I think) Lee Strafford organised a day where fans helped repaint some steps and do a few tidy ups. I’d be all for something similar- we have a lot of fans who would donate their time and skills around the ground. We’re a community club and always have been, always will be. It won’t solve some of the macro issues we clearly have with Hillsborough but there is absolutely improvements that could be made just with some free man power IMO.

Their squad is so paper thin it’s (putting aside the blue and white specs) scary. Championship is a long old season, we had a squad of 25+ pros last year and had periods of time where we were still short. As did most teams. And several of their players (Tom Davies, Shackleton, Brewster, Norrington Davies etc) have terrible injury records as it is. They could still sign 6-8 experienced players, plenty of time. But their inability to get players in so far doesn’t bode well for them at all. If it was happening here they’d be laughing their ******** off.

I enjoy the fact you took the time to edit this, and yet the end product still reads like I’ve asked AI to show me what a piece of luncheon meat would write like.

Maybe, or one made possible by the Bogle sale.

Obviously helped by the fact he has so much capital, but Röhl’s seeming ability to manage upwards with DC is another feather in his cap.

Needs to be somebody with some knackers. My view on the Foden/Bellingham ‘problem’ was that Southgate is a nice guy who would never have had the stones to drop one and shoulder the media and fan frenzy as soon as we lost a game with a top quality player sitting on then bench. It’s crying out for somebody who will make tough decisions and not give a flying one if he gets roasted in the media as a result. Basically the sort of robust character that the FA have never, and probably will never appoint.

Cooper would be the first signing i’d be impressed by- he has the potential to be a top class keeper, and is at an age where he could be a number 1 for a few years and then make you some serious coin.

Moore reminds me of us signing Steven Fletcher. Good player, but at his age and on a 3 year deal on very good money we ended up paying the price plus interest further down the line.

Agree, and they can have all the money in the world but if they can’t get much business done in the summer window, it’ll make the first half of the season an uphill battle and then they’ll get their pants pulled down in the JTW if they want to sign anyone decent. Obviously preference number one is it fails, but preference number two has to be that it takes forever and cooks their pre-season.