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Reminds me quite a lot of Kieran Lee. Does everything with his first touch, constantly on the move, aware of everything going on around him. Watching him and Bannan link up is like rolling the clocks back 10 years to when Barry and Kieran ran rings around teams week in, week out. He also has all the attributes to make the shift into CM at some point in his career. Brilliant player and a great attitude. Unfortunately he won't be with us for long but hopefully he learns a lot from this loan spell and we play a part in helping to get him to the very top of the game.

Probably a fair way down on the list of current priorities but completely agree that in an ideal world it needs an overhaul. Does at times feel like the current TPP system which was designed to reward loyalty can just reward those who best play the system (not all, but definitely some). I got myself up to the promise-land tier 1/2 bracket a few years ago but it felt like you had to just keep buying tickets as soon as they were released and then sell on the ones you didn't want to keep the points up because so many others were also doing it. We also definitely had a few "sold out" cup game allocations where people bought the cheap tickets for the points with no intention of attending; restricting some fans who genuinely wanted tickets from actually attending. Feels like everything apart from football utilises digital tickets these days (I even went to a local village food festival during the summer which had QR/e-tickets). The process of physically printing and posting thousands of individual tickets for every game is an incredibly inefficient and cost-heavy way of doing things compared to modern alternatives. Most digital ticketing systems are also provided by third parties so thankfully it wouldn't need the club/EFL to work it out themselves. A digital system where tickets are non-transferrable and specifically assigned to an account/wallet where you get the priority points upon the ticket being scanned on entry (rather than point of purchase) seems a much better system and much more in line with what the TPP system was intended to achieve.

This commentary team every time Coventry complete a basic football move against a team of u19’s and 35 year olds that haven’t been paid in 6 months:

Since that game on New Year’s Day: Played - 15 Won - 2 Drawn - 4 Lost - 9 Goals For - 12 Goals Against - 24 Can people really not stay away from this?

Looking to play passes forward at every opportunity too! Fair play to them

This has been my fear amidst all the recent takeover talk; that he either has no intention of actually selling and/or it is not financially viable for him to sell us. Effectively he is mothballing us. Cutting us down to the lowest possible operating cost so that he can stick us on the back-burner until he sees fit. To use the gambling analogy, he won’t cut his losses because he can’t afford to pay his debt. Instead he is refusing to let the game finish by periodically placing the minimum allowed bet until he can gather some funds to play again and win back his losses (or so he believes).

Hope the young lad is okay. Not seen it back but looked a nasty challenge and a clear red in real-time. As others suggested, referee was likely clouded by having just used his red and was reluctant to use it again (which is very weak refereeing imo). The refereeing performances across the board in the opening round of fixtures have not filled me with confidence for the upcoming season.

F*ck you Matt Donohue F*ck you Courtney Sweetman-Kirk F*ck you Harry Winks and F*CK YOU dejphon chansiri Well done the players and the fans, deserved something out of that.

Football at the moment reminds me of one of those holiday complexes in 3rd world countries where everything inside the giant concrete walls is a care-free paradise but outside of it everything is incredibly bleak and unstable. Spurs and Arsenal playing summertime vanity games in Hong Kong. Man City supposedly being investigated for FFP but still spending an average of £150m-£200m per transfer window and taking their pick of upcoming talent for peanuts from clubs lower down the ladder. Top-6 clubs earning £40m+ each for playing in the "Club World Cup." Constant news articles of "Should Arsenal break the bank to compete for the title," "X Team willing to pay £100m+ for X Player" etc etc. Meanwhile clubs like Morecambe, Bury, Macclesfield, clubs with significant history that helped build and shape the game itself going up against the wall because of they cant afford to survive and/or through reckless owners given free reign to rip clubs apart (ourselves not too far away from it either). Just find it all so depressing and even more so that nobody really seems to care. Something really needs to change but in reality I can't help but feel this kind of situation is just going to become more and more commonplace for clubs outside the Premier League bubble.

I can't help but feel this is exactly the statement we have needed. Sad reality is that as fans, we are very much an afterthought in the eyes of the football authorities. Full support to everybody trying to arrange protests but sometimes feels like these have very little impact outside the club. TV money is where the real talk happens. If the players refuse to play on live TV; not only would this send a huge message but if Sky are unable to fulfill a primetime Sunday afternoon slot because of DC's actions, that would cause an earthquake at director/corporate level of the EFL and maybe kick them into gear to start taking action. Not a chance we get anything out of the game anyway so we might as well make the most of the opportunity (no PL football for a few weeks yet either so no other distractions in the football headlines.) In an ideal world, the players will travel to Leicester, walk on to the pitch and then as soon as the ref blows his whistle, the players stand in the corner with the fans and refuse to play. A giant banner unveiled by the fans with the players stood in front would just top things off.

"Cuckoo" BBC sitcom (S1E4). Greg Davies' character turns up with tickets for a Wednesday match as a birthday present for his father-in-law (played by Philip Jackson). Ironically, this episode came out in 2012 and he makes reference to the tickets costing £90 for the pair (which sounded ludicrously high at the time). Turned out to be quite an ominous but accurate real-life premonition..

The angle that shows it best is the one from behind the goal. The Sunderland keeper has to make a kind of initial half-dive to try and see around the United player and then he can only see the ball again when it is already passing him. His vision was clearly impeded and as the United player is in an offside position; he is interfering with play and the correct decision was ultimately made. Problem is for Wilder, such a big part of his "tactics" involve playing the referees through pressuring and intimidating them to force them into giving decisions his way and it has worked a treat for him all season. Add VAR into the mix and you take away a huge part of what makes him successful and one (of many) reasons why they will always struggle in the prem. Basically his argument after the match is; "we have been getting away with bad decisions all season so we should be allowed to get away with this one too." Karma finally hit the fat, detestable scrubber hard yesterday and it was wonderful.

The goalpost shifting from them this season has been incredible. When they were widely mocked for their embarrassing away attendances earlier in the season, they shifted the focus to "Well Hillsborough is always empty." And then; despite them arguably being in one of the peaks of their entire history versus us at one of our lowest dips; we finish with an average attendance of 26,636 versus their 28,023. They have competed for top-2 all season and after all their shouting of the odds; it all equates to a difference of about 1,300. Not even mentioning our off-field turmoil, ticket prices, home form and the added restrictions we have to deal with from SAG. So now, where can they try to shift the narrative to? "Wednesday fans only turn up for the big games." Where do they go next? "Average age of Wednesday fans is higher?" "Traffic is worse around Bramall Lane?" "We have more fans who appeared in episodes of Game of Thrones?" Despite their recent measured success, deep down they all know that we will always be the bigger club and it absolutely kills them. If we could even half get our act together off the pitch we absolutely blow that lot out the water.

Feel for Charles a bit there. He’s at least trying to get the ball up the pitch quickly to get us on the break but it’s an absolutely horrendous error. Not sure this run of games has done much for his confidence. Traditionally think of us being strong in the gk position but not really felt confident in a keeper since the days of Keiren Westwood. Also feels like we’ve had a void in that department ever since Andy Rhodes left the club.

Absolutely correct. As well, we don't even strictly have to generate a profit (or even become totally self-sufficient) but just take steps to reduce the reliance on any prospective new owner while more long-term success is planned for. We are probably at the stage were we need some form of cash-injection to help rectify the neglect of recent years but even some form of long-term strategy which moves away from the current ad-hoc, short-termism approach to running the club would likely make a huge difference. As you suggest, we have quite remarkable gate receipts given the lack of success in recent years with fans paying a premium for what is often a sub-standard product alongside increased revenue from the new TV deal. We also have one of the lower wage budgets in the league, we rarely pay transfer fees and we certainly don't appear to make significant investment in infrastructure. There must be huge opportunities for better management of the bottom line in terms of both decreasing costs and increasing revenue for any new ownership who has even the slightest commercial nous. Instead we are caught in this Chanisri Stockholm-Syndrome type scenario where he bounces from disaster to disaster but we are expected to be grateful for him for attempting to financially patch up his mistakes at the end of each month. Ipswich have managed it after being on a par with us in League 1 just two seasons ago. Brentford and Brighton have also adopted similar models with huge success during the Chansiri-era. In theory, it can be done.