• 4 Oct 2025, 12:32 p.m.

    I'm clinging to 20 minutes in Seville as what might be possible.

    Luiz, Murillo and Aina being fit might make it possible, but he should be able to grind out results even with a few players missing.

  • 4 Oct 2025, 12:34 p.m.

    I’m not down on Ange and I think the whole ‘sacked in the morning’ hounding that he got the other night is embarrassing.
    My eyes tell me that we’re creating lots of chances but not taking them - we’ve been missing them since the second game of the season so there’s nothing new there and you can hardly blame the manager for poor finishing.
    I can also see that we’re ropey defensively but this is almost inevitable when we’re missing two of the stalwarts from last season. Morato is not a good understudy but nor was he last season so no real change - we haven’t been winning very often for quite a long time now.

    But what I also see is improvements in some of the midfield play when in possession. Anderson looks like he’s been given a bit more freedom and has been our best player for the last few games. He’s doing stuff with the ball he just wasn’t doing when Nuno was in charge. The other night - and I’m going to eat my words here - but Sangare looked like a proper player. He’d clearly been told to get it and drive forward and the difference in his play compared to all his previous games was like chalk and cheese. His passing too was very good. Hudson Odoi, ditto. He got the ball and went at them at pace and caused all sorts of trouble.

    Are we going to give the manager some credit for spotting these possibilities within players and encouraging them to play, or shall we continue with this lazy Angeball rubbish?

    I wasn’t a fan of the appointment in the first place but there are signs to me that he knows what he’s doing. Give the guy a chance.

  • 4 Oct 2025, 12:58 p.m.

    You are determined for us to be in a state.

  • 4 Oct 2025, 1:39 p.m.

    Quite, I would never boo or sing for my own manager to get the sack. This is battle tested, as I restricted myself to expletiving my way through the Mr Megoo and BFORR days.

    I might be wrong but it seems to me that we've often created chances at high pace, in high turnover congested situations. I think the conversion rate is going to be less in those situations. Ndoye's brilliant headed goal...was it a 'full' chance? A lot of these opportunities are quite snatched (even when they go in), because there's not a lot of time, and the ball position isn't always ideal.

    Personnel plays a part, obviously...but it doesn't help that we are back to being run through in midfield, making the defenders job harder...more free kicks and corners to defend as well. Attritional factors come in to play here.

    ..a bit from the top, a bit from the bottom. What you are talking about is on the ball stuff...the question is how much does that compensate for the midfield being run over and the defence put under significantly increased pressure? There are ways to tweak these things and keep a shape....if you don't it's really a question of risk versus reward. At this level where most opposition are clever, strong, and quick and technically able to go around the initial press and exploit the space, in ways that other levels are not able to, it can cause more problems than it fixes. Ange knows this - against similar level opposition (ManUre), in a game he really wanted to win, he parked the bus and killed the game to fall over the line. Why would he do so radically different against better opposition (the rest of this league who are not manure)?

    I think it will probably do well in the european competition we are in...because largely we are a level ahead of what we will mostly come against. Relegation from this league, playing this way, is not impossible.

    He knows exactly what he's doing. Habitually under-performing at the league level, and accumulating second rate trophies.

  • 4 Oct 2025, 1:50 p.m.

    This.

  • 4 Oct 2025, 2:07 p.m.

    Yes, I did say ‘in possession’

  • 4 Oct 2025, 4:12 p.m.

    This is utterly delusional. Outside of Australia and Glasgow he's a punchline. Aussies have this weird obsession with him, the Forest sub on Reddit has been infested with Ange fans who were following Spurs and have now switched allegiance to Forest because of him and who are determined to tell us why we're all such ungrateful scum to not recognise the genius we've been blessed with. They're honestly worse than the USMNT fans were with Turner.

  • 4 Oct 2025, 4:18 p.m.

    Whenever I see that USMNT acronym I always think, fuck america.

  • 4 Oct 2025, 4:30 p.m.

    No.
    But I realise I may be missing a joke here somewhere.

  • 4 Oct 2025, 5:09 p.m.

    You need to look up the meaning of group think too!

  • 4 Oct 2025, 5:09 p.m.
  • 4 Oct 2025, 5:14 p.m.
  • 4 Oct 2025, 8:02 p.m.

    I can remember their fans posting some truly unhinged conspiracy stuff on football message boards accusing the Premier League/European teams of having it out for US players. Bobby Convey and Landon fucking Donovan the most notable, iirc.