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Reply | Paul Smyth up top
at 20:04 24 Oct 2026
I think he has the potential to become a club legend. I really do. I am drunk tho. |
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Reply | Best Performance in years.
at 18:53 24 Oct 2026
With this coach, and I think he needs a lot of credit, and squad, the only thing that stops us being top 8 is injuries. [Post edited 24 Oct 19:21]
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Thread | Best Performance in years.
at 17:04 24 Oct 2026
Best performance in terms of actual football played in years, possibly the last decade.
Smyth was electric. Kamara all class. Kemper absolutely immense. Edwards imperious. And obviously great to see Kone bury a few.
Huge kudos to Stephan for drilling into them that sharp passing and patterns.
This is a play off squad. |
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Reply | Ted Hendrix update
at 17:48 23 Oct 2026
Second this. Exactly the same for me.
Recall his son, Charlie (?), used to post too a while back.
Best wishes to Ted and all his family. Brutal how quickly this seems to have happened. |
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Reply | Injuries
at 17:36 23 Oct 2026
…when your fitness and conditioning really gets tested. |
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Reply | Injuries
at 21:14 22 Oct 2026
Hold on. You’ve asked me two direct questions in posts quoting me, which makes it looks like you are asking me, and both of which I’ve answered. Who we should finish ahead of? I’ve answered that. You didn’t agree with me, but I answered it. And then whether finishing top 8 would be over achieving, which again, I answered and provided even further context. I don’t think you’re being fair to make out I have twisted your questions. I have answered both clearly and, yes, I did extend and evolve the answer to cover points I deem really important regards the collective narrative. I’m sorry if you don’t and those points bore you, but I’m entitled to post them.
I’ve also, very deliberately, been posting on here a hell of a lot less these past couple of months because you, more than anyone, have made it very clear you don’t want to read my posts. I only jumped in today because I thought that original narrative you were pushing was not accurate. I think it’s a bit of a snide comment to make out I want to discuss a topic too often. I’ve hardly posted for weeks.
And you haven’t answered my question though, not that you need to. But don’t make out I’m avoiding your questions. It’s disingenuous. [Post edited 22 Oct 21:30]
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Reply | Injuries
at 19:52 22 Oct 2026
I’ve said this for months and been super clear in my answer to your question. I’ve answered it many times before.
Top 8 - big success
Top 10 - Expectation
Top 12 - Acceptable
Bottom half - should be deemed a failure from the leadership (not necessarily Stephan if his hands have been tied with injuries) given all the context and investment which we’d done to the hilt.
I believe the squad can make top 8, should be top 10, probably will be top half.
If they aren’t I really don’t think there are many excuses for this leadership group. CN will have had money to spend, hasn’t had to sell any of his best players, been able to bring in his own head coach, his own staff, a structure of his own making, we’ve bombed out anyone he or BW didn’t like, his game model. He’ll have had 3 full seasons plus a season auditing the club and hiring people into it before that. When do you judge if not this season?
If we finish bottom half, do you agree that it would be a failure?
And as per my original post, injuries can’t be used as an excuse, not after 3 years. It’s part of the job. |
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Reply | Injuries
at 17:20 22 Oct 2026
The hardest thing for club’s of our size and league position is selling players for big money. We’re always tempted to hang on for more money in a year’s time and better results on the pitch. Hardly ever works out like that. |
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Reply | Injuries
at 15:34 22 Oct 2026
Ha! Indeed. The way the last 11 years or so have gone, it was more Nietzsche and nihilism where my head was at! |
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Reply | Injuries
at 14:06 22 Oct 2026
Is that their net or gross spend?
Our net is £20m in 2.5 seasons. You have to compare net. But, the best run clubs in the best situations might have low net spend because they are doing such a good job developing players and selling them for lots of money. The whole comparison is utterly flawed as a way of assessing a club’s ability to compete.
It is far more nuanced assessing who should be competing near the top and who shouldn’t than just “who spent the most” as I have repeatedly tried to argue.
If you always come back to “but, no it isn’t” then we’re just going around in circles. [Post edited 22 Oct 14:07]
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Reply | Injuries
at 11:47 22 Oct 2026
Jesus, I’ve become Ingham. Apologies all. |
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Reply | Injuries
at 11:46 22 Oct 2026
All due respect, Nix. That feels a tad disingenuous. You’re looking at one season in isolation.
Over the past 2.5 seasons we have spent net about £20m. We know we increased our wage bill and operating loss in the first season too. We expect both worsened last year. Although I hold some hope the wage bill might have reduced this year given the ins and outs.
Some clubs have spent lots of money this season, but look at their net spend over the last 2.5 seasons. I doubt Portsmouth surpass us there. I’m pretty sure Boro don’t given their ample sales. The comparison picture changes significantly.
And also, it tends to be the year after heavy investment that teams improve because, as you have argued before, it takes time for players to bed in. So it’s the teams who had big net spend, not the season, but the prior one, who should be taking a step forward this year, no?
In the last 2.5 seasons we have spent gross more money than in any 3 year period since we were relegated from the Prem, and far more net spend than in any period. When we sold Eze, we spent about £5-6m of it. It’s why we had an operating loss of only £4m that season. The “gamble”/investment for that Warburton season was in signing our loanees on frees but big salaries. We sold no one that year, and our wage bill rocketed. But the wage bill, if I recall correctly, wasn’t much bigger than it is now (well, last couple of seasons).
I understand the logic to comparing ourselves to everyone else’s expenditure. But other teams have always spent. Our position in the wage bill league table always fluctuates (Ainsworth season starting at Watford we were 3rd bottom) to last season I think we’ll find we were mid table. Granted, we’re never top 8, so I understand the logic of saying we can’t expect to be top 8. And I don’t want to revisit the “standards”/“ambition” debate.
However, I also believe it’s important to focus on ourselves and compare what we achieve and achieved in the past. If we have the same wage bill as Warburton but also were able to spend net £20m when he was able to spend net a lot less, surely we should be hoping to outperform his results? If we finished 15th under Cifuentes (first season) with a wage bill in the bottom 3 and Dykes and Armstrong as our only two forwards, surely we should expect to improve if we spend £20m net and increase the wage bill? If we don’t, why spend the money? And what are we here for?
The reason is because the only way clubs of our size and with our lack of funds can progress is a player trading model. It was Les’ strategy (but he had to reduce the wage bill by 3/4s over 3 seasons at first) and could only spend £6m of the £16m Eze money). It’s Nourry’s strategy too, but he’s found himself in a much better financial position (given the Ainsworth season) and has been able to spend £20m net in 2.5 years (albeit the gross spend was amortised). I’m sorry, but we should expect progress from that.
At the very least we should expect to sell some of these investments for big bucks, so we can reinvest again and get the model working (like Brighton, Brentford, Bournemouth, Millwall, etc). Get the model humming and you shouldn’t even be looking at net spend, we should be net neutral! Buying low, selling high, buying low again, etc).
And this gets to me back to my hobby horse: injuries.
We have spent our money. We’ve placed our bets. We need to sell player(s) in Jan or next summer for serious money, so we can reinvest in the squad (e.g. sell 1-2 players for £15m, spend £10m on 3-4 players, pocket £5m). That is the model. That is how the squad improves and how/why a net spend comparison becomes redundant.
To sell players for big money, one thing must happen and one thing helps if it happens:
1) the players need to be fit and playing. No one spends big money on crocks or players with injury disrupted seasons. Two of our three biggest assets are probably Burrell and Madsen (Edwards the other) and they are currently injuried again, having been injured for the last half to a third of last season. If we don’t sell one of both of them this summer, they’ll be getting to an age where their value starts decreasing even if they are fit and playing. Kone is injured. Poku has done his hamstrings 3 times since joining us. Saito is injured and hasn’t done much. Celar is gone. Dembele is returning from an ACL after two poor seasons. Who is fit and and could be sold for big money? Ronnie Edwards. It’s not a good position. It’s why improving this area is critical, and not taking action is simply bad for the club.
2) (Helpful to happen) - you finish fairly high up the league. This means your players will have played well, other clubs are likely to notice, and demand is likely to be higher. You can sell players who big money even if you have stood still as a club as far as the league is concerned. But it is a lot harder.
Look, I still think this squad is better than what we’ve had since we were relegated. I think it’s a better squad than Warburton had. I think we can still finish top 8. I want us too because it is the best thing for the club. I want Nourry to nail the player trading model because it is how we’ll get stronger as a club.
But the whole strategy on and off the pitch is being killed by our injuries and the “performance” of the Performance department. It is a gross failing of the CEO not to deal with this. It’s critical for the club he does.
I think/hope we might sneak a result on Sat. After Swansea we have Southampton away, then Burnley and Lincoln at home. Hopefully we can get 7 points from these 4 games. If we pick up just 3 or 4 though, we’ll very quickly be bottom half before we enter a very tough run of fixtures through to Christmas. I think the mood around the club could change quite a lot. I think Stephan feels this too, hence his tone in that interview. It is infuriating to be in this position, especially when we’ve been managing minutes so much already this season, almost certainly costing us points, to try to prevent it.
Without the injuries I think we could be top 8 and should be top 10. Why should Swansea or West Brom be above us after last season? Why should anyone currently below us finish above us? There as many reasons against as there are for. Everyone is in different cycles and facing different challenges.
With injuries, it’ll be very hard. But injuries are part of football. It’s the responsibility of the people you hire to own the fitness/condiyioning/medical/physio department (whatever you call it) and the recruitment dept to minimise them and the accountability for it all rests with the CEO. Injuries in any sport are not, and never have been, “bad luck” when viewed across multiple seasons. |
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Reply | Injuries
at 22:05 20 Oct 2026
A few points.
At other clubs PTs are not common and, in many cases, are banned by the club because they often know less than the club’s physios and fitness coaches and can get the players doing things which don’t align with what the players are doing at the club.
We have had several players rehab away from the club after recurring injuries and losing faith in the club’s ability to rehab them. We have had players make official complaints about the meals in the canteen and the pre-match meals (“they will eat what I f*cking tell them to eat”). One former player was less than complimentary in the nickname he had for our Director of Performance.
I’m not aware of other clubs who’s entire Performance/Physio department is headed by someone who’s background is cycling.
The same man who headed up Brooklyn Nets’ fitness and saw them achieve a record level of hamstring injuries and who parted ways with him after one season.
We do lots of things differently to other clubs. The club publicised some of this during the summer of the Ainsworth-Cifuentes season, after having a a terrible run the season before. Phased loading. Gradual ramp up. Start the season at 60% for fewer injuries at the back of the season when the Tour De France comes around. It was Nourry’s hire when he was at Retexo. And that season, we had a great record. What has followed has been 2.5 seasons of disaster.
Perhaps it’s all bad luck. Consistent bad luck. We’ve responded by putting the bloke responsible for these bad results/bad luck in charge of more and more…physios, medical team, strength and conditioning, pitches, travel, hotels, players’ diets, training ground.
I really hoped this season would be different. I truly did. I know there was a big review early into last season about how they started las season with injuries. Stephan’s methods took them by surprise and put more stress on the players muscles in early pre-season. They supposedly have factored all this in and overhauled how they were going to do it. That was what was said. I actually thought they’d made pre season two weeks’ longer, but actually it was one, and if you count the Millwall League Cup game as game 1, it was the same length.
Perhaps it’s the training ground pitches? Perhaps it’s the schedule this year? Perhaps it really just is bad luck.
BUT there is a lot of other noise. Noise the club is very aware of. The club has not been slow in getting rid or pushing people to resigning for the merest hint of not delivering what was asked of them. Ramsey, Cifuentes, Hyde, Hall, Furlong, the former Ops Director, the women’s coach, the Ticket Office Manager, and many more. And that’s not to say some didn’t deserve it. It’s just inconsistent.
Why not change the leadership of this function? That’s the question. Why wouldn’t you make a change to try to improve it? What do you have to lose?? Rather than trying to argue that we’re not the worst and there are other clubs with similarly bad injury records, why not try to be one of the best? Why not see it as something to become a league leader in give us a genuine competitive advantage…rather than deleting historic injury updates on the club website in case prospective buyers of our players choose to do their research by trawling through our club website? |
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Reply | Injuries
at 14:30 20 Oct 2026
The number of recurring injuries at this club in the last 2-3 years is staggering. If I didn’t know better, I’d say our Head of Sporting Operations doesn’t have a clue what he is doing, and that football is a very different sport to cycling… |
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Reply | Blowing Bubbles Up The R's Match Thread
at 18:37 9 Oct 2026
One of the many social media accounts being played straight out of the Paladini play book. I’m not even on X but wasn’t he the one who piled into Dave Mc and Kev for their “interrogation” of that Ben fella?!
Info for pushing the narrative. |
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Reply | Kone knee injury - Not ACL, but serious
at 22:33 6 Oct 2026
All fair. But if we’re going to judge on the outcomes and the “what”, not the “how”, we need to be consistent on that. And the situation with Kone is a bit of a mess. It’s not good.
I’m not sure what the causes are, but the outcome is bad. And if it’s on Kone, not the club, why was he given minutes and starts earlier in the season, but Kolli wasn’t? Where’s the consistency? What is palpably not the case is that he was fit, in great condition, sharp, and raring to go early season. And now he is not out for some months (most likely). |
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Reply | Kone knee injury - Not ACL, but serious
at 08:57 6 Oct 2026
Hopefully not the case, but possible.
For all the chat re. Kolli, either the player or club or both have completely cocked up Kone’s season. Training and available during pre-season, but starts the season looking heavy and slow, gets coated off by his own fans, club then says he needs a second pre-season and will be taken out of the firing line for a couple of weeks with the 3 week international break looming, only to then get scythed down in a DS game getting a “serious” injury. Time out not communicated.
It’s either not stellar professionalism from Kone (far worse than what Kolli has been accused of), or pretty dreadful management of the player from the club…or a little of both and blame shared.
Not ideal for your star centre forward.
Kolli appears to be fit and scoring. If Burrell is injured from Jamaica, Kolli should certainly be getting minutes against West Ham. He may have been unfit in the past, or his conditioning not the best, but, along with Lloyd, he appears to be one of only two fit forwards at the club currently. |
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Reply | WLS podcast
at 13:26 5 Oct 2026
Indeed.
And perhaps sums up the divide in a nutshell.
There is the “what” and the “how”.
The “what” has been mixed but improving and largely positive, I would say, except for the injuries/fitness/conditioning side of things under the leadership.
The “how” (especially for those who have perhaps (un)fortunately heard more than others) has been pretty awful the whole time under this leadership. Perhaps showing signs of improvement with the last Fans Forum, tbf.
And everyone places different emphasis on the “what” and the “how”. No one is right. It’s all perspectives and opinions. It’s fine to not care about the “how” at all, and it’s fine to care deeply about it too. No one should be getting abused on social media for caring about the club. That often has to take the form of questioning and critique because that is how you keep leaders honest and hold them to account ensuring the best for the club in the long term. But, if it’s not up your street, ignore it.
Where I struggle is that our CEO set up an advisory business focusing on 16-24 yr olds and social media. If you’d think anyone was able to influence the online fanbase via social media to create unity, repair divisions, and embed a strong distaste for abuse, it should be him. The club know about the online abuse very much so too. |
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