WUGGAMONKEY1

Obviously it’s wrong if FF is found to have used racist language. However, if the text conversation above really involves a Mansfield player, surely they should be in trouble. He’s inciting violence against FF, admits to ‘hunting down’ a player (which could be taken several ways - one of which could be to injure him) and thinks it’s funny that it resulted in a big brawl.

I agree mostly. The two awful individual mistakes aside, I don’t think we played terribly in the first half. Granted, we were nowhere good enough but I didn’t think we were terrible. In terms of positives, I thought Joao and Thorniley did well when they can on. Like you, I also thought they put a decent enough shift in during the 2nd half.

Wildsmith. I think Westwood is a top keeper but I don’t think Wildsmith deserves to lose his place. The mistake against Boro aside, he hasn’t done much wrong. He also played a huge part in our win at Forest.

Thought they both did ok today to be fair. Didn’t do too much wrong.

Bannan???? Should have been sat with the guy behind me after he'd misplaced a first half pass......(according to the guy himself). Thank goodness Barry realised the guy was a moron and didn't take him up on his offer.

As poor as he has been defensively at times, I think he needs time in that position to build up an understanding with the other defenders - it's just whether CC wants to afford it him. To be fair to him, the left hand side of defence looks more shaky when it's him and Reach. That's not a criticism of Reach or VA - neither seem the most natural defenders but both offer the team other options offensively. Also, they (Reach in particular) isn't afforded a great deal of cover in front of him by the way we set up.

He needs to stay on his feet a bit more which, to be fair, he did the 2nd half. He'll still be adapting to the pace of the game over here and it will take a while for him to build a partnership with Lees. Without Loovens I feel the defence can look disjointed. I'd like to see Lees step up, as the senior centreback, and do more organising/talking on the pitch to help JVA settle in. At times yesterday Lees was dropping in when the others were looking to come out - creating danger by playing them onside quite a lot. Better teams may take advantage.

I thought our back four looked disjointed at times. Lees seemed to play 3 yards behind the others at times - which caused us problems. Van Aken started nervously (went to ground too early in the first half 2 or 3 times) but improved as the game wore on. His range of passing was really impressive. Hunt was very good and Reach, as ever, put a shift in. I guess it will take a bit of time for the back line to develop as a unit.

I thought Joao did quite well when he came on against Bolton the other week. For the first 10 minutes at least, he looked more like the player that 'burst' onto the scene a couple of seasons ago. I have thought for a long while that his Hillsborough career was over, but maybe he can't play a part now Winnall has gone. Hopefully something has clicked and he's ready to kick on, or even be the impact sub he was in his first season with us.

The club have tried to do things differently with the kits (for all the right reasons) but it's not quite worked out. Whilst it's frustrating now, the approach taken may benefit the club significantly in the long term. I don't buy into everything the club is trying to do, but I don't think it's a bad think that we are looking to do things a bit differently.

Mason shouldn't really have been able to win the ball in between both our centre halves. However, he did benefit from the bounce and it was a decent enough finish. I was probably more disappointed that Jones (I think) didn't seem to challenge for the first header.

I think a few of those mentioned suffered because of the poor position the club found itself in at the time - some of which was long term mismanagement. Wood, Beavers, Spurr, Bromby, Quinn & Geary all had (or are having ) decent careers. That said, had we not been so poor in the first place, they may never have broken into the 1st team.

Preston now.

Spurr played over 190 games for us, and nearly another 100 in the Championship since.

Not a big fan (due to him not being great in the air) Faultless today though (apart from scaring me in the first 5 minutes) Good on him, especially after a rough couple of weeks.