Bluesteel

Put it this way we need a couple more wins than three of Barnsley, Rotherham, Wycombe and Coventry to be there or thereabouts now. At present that looks doable. We could end up thinking what if at the end of the season in mid table

If we keep the spine fit then yeah. It’s important we get out of negative this week though. Then we can kick on. But with injuries to key players any bad run can see us back at the bottom with that kind of deduction

He should watch how Chris Ogrady dealt with Michael Browns attempted “tackle”.

It’s both. No place for the tackle No place for someone pretending they’ve been maimed

Having seen it. Horrific tackle. But the reaction? Like he’d stepped on a land mine? This is what I mean.

I have a feeling a season in league one will do Sanderson good and we might well try again next summer. He’s unlikely to make it at wolves

Not surprised Hutchinson is getting sent off in that league. I think they see even a light tap on the shin as assault

To be fair to Wilder I usually think he says it as it is and can be very balanced. But the “we are poor” line/identity which has worked well in the past just doesn’t cut it in the second season of the Premier League. Even the most ardent fan at the Lane must question the strategy for staying in the division this year. New sponsor deals. Biggest tv package they will have ever had, small wage budget in the first place. They have spent 50m which isn’t to be sniffed at but they probably needed to wheel and deal a bit, typically selling O’Connell could’ve helped them improve as a whole

Big Duncan Ferguson has taught him well with those headers

I bet there are a lot of people like that in football. It never stuck me as a nice environment at grass roots level.

They play the big club and little club when it suits them. End of the day they get the same tv revenue as many of the clubs above them but perhaps don’t have the finance of an owner willing to spend like villa or fulham. Didn’t matter last season though and they haven’t done much recruitment. It was a buyers market this “summer” with bargains to be had

Not looking good for them is it? The momentum of recent years has halted and one or two who have been performing above themselves seem to have lost the confidence. Brewster is an excellent signing but there are echos of their last promotion where they didn’t buy enough quality and almost planned to go down and come up. Villa have been scattergun but seem more likely to kick on now. To lose O’Connell to injury and not buy a replacement is a head scratcher.

I thought Bywater was a statue. But the others have been very good. Dawson can match all that though, we signed most of those players much later in their careers.

I agree we need a hold up player in that situation. Paterson is the only one with some ability to do that and we have no one else if he is knocked or tired. The big lad who can’t be named for some who was released in the summer would still be useful there.

I think his commanding of the box is much better than it was under Jos. He catches it now rather than flapping at it. I think it’s all chicken and egg really as things like that and the errors are only eradicated through experience and we didn’t give him much time out on loan. So he’s at the point where he needs to play if he’s going to stay here and we will persevere. If there wasn’t a wider issue it would still make sense to have one of Dawson or Wildsmith out on loan playing each week whilst the other was no1 working with an older keeper like Westwood or similar. Sunderl