Benefit of the doubt to Miller, Jon, he's just gome back after ages recovering from injury and he's got two goals in two successive games with the potential of more to come (hopefully) and he's David Villa compared to a waster like Luke Moore, who doesn't even look as if he wants to put himself into a vaunted shop-window for anyone to sign him. He has all the stamina and drive of a doped-up old biddie mumbling to herself around an old folks home, and if he's got any ability he's doing a bloody good job hiding it. He's dreadful.

Dorrans, on the other hand, is turning out to be one bona-fide superb asset. For our position in the Championship it's amazing that we've just a got a top scorer entry in the Championship rankings - and it's the lad himself. He's got drive, vision and he turns in a clever move or two even on his off days. Lucky to have him.

Oh yes, he's all of the above. He's just in a class above the rest of the players. Here's hoping he stays if we go up, can't see that happening if we don't. Superb penalty taker though he is, I'd rather he didn't take them. As you say, he is riding high in the goalscoring charts and is therefore attracting rather too much attention from other clubs. But it is somewhat a false position as 8 of his 15 goals came from the penalty spot.

Yes, I'll give Miller the benefit of the doubt, ian. I really want him to do well, as I think all Albion fans do - he seems to be a firm favourite. Just watching his goal reminded me of that miss from the other week, bringing back bad memories. (But it was a great game, wasn't it, the Newcastle one?)

Luke Moore - well I won't waste any energy typing about him and you've summed him up so much better than I ever could..

Sousa obviously couldn't get into the spotlight enough at QPR and by talking about sending files to UEFA/FIFA/UN etc he is just causing people to think of him as just a whiner while forgetting about the fact that his team play good football, albeit they cannot hit the cow's arse with a banjo.
Seriously counter-productive.

Not sure what will happen to WBA if they do go up again, is Di Matteo better than Mowbray or will it just be more of the same?

Who knows? One thing we do know though is that Jeremy Peace, our chairman, will not break the bank as regards transfer fees and wages. He has perfected the 'yo-yo model' and he's doing all right out of it, thank you very much. The club is in good financial health, relatively speaking. Only Plymouth are in a better financial state than us in the Championship.

I do like Roberto di Matteo though and one thing he's got over Mowbray is that he'll change things if they're going wrong. Mowbray was just too idealistic/stubborn/plain stupid to make changes when they were needed, forever citing the mantra that this is the football he likes to play and he won't bend for anyone. This stance won him a lot of admirers, both in the media and in football in general and it obviously helped him get the Celtic job.

Sousa obviously couldn't get into the spotlight enough at QPR

If that's what turns your crank getting in the spotlight has hardly been a problem at Loftus Road in the last couple of years or so. In his short stay at the club Sousa actually came over as a rather self-deprecating kind of character.

I'm not surprised by Johnson's departure, just by the timing of it.

It's been on the cards for a while and should have happened after the capitulations against Cardiff or Doncaster.

It's clear that Johnson is more about personalities than talent and ability, which wasn't a problem when he was getting rid of disruptive influences like Stewart, Phillips and Brooker. However, this season it has been his undoing.

Popular goalkeeper Basso was marginalised after falling out with Lee Johnson, clubs enquiring as to his availability were told to go away, he wanted to stay but was offered lower terms than he was already on. He played 4 times this season when Gerkin was injured, kept 2 clean sheets and won 2 m-o-m awards and was then jettisoned as quickly as he had unexpectedly recalled. Basso has allegedly told a supporters group that most squad players consider it a matter of time before it's their turn to be victimised.

Dave Clarkson started the season clearly not at the right fitness levels and was quickly removed from the first team. However, each time he has come back in he has been dropped every time he shows some signs of playing himself into some form.

Johnson's eye for a striker is fairly poor. We have been subjected to Bas Savage, McCammon, Showunmi, Byfield, Akinde, Stern John, Styvar, Agyemang and Saborio amongst others. He paid £1m for Trundle, and £2.25m for Maynard. The Maynard transfer was a panic buy after Johnson had fallen out with Meteb before he even managed to sign him. At one point Crewe wanted £2m for him and Lansdown pulled that deal saying he was overpriced.

Paul Hartley is the latest player to fall out favour. Good enough for International football, but seemingly not for a 2nd division side in freefall. This despite the fact he clearly has more class than the rest of our midfield put together. Rumours are he requested a transfer in January and has been suffering the Johnson backlash since.

The latest leak suggests that Johnson and midfield player Ivan Sproule came to blows at half time on Tuesday evening.

In the background of this is the new £92m stadium that Steve Lansdown wants to build on the off chance that a world cup game comes to Bristol. The current ground holds 21,500, this seasons average is less than 14,300 with a highest of just over 16,000. Now, a few years ago Lansdown transfered ownership of Ashton Gate away from the football club and it passed into a new company of which he was the majority shareholder.

Now as i understand it is the football club and any other businesses who take up residence at the new site who are going to be funding the building work. Meanwhile Lansdown and his cronies who will be laughing all the way to the bank with the money from the sale of the existing site.

The Supporters Trust should be challenging Lansdown rather than just supporting him, but they seem to have fallen for it all hook line and sinker.

Rant over, back to lurking.

Any truth in the rumour that Michael Chopra tripped Johnson up as he walked out of Ashton Gate?

How ironic that in the same week the man who got the better of Johnson at Wembley 2 years ago loses his job, Johnson does as well.

Football throws up these coincidences now and again. Fascinating, i'm sure you'll agree.

Georgeous George wrote:
How ironic that in the same week the man who got the better of Johnson at Wembley 2 years ago loses his job, Johnson does as well.

Football throws up these coincidences now and again. Fascinating, i'm sure you'll agree.

But Windass is still working for Sky though.

Thanks BP for all the info, another club that looks like it is going to be asset stripped, when is the FA/Football League or whoever going to step in and properly audit and monitor all of these owners?

I do like Roberto di Matteo though and one thing he's got over Mowbray is that he'll change things if they're going wrong. Mowbray was just too idealistic/stubborn/plain stupid to make changes when they were needed, forever citing the mantra that this is the football he likes to play and he won't bend for anyone. This stance won him a lot of admirers, both in the media and in football in general and it obviously helped him get the Celtic job.

Di Matteo is doing things unspectacularly and in a low-key way while ensuring that the team is foremost, not the manager - which is why I agree with the above greatly. I went overboard with Mowbray in terms of admiration at first because after so many journeymen whose managerial output was good to negligable, he came along with the passing-game-is-be-all-and-end-all belief which impressed me greatly and blinded me to the huge reality facing us when we hit the Premiership and found that the Premiership could hit us back many times as hard, and that what was sweet and wonderful in the Championship was just a load of hooey in the top flight. The more we got battered, the more Mowbray and his beliefs came centre-stage and self-important to the point where he just got on my tits and the team's style of play became an embarrassment. Never could a baby have its candy so easily taken from it.

If we get promoted then perhaps the usual will occur: relegation struggle, relegation, money-saving, satisfactory solvency and another bite at the cherry, but I'm hoping that Di Matteo would approach it with much more canny resolve, forethought and know-how than the previous incumbent.

Antepli Ejderha wrote:
Thanks BP for all the info, another club that looks like it is going to be asset stripped, when is the FA/Football League or whoever going to step in and properly audit and monitor all of these owners?

The Football League only implements rules after the 72 chairmen vote on it, so that'll never happen, and it's equivalent FA board includes as two of the representatives of the Premier League and Football Leagues, the Chief Exec of the most asset stripped club in the country, and the ex-chairman of a Football League club who paid a sum total of £4000 on shares in the club, and paid himself a six figure salary. So that'll never happen either.

Out of sheer boredom, I've decided to send a text to The Football League Show. Hope Lizzie reads it out, and if she does, see if you can spot it.

Toby Gymshorts wrote:
Out of sheer boredom, I've decided to send a text to The Football League Show. Hope Lizzie reads it out, and if she does, see if you can spot it.

Well I noticed the Gillingham text, can't believe they fell for it.
I notice the show hasn't appeared on iPlayer yet and the BBC site seems to suggest it won't.
I wonder if they've finally realised what's been going on.

What has been going on, and what was the Gillingham text?

I never watch as it's past my bedtime.

The text was from a "Gillingham fan" claiming that their camper van/caravan had broken down and that they'd had to have a lift back to Kent with one of the Charlton coaches.

She's fallen for things like that before. I get the impression that she's a very new football fan - she did the match report for the Red Button for the corresponding fixture earlier in the season and took time to point out that some of the things the Gillingham fans were saying about Charlton were "reaaaally horrrrible".

Whoever it was that said that she'd look more comfortable with glove puppets was spot on.

I much preferred it when Lizzie was at the Olympics and we had Jacqui Oatley reading out texts with a look of disdainful comtempt on her face for the fact that she's gone from being the UK's first ever female commentator to the reader of pissed up punters' post-pub texts.

I can't take the credit for the Gilligham one, I'm afraid.

She didn't read mine, which simply said "despite today's defeat, can I just say that Aidy Boothroyd is a breath of fresh air". Drat and double drat.

Huge rumours that Keane is on his way out, fuelled by a) Alan Curbishley, and his ex-assistant Mervyn Day being spotted at two Town home games, (although Day may have been scouting for Fulham) and b) Keane saying that he doesn't speak to the owner very often (whereas Magilton claimed to speak to the Invisible One every day). So, naturally things such as squad being kept behind after the shambolic performance against Watford is being used as the reason that the squad has fallen out with Keane, with suggestions that recent critisism of the players had upset them (perhaps they'd got used to Keane shouldering the blame to take the pressure off while they were in the bottom three?).

Phoebe wrote:
Quick predictor:

1. Sheffield United
2. West Bromwich Albion
-----------------------
3. Middlesbrough
4. Nottingham Forest
5. Ipswich Town
6. Preston North End
-----------------------
7. Crystal Palace
8. Swansea City
9. Bristol City
10 Sheffield Wednesday
11 Cardiff City
12 Reading
13 Leicester City
14 Derby County
15 Peterborough United
16 Blackpool
17 Plymouth Argyle
18 Coventry City
19 Queens Park Rangers
20 Doncaster Rovers
21 Scunthorpe United
----------------------
22 Watford
23 Newcastle United
24 Barnsley

Seems about right

Ah, that's modesty's identity confirmed then.