Best Of

Looks like we’re taking a smidgen under 2000. According to Ryan Issac on twitter, Birmingham never actually gave us an official number so care was taken in how many were sold to not ‘over sell’.

Got my ticket and wishing my life away ready for ‘When Saturday Comes’

Do we think this is RC or is he on standby to sue whoever else it is?

It's all fine margins, isn't it? If we'd squeaked a 1-0 against both Northampton and Wigan (which on both occasions we were good value for), we'd currently be 7 points clear of 3rd place and laughing. It's a funny old game.

Easy there chief. That was no slight on you, just riffing on a classic John Peel line.

Reading matchday threads when we don't win is always depressing.

I was at the game on Saturday, and quite enjoyed it, apart from the lack of clinical finishing, which should have resulted in at least one goal.

But our defence now looks rock solid, and we are a difficult team to score against. Whichever front 3 are selected for the Birmingham game really need to be on it, and if they are we stand a real chance of grabbing all three points, which would be a massive statement.

Funny you should mention the inventive corners. I remember in the first half against Wigan, Simons took a quick corner and picked out Cam on the edge of the box with HUGE space but the referee stopped it with the usual scuffles going on with the opposition trying to climb all over our two CB’s

My opinion is that if we hadn't slagged MB off for trying a "Plan B", we might be less predicable now that we actually have the players to play a 3 at the back formation.

Bradley -Taylor - Low would be as good as any back 3 we have ever seen at this level.

Norris

Kodua (rwb) Bradley Taylor Low Harvie (lwb)

Simons Scowen

Humphreys

Kone Udoh

And that's the last of tonight's session from The Inventive Corners. Rather more Power Pop than Post Punk, I'm sure you'd agree.

There's a lot of arguing with points that haven't actually been made here - ie: nobody claimed we were playing for a draw, and I don't think anyone has actually said that we played badly. Quite a few people found the game boring, but that's not a criticism of the team, the effort, the manager or anything, just that the game was a very boring watch. Somehow this is seen as bed wetting? The only reason this thread went at all sideways was @flymofrank doing his usual dig at Blooms to wind people up.

For the record, I thought we were utterly stifled by a well organised opposition and sadly didn't have the spark that might break us through. I do think there was far too much Rochdale-style passing across the back four, but primarily because that almost invariably ended with a long punt into the channels which was easily dealt with. If that's the tactic, we could do that quickly instead of wasting so much time.

Early season we scored several goals and created many chances with some intricate one touch passing on the edge of the box, there was a real swagger to how we created. I think I agree with @glasshalffull though that the swagger went when the pressure increased.

The other thing I think we're missing from early season is the interesting corner routines. Last year, back when people started to actually pay attention to us being in second I saw some xG stats about how our short corners were producing far better scoring chances than the ones swinging it into the box - we were being far more inventive with corners than I'd ever seen us do before. We haven't been as creative with them for a while now - I'd like to see that come back, and I don't think that's particularly dependent on swagger or confidence.

I don’t get to watch much Premier League football but caught a couple of games this weekend. Enjoyed Newcastle and Villa’s performances. Didn’t enjoy City.

Please don’t confuse this as me undermining Pep. I’m just giving my opinion. Not making informed analysis. Not trying to cause an argument. Apologies to those I’ve irked