Much needed win for us yesterday, but Watford were poor, almost as bad as we were away to Millwall at the weekend, Preston really are a jekyll and hyde team, one game we'll look like we can beat anyone, the next we look like a team af amateurs, hopefully Heckingobttom can get a bit of consistency out of the players
Poor performance last night but really should've won it. We keep showing flashes of being a really good side but if we can't put together both a decent defensive performance and a clinical attacking display in the same game at any point this season we are not going to do very well. For the money we spent in the summer, we really need to improve.
Sounds familiar! Probably why we'll both be mid-table and maybe relying on good home form. What won't help us is not having any goal scoring striker so as soon as we let 2 that is probably game over.
Your no19 (Bayo?) missed a couple of absolute sitters, could have been a different game had he taken 1 of them
No great surprise there. He is pretty hopeless tbh except for one good game last season v you. Baah also missed an early one. Sounds like we just didn't look up for it and particularly in midfield weren't competing - not surprising if Louza played as he isn't exactly one for putting a foot in. Thin squad with a rookie manager so not expecting much - trouble is we'll have a bad run and sack Cleverley then have to start again.
You are rubbish, 6 goals with more than 30 minutes left. If you'd got another 4 we would have been off the bottom of the league.
Yeah the end was slightly disappointing I must admit. I've never seen Stoke score more than 6 and there was a golden opportunity to finally do it and we blew it. Absolute shite.
I watched the highlights and was surprised by how empty the stadium was, what sort of crowds are you getting atm?
It shouldn't be a surprise considering we've finished in the bottom half for 6 consecutive Championship seasons since relegation, including 2 relegation battles and never once even remotely threatened a playoff challenge. Our average is actually a pretty healthy 23,400 considering the circumstances with 20,842 last night. Midweek is always lower and Portsmouth understandably brought less than 2,000 and supporter sentiment was at a generational low in the build up to last night's game so I'm amazed we're still getting over 20,000 to be honest. Sky Bet Championship | Average Attendances | Home Matches | Football Web Pages The problem is that everyone understandably sits in the upper half of the stands where there's a better view and you won't get wet when it rains. So although there's only 5-10,000 empty seats per match almost every one of them are in the bottom 10 rows or so, the ones most visible on TV. We need crowds of over 25,000 for the crowd to look healthy on TV. And anything under 23,000 looks really sparse. At the moment we tend to average around 22,500-26,000 on Saturdays and between 19,500 and 22,500 in midweek.
I'm playing the percentage game - I can't be wrong every single time so this time is going to be different
They do say a broken clock is right twice a day. You are playing with fire though by trying this sort of tactic with Stoke City of all clubs. Success is so rare for us that you'll probably be dead before you end up being proven right . I'm continually surprised by how well our crowds are holding up despite the poor results and even worse football. I keep expecting this to be the season where people decide that's enough and our crowds drop into the high teens but it never seems to happen despite people being given every reason to give up.
