Throwing Bad Money After Good - the EFL and Beyond 2017-18

Actually the new BBC Football Scores & Fixtures page isn't bad actually. At least you can scroll down the whole league as it happens and see which of your accs are completely doomed. I used to use the live videprinter page and then a latest scores tab for each division, which was pretty a ridiculous way of doing it really.

Yeah the live scores page looks like it's improved quite a bit.

FFS Novak! That'll be my acc with Charlton going down already!

first red card of the season btw

omg! Leon Clarke is a Blade now, that be 17 clubs he's turned out for now.

Been a fun first 20 mins between Fulham and Norwich. Marley Watkins could have had a couple already

I totally misheard that on 5 live and thought Norwich had signed Ollie Watkins

Bonatini Lohner Maia has to be contender for best name in the league

Nathaniel Percival Knight is another cool name.

i dunno this Brazilian lad he's not all that if he was any good he wouldn't of been playing in Saudi we shd spunk 20 mill on Andre Gray

Wycombe vs Lincoln City shouldn't be a football match, it should be a feight to the death between Adebayo Akinfenwa + Matt Rhead!

omg didn't realise Akinfenwa was still playing

Blues losing :) very happy with how these games are going right now.

I would be if hadn't put the bastards on one of my accs where all the other 3 are winning, but on reflection - fuck 'em!

Burnley "friendly" abandoned after Reports of some Hannover fans with knives in the away end!

given the number of chances we seem to be spurning maybe i was unfair on Mr Ward

am gonna do my best not to make kneejerk negative comments about Dave Edwards this season

fuck me i'd've took a battling defeat at 2.59pm

yeah that's a great start to the season. more of this please. Boro winning the division would be so tedious.

i think today, Charlton might have learned they can cope without Lee Novak in the team.

My fave blunt quote on Mick from one of our lot is "he knows how to make a bunch of turds play ok"

I could imagine Mick saying that at his job interview.

winning with ten men for 84 minutes is pretty good

i was playing cricket alas, scoring 31 not out in a total of 76 all out and generally getting to feel right narked off about my teammates (except the one i ran out)

OH FUCK THEY FOUND A WAY TO MAKE THE CHANNEL 5 HIGHLIGHTS WORSE

Talking about cricket?

Grimsby - Derby in the Malibu Cup has been abandoned cos of torrential rain, which judging by how bad it is here i can totally understand

I thought there was something missing in my life that was previously an ever-present. Yeah it has been pouring down hard all day here as well.

that new bbc latest scores page is good enough in theory, but as soon as you click Show Scorers it reverts to earlier and doesn't update.

i have a superstitious fear of following the BBC text when we're playing so i've not looked at it much but i noticed the other day that the live league table wasn't functioning either

We don't start until this weekend, so I forgot to look for the thread.

Final friendly was last weekend, comfortably beat Stourbridge but the first half was pretty woeful tbh. We've kept about 30% of the squad so who knows how we're going to line up any given week - we've got West Brom's 4th choice keeper training with us and filling in for injuries and you can see why he's 4th choice.

I'd take playoffs now, but I can see us finishing mid-table.

PSA: Aston Villa are playing Colchester in the Curaçao Cup tonight and it's gonna be on the telly. kick-off in just under an hour.

been drinking for free since about midday today after my trial got knocked off early and the barristers insisted, so if apologies in advance if i clog up the thread a bit tonight with inane and foul-mouthed minute-by-minute get-involvery as I watch what is sure to be a truly dire football match

Big Chris Samba flying in on the Colchester striker to give away a penalty after 7 mins, how much is this moron gettin paid?

Saved! Naww I feel pretty bad for that guy actually

In the pub watching it as far as I can focus Windsor :D

aaaaaand I think we can stick a fork in this one

Feel pretty bad turning up to someone else's gaff with our reserves,going 2-0 up thru a goalkeeping clanger and an own goal

Wouldn't resent it if they came back to win 3-2

Robbing harder working teams is gh

Whoops...is the essence of the league cup

Guess it makes a welcome change for villa not to be crashing out in the first round 2-0 to league 2 opposition following a goalkeeping clanger and an own goal. Progress is progress.

Except for when it comes to the sponsorship of the efl cup. What the FUCK is a carabao. Wish the commentators weren't quite so earnest when using the name

one touch football from Colchester

Lol

Yesssss Chris Nichol reference! My dad must've told me that story fifty times

no sound in here, ELO on the jukebox tho appropriately

Wrt the Colchester player getting a goal after scoring an O.G earlier. Chris Nichol being the lad that once scored all four goals in a 2-2 draw

That Colchester right winger was quick then, we might even have a game on

well that fizzled out

spent the second half chatting with a girl on facetime, stream froze up on 49 mins. was pleasantly surprised to find we didn't blow it. no complaints here

I was chatting. Saw Colchester have one decent shot that was well saved but it wasn't gripping

Wolves 2-0 up and Villa being thrashed. This day continues to get better and better.

44 games to go yet. Out with my oldest boy today and we're working hard on managing our expectations

fuck it, be arrogant early pacesetters and enjoy it. It is always much more fun - even if you end up bollocksing it all up by October!

I suspect no progress at all. As I said, I have only got to two psfs (although listened to the rest over the internet) and we sound weak at CB (although apparently we are announcing a Bristol City loanee over the weekend) and definitely up front (where an aging lump who has passed the age/talent threshold in the close season) is now out for 10 weeks and was our main goal threat. Losing to FGR, divisions above or not, does not make me confident.

I feel like we're less prepared than season 1, when we started the first game of the season with only 14 players, 5 of which had played together before.

FGR aren't bad in L2, FWIW. Last season started as a struggle for them but they got a lot better IIRC.

They bought (!) a couple of decent players from us, including Reuben Reid who can be absolutely brilliant at L2 level. So don't feel too bad about that.

I quite enjoyed watching them on Goal Rush but there final league position wasn't a fluke.

Sure, but I don't think it tells the whole story either - when I saw them they weren't by any means terrible, though they seemed a bit soft in midfield. Anyway I hope the season goes better than you expect!

Beginning to feel really weird being away for the start of the season on Saturday but not as weird as listening to a radio commentary on a non-league game at 2am.

Scraping the playoffs, calling it. Team changes in September when it isn't working, Beadle goes in the spring.

When you said "no progress at all" up there I thought you were feeling doomy about your prospects for the season, rather than reckoning you were play-off bound.

I think we might well get to the play-offs this year again, with the caveat that I don't think changing a manager after twelve years is a recipe for a smooth season. But I think our squad looks pretty good. People have been saying nice things about Oates's showings in PSFs, it'll be interesting to see whether he goes straight into the first team. We could still do with another centre back, I think (though not necessarily in week 1, more for when one of our current ones breaks).

We've the local derby against Carlisle on Saturday, and due to ground redevelopments we'll have even less than the half-a-ground we played with last season: the capacity on our big* standing terrace is reduced as a result of work being done on one of the exits.

*It's simultaneously not very big and the biggest in the football league.

We're on the telly this Saturday, breathing fresh life into Sunderland

I'm being bold, mainly because I saw that the bottom team making the playoffs last year lost 15 and scraped 63 points together. More a case of reduced expectations for the league rather than thinking we were better.

We have the local derby against Blyth on Saturday so it's clearly the season for it.

we've just signed jordy hiwula from huddersfield - wikipedia has informed me (a) his goalscoring record looks p good and (b) his school nickname is 'deckchair'

in fact i think his goalscoring record looks completely made up

i hope we didn't sign him based on this haha

Oh god yeah the walk along the canal on Kraanlei was super-atmos, lots of likely-looking places to eat round there in Patershooi also IIRC.

EASY, DEVIN: English Football League and beyond, 2018/19

Ahaha that post was for a different thread on a different board, I wondered where it had gone.

See you on the other thread, thanks for giving me a year-long reminder of my personal autocorrect pain, LJ.