2020/21 General Match Thread

[Marked Ox]

We got absolutely battered by Oxford but somehow won . Hopefully that was just a terrible performance on the day from us with a few key players missing . Oxford looked very impressive and will most certainly be challenging the top 6 this season. They will play much worse and win games this season.

9 points out of 9.

Get Agyei fit and sign a striker who puts it in the net reasonably regularly and we could be challenging at the top end unlike last season. Hopefully we get the winger in as well for depth after losing young Napa to a broken leg after a nasty tackle by Peterborough's Naismith.

 

[thewwfc]

Nosebleed for us. Doubt it’ll last and we’re more likely a mid-table side, but I guess enjoy the results while we can, right?

 

[The Reverend Skyblue]

Three out of three 'home' games this season, better than our landlords

 

[Gassy]

Come on, Gassy, what’s the actual deal with Wael? Is it all a sham?

In short no one knows tbh. He seems a nice guy but we’re now something like £15m in debt to the family and loosing 65k every week.

We’re apparently about to be sold and built a new stadium in central Bristol, which whilst it sounds nice - we’re Bristol Rovers, dreams don’t come true for us

 

[DippyDon]

In short no one knows tbh. He seems a nice guy but we’re now something like £15m in debt to the family and loosing 65k every week.

We’re apparently about to be sold and built a new stadium in central Bristol, which whilst it sounds nice - we’re Bristol Rovers, dreams don’t come true for us

Haven't you been about to move stadiums for over a decade now?

 

[Gassy]

Haven't you been about to move stadiums for over a decade now?

Lol exactly the point. I’m 27 and already been promised 2 stadiums

The redeveloped Mem in 07/08 which the investors pulled out due to the recession (the club still sold us season tickets at Cheltenham as we were supposed to play there for 18 months, despite them pulling out)

Then the UWE stadium, twice in fact. But tbh, it sounds like we pulled out for the right reasons (the old board were unfortunately too desperate and gave most revenue % away to UWE).

Now apparently the new owners are buying the fruit market land, 15 minutes walk from the main train station, for roughly £30m+ (20m rejected) and will build a new ground there. The whole area ( currently industrial) is soon to be redeveloped and will extend the city centre. Tbh the whole plan looks great for the region & in 20 years it will be a beautiful, thriving part of the city with a 21,000 seater stadium right in the middle.

Sounds too good to be true though, right?

 

[Tangerine_tart]

Get Agyei fit and sign a striker who puts it in the net reasonably regularly and we could be challenging at the top end unlike last season. Hopefully we get the winger in as well for depth after losing young Napa to a broken leg after a nasty tackle by Peterborough's Naismith.

You every reason to be confident . You played free flowing football and if you had the striker that you badly need, you would have won the game . At the same time we seemed off the pace , and leggy which sounds ridiculous being so early on in the season. We need to sign two central midfielders , and the miss of Sprearing was painfully obvious as he holds out midfield together. Bad performance on the day but we managed to hold firm and winning when playing that badly is encouraging .

That and our two main right backs are suspended and injured , you exposed that weakness with a central back playing in that area,, causing havoc on that side. I have not seen so many crosses being whipped in for as long as I can remember.

Good luck with the rest of the season . And fantastic numbers which is a credit to your club.

 

[Indian Dan]

Lol exactly the point. I’m 27 and already been promised 2 stadiums

The redeveloped Mem in 07/08 which the investors pulled out due to the recession (the club still sold us season tickets at Cheltenham as we were supposed to play there for 18 months, despite them pulling out)

Then the UWE stadium, twice in fact. But tbh, it sounds like we pulled out for the right reasons (the old board were unfortunately too desperate and gave most revenue % away to UWE).

Now apparently the new owners are buying the fruit market land, 15 minutes walk from the main train station, for roughly £30m+ (20m rejected) and will build a new ground there. The whole area ( currently industrial) is soon to be redeveloped and will extend the city centre. Tbh the whole plan looks great for the region & in 20 years it will be a beautiful, thriving part of the city with a 21,000 seater stadium right in the middle.

Sounds too good to be true though, right?

Sounds a bit pie in the sky. £30m for the site plus more again for a stadium build. Why would anyone fork out that for L1 club - no disrespect. How would they get their money back?

 

[Shrimpurh]

We are terrible. Still haven’t scored this season.

Southend & ourselves to fill the last 2 places unless something drastically changes

I bet we are shitter than you

 

[Gassy]

Sounds a bit pie in the sky. £30m for the site plus more again for a stadium build. Why would anyone fork out that for L1 club - no disrespect. How would they get their money back?

Exactly, never mind the money they’d pay for the club. So really, they’d be paying £80-100m up front with everything together. As you say, pie in the sky.

Apparently they’re in construction though so redeveloping our current land (worth around 20m) and building houses would probably make them £60m (complete guess). Apparently the stadium would have restaurants, hotel, cinema complex or something built around which might be where they would try get some money back, but honestly, it’s really far fetched at this point.

Still, always nice to dream eh?

 

[Gassy]

I bet we are shitter than you

Probably, but we don’t know how to score - so it would be a fantastic 0-0

 

[Fedora Dale]

Tuesday night is rapidly approaching so - Rochdale v Sunderland.

Lost twice to Sunderland last season, so omens not good, but we've started the season decently, and could have had 9/9 points but for an excellent late header from Sadlier of Donny and the wrong end of a marginal off-side disallowed goal at Shrews. So a bit of optimism going in to this one.

2-0 to Dale (Henderson, Camps).

 

[Shrimpurh]

We’ve got Posh. Great chance for them to get going

 

[Kim Mitten]

Haven't you been about to move stadiums for over a decade now?

The first plans to move from Roots Hall submitted to Southend council were put in, in 1986, just the 33 years the club has been trying to move. Through various owners and boards nothing has ever come close, in all that time it would have just been easier to redevelop Roots Hall.

Probably, but we don’t know how to score - so it would be a fantastic 0-0

We have zero chance of keeping a clean sheet, comfortable win for you. 3 relegation spots are sealed, only one more up for grabs and it's only August.

 

[CCFC_Charlie]

Big game for us on Tuesday vs. Portsmouth, should be a good indicator of how good we actually are. People getting very excited over our start to the season at the moment without really taking into account the fact we've played 3 poor teams (and couldn't even beat the worst of them!). A win away at Pompey and I might start to believe we are actually good but expecting a 2-0 loss.

 

[Fedora Dale]

The first plans to move from Roots Hall submitted to Southend council were put in, in 1986, just the 33 years the club has been trying to move. Through various owners and boards nothing has ever come close, in all that time it would have just been easier to redevelop Roots Hall.


We have zero chance of keeping a clean sheet, comfortable win for you. 3 relegation spots are sealed, only one more up for grabs and it's only August.

Is your chairman waiting for W0 D0 L7 before getting rid of Bond?

 

[K-Win]

Curtis looks completely out of ideas, I’m fast losing any patience I had with him. He’s a cocky diva and that only passes if you have the quality to go along with it. Walkes was abysmal and I pray that Bolton is an upgrade on him otherwise we have a serious weak link which will be exploited.

Marquis must have been losing his mind, he got almost no service in the first half, and only Harness really made an effort to get the ball to his feet in the second.

Positives to be had though, I thought we looked good in fits and starts, and despite the loss I think we were easily deserving of at least a draw yesterday. I feel fairly confident we’ll come good but there is a lot of work to be done. The other question is how on earth we can fit McCrorie into this team? He has to play, but who for?

It's definitely time for changes. We've got too many "squad" players in the first team at the moment - Walkes, Burgess and Curtis primarily. We have replacements available - Bolton, Raggett and Williams respectively. Williams is still injured but apparently not far off now. Raggett has been ready for a while. Bolton? Not even on the bench Saturday but surely he can't do worse than Walkes?

McCrorie can be a stand-out player for us this season so he surely has to come into the team. Will be tough on whoever he replaces, though.

 

[SeasideKurt]

You can’t even offload Bennett to us now. Looks like we’re back in for Devitt.

Grayson doesn't fancy him a single bit. Which is really weird as he hasn't given him a chance.

Be interesting to see if he gets a run out tomorrow night at Gillingham.

 

[Gassy]

We have zero chance of keeping a clean sheet, comfortable win for you. 3 relegation spots are sealed, only one more up for grabs and it's only August.

We've had 4 shots on target in 3 games. I honestly don't know how we're supposed to score

 

[Ciderup]

Lol exactly the point. I’m 27 and already been promised 2 stadiums

Now apparently the new owners are buying the fruit market land, 15 minutes walk from the main train station, for roughly £30m+ (20m rejected) and will build a new ground there. The whole area ( currently industrial) is soon to be redeveloped and will extend the city centre. Tbh the whole plan looks great for the region & in 20 years it will be a beautiful, thriving part of the city with a 21,000 seater stadium right in the middle.

Sounds too good to be true though, right?

It's actually 5 stadium plans Gassy (mem development, severnside, UWE, Carsons, fruit market). The problem being, your mob weren't going to actually pay for any of them.
While the fruit market site seems ideal, you've a long way to go yet and it's supposed to be the new commercial centre of the city so I just can't see you getting the land, IF it's even for sale. It's prime development land with all the building work going on around it and will be prohibitively expensive (as everything in central Bristol is nowadays).
Wael should have kept his mouth shut too as it's not even his plan yet he wanted to take the glory. There's something seriously amiss at your club TBH. The fact you're absolutely hopeless on the pitch doesn't help either! Food and drink to us mind.

 

[thewwfc]

This may be bollocks since it appeared in the Sun, but apparently when our close season signing David Wheeler used to play for the Franchise, one of their fans was dense enough to get a tattoo of Wheeler's name (bear in mind he was on loan, not even their player ).

and guess who scored in stoppage time on Saturday...doh

 

[Gassy]

It's actually 5 stadium plans Gassy (mem development, severnside, UWE, Carsons, fruit market). The problem being, your mob weren't going to actually pay for any of them.
While the fruit market site seems ideal, you've a long way to go yet and it's supposed to be the new commercial centre of the city so I just can't see you getting the land, IF it's even for sale. It's prime development land with all the building work going on around it and will be prohibitively expensive (as everything in central Bristol is nowadays).
Wael should have kept his mouth shut too as it's not even his plan yet he wanted to take the glory. There's something seriously amiss at your club TBH. The fact you're absolutely hopeless on the pitch doesn't help either! Food and drink to us mind.

Which ones were severnside & Carsons? Were they within my lifetime? Fruit market isn't a promise yet though

I think it's been confirmed by BBC that a £20m bid was turned down, but someone (who I trust) ion our forum who knows the person instigating the deal says it's worth a lot more than that, which is understandable.

Apparently the council are up for it, as you know it's been earmarked for a stadium since what, the 80's or something? I think I saw an old paper article the other day about it being a stadium for us both to share ( ) back in the 90's.

Like you say, it's a long way off even if it does happen. Let's say we get the land in the next 1/2 weeks (as reported by BBC), then we'll have to draw up plans & get it approved (although it seems like this might already be in the works? Who knows). The current owners have said even if they did sell then it would take 2/3 years to move out & find new land. By that point the planning permission is probably accepted. Then you have to knock it all down & build a new stadium, which is another 2 years. So at best, you're talking 5+ years.

Of course, it's worth waiting if it was true - we've waited more than long enough so what's another 5 years at this point. Of course it would be an incredible development in a thriving hub of the city, the value of the land would probably double in the next 20 years - but again, it just sounds a little bit too cushty, right?

 

[Gassy]

On a separate note: apparently the referees association has apologised for disallowing our goal from a corner against Coventry.

Very frustrating if true. It would have been 1-1 at the time & we were really on top for that short period.

 

[Indian Dan]

Grayson doesn't fancy him a single bit. Which is really weird as he hasn't given him a chance.

Be interesting to see if he gets a run out tomorrow night at Gillingham.

Yeah, very strange. Most new managers wipe the slate clean and use their own judgment on players. Have they got previous anywhere?

 

[SeasideKurt]

Yeah, very strange. Most new managers wipe the slate clean and use their own judgment on players. Have they got previous anywhere?

Don't think so.

 

[Ciderup]

Which ones were severnside & Carsons? Were they within my lifetime? Fruit market isn't a promise yet though

I think it's been confirmed by BBC that a £20m bid was turned down, but someone (who I trust) ion our forum who knows the person instigating the deal says it's worth a lot more than that, which is understandable.

Apparently the council are up for it, as you know it's been earmarked for a stadium since what, the 80's or something? I think I saw an old paper article the other day about it being a stadium for us both to share ( ) back in the 90's.

Like you say, it's a long way off even if it does happen. Let's say we get the land in the next 1/2 weeks (as reported by BBC), then we'll have to draw up plans & get it approved (although it seems like this might already be in the works? Who knows). The current owners have said even if they did sell then it would take 2/3 years to move out & find new land. By that point the planning permission is probably accepted. Then you have to knock it all down & build a new stadium, which is another 2 years. So at best, you're talking 5+ years.

Of course, it's worth waiting if it was true - we've waited more than long enough so what's another 5 years at this point. Of course it would be an incredible development in a thriving hub of the city, the value of the land would probably double in the! next 20 years - but again, it just sounds a little bit too cushty, right?

Severnside was a proposed stadium near the M49 / M5 junction and Carsons was a planned site in Mangotsfield, years ago. Far too close to my place! There was talk of a stadium in South Glos a few years ago too so that's 6. As a South Glos resident, you can, with all possible respect do one!
There are so many reasons why it won't happen that this one might just get built but where the finance comes from is questionable IMHO. Why would an investor buy the land, build a stadium and pay off Wael's debts with no possible return? I just don't get it unless it's someone like Lansdown.
The other problem would be the proposed city centre move, that could scupper it as it will be prime development land. You only have to look at the proposals for the feeder regeneration to see what's going on. Finally, do you really want a stadium in a predominantly City area?

I do think Wael has jumped the gun big time and made a mistake by going public with this TBH Gassy, probably to stop people moaning at him. He's nothing more than a chancer isn't he?

 

[nelsonpfc]

Big game for us on Tuesday vs. Portsmouth, should be a good indicator of how good we actually are. People getting very excited over our start to the season at the moment without really taking into account the fact we've played 3 poor teams (and couldn't even beat the worst of them!). A win away at Pompey and I might start to believe we are actually good but expecting a 2-0 loss.

To be fair you are probably playing us at the best time. We are still a team very much in progress. New formation, new partnerships and a squad that is still abit sore from the end of last season. Players are snatching at shots and misplacing crosses alot. However, we aren't playing particular that bad and last season we'd have been on 9 points having had the lions share of all three league games, created more and only faced 3 shots on target in both of our losses combined. We just aren't making our possession count and are letting in silly goals. When we click we'll be a handful for anyone, we just haven't clicked yet...

 

[Ciderup]

On a separate note: apparently the referees association has apologised for disallowing our goal from a corner against Coventry.

Very frustrating if true. It would have been 1-1 at the time & we were really on top for that short period.

Shame!

 

[Davidimp]

Absolute dog turd from Southend from 25 minutes onwards.

It was a fairly even start and I thought we were in for half a game although we were the ones creating half openings but once the first goal went in, that was it. We stepped it up a gear, they couldn't keep up with the work rate and pressing (or the attempt at it, anyway) and we overpowered and ripped through them quite comfortably in the end. If we weren't saving a bit of energy in the final 10 and playing keep ball then we perhaps could have gone for another one or two.

Probably the best home game since MK Dons last September. Good chance to give Bostwick, Anderson and Walker a breather as well.

Their number 19, left sided CB could've had 4 bookings not just the one he got, their Captain in CM was a nothing player who trotted around looking very pretty but not doing anything. Their best player on the day was probably their RB, although that's a bit of a back handed compliment.

The lad that came on at HT, with a face mask, at least was trying to work hard and make something happen.

The lad who came on ht was at Scunny last season on loan, Humphreys, remember from the friendly.

 

[WhiteRussian]

This may be bollocks since it appeared in the Sun, but apparently when our close season signing David Wheeler used to play for the Franchise, one of their fans was dense enough to get a tattoo of Wheeler's name (bear in mind he was on loan, not even their player ).

and guess who scored in stoppage time on Saturday...doh

Probably true. All football clubs have a good percentage of utter idiots, why should we be different. Anyone who gets a tattoo of a footballer's name should be committed anyway. It's like getting your girlfriends name done, it's only going to end in tears.