The Lower League Thread

Heard they were both dreadful decisions. I caught about 10 minutes of it and you didn't look that bad, to be honest.

Two managerial casualties today: Zenga gone from Wolves and Caldwell sacked by Wigan. More surprised by the latter than the former, but (without having seen Wigan this season) word on the street is that he's been treading a tightrope with bonkers team selections and odd formations. One from bottom. Harsh given last season's success, but perhaps not as undeserved as outsiders have been saying. Zenga was a dead man walking after Saturday. The new owners at Wolves won't put up with mediocrity, and they had invested. That said, he did have a decent track record and I suspect given time he could have done something with them.

Appointed a day(?) before the season starts and not lasting a month... clearly a bad appointment from the start if he wasn't given much time.

Mitrovic is a big lovable idiot. I've never wanted a player to do well more than I have him.

Huddersfield bubble burst? Spanked so far it seems away at Fulham, 3-0 at half time.

100% record for Newcastle in October. End sounded far from comfortable at Deepdale - PNE scored on 90 and hit the post on 90+9 - but 6 from 6.

Helps a bit that Norwich and Huddersfield both sustained 5-0 thrashings.

It was always going to be a tough game at Deepdale, just pleased we got maximum points.

Preston fan on Twitter 'nufc are nothing to be worried about'

aye just the 8 goals stuck past you this week without our top scorer playing

Pne fans are all very deluded, nothing shocking there.

I can confirm that they are an odd bunch.

Venky's out

Yesterday's was the strangest game of football I've ever been to.The ref collides with our striker in the 75th(ish) minute and is down for a solid 10 minutes being set up on a stretcher and eventually taken to hospital (all as a precaution, apparently he's okay), and then, almost from the restart with the lino as ref, old 4th official as lino and apparently the old 4th official's wife as the new 4th official (what would Andy Gray and Richard Keys think?!) they play a ball back to their 'keeper, our left winger charges him down, goalie clears it into our winger, it loops up and goes in!

This is the sort of luck that winning teams get, hopefully this is the year we go up.

Only Town could be third in the league with a negative goal difference. Wasn't there, but apparently Schindler and Löwe were the most culpable in a shocking performance, not helped by the manager picking the wrong team - Hudson has had a fine start to the season, but he's 34 and we have better options in Hefele and Stanković. Seven goals in two away games conceded from set-pieces and/or crosses is extremely problematic.

That said, every team has a wobble. We could conceivably have started the season without a win in our first six or seven, and we set off like an express train. I've said all along top 10 is the reasonable target, even if it's hard not to get carried away a little bit. We do need a striker (Chris Martin always rips us apart and would actually be ideal, just the kind of striker we need: big, physical, a real goal threat), and we do need to use our squad a little more. Stanković, Paurević, Holmes-Dennis and Coleman all signed in the summer and have played a total of 6 games between them, only two starts. Harry Bunn has only just come into the team. Billing has been nowhere to be seen. Lolley will be back in January after injury, and he's only played 3 times. Mooy has been knackered with all his jet-setting off to Oz once a month and has been a shadow of the player we had in the first few weeks - he needs to get this international break out of the way. We also have a lot of players acclimatising to English football, so a wobble is to be expected.

More worryingly, that's two dreadful away displays back-to-back, conceding 8 goals to sides who seem to have twigged our achilles heel. Our next away game is at improving Cardiff, though we do have 3 weeks to sort out frailties before that inevitable bombardment. Next up is Birmingham at home, which should be intriguing. They're due a poor performance from what I've heard - they've been very good to now, another side punching above their weight aided by an excellent coach in Gary Rowett. We need to get firing again, we've yet to bag more than two in any game this season. It'd be a good game to lay down a marker before the international break.

A victory in the war on the Oyston's ownership and "running" of the club

When I heard about Calvin Andrew being banned for 12 games for an elbow, I thought it was excessive, then I saw the video. Fucking hell.

Link.

Poor old Peter Clarke, a legend of the lower leagues, did not deserve that!

Jesus Christ, what did the poor bloke do to piss him off?

Quite a few of us have had the privilege of seeing Peter Clarke turn out for our clubs. Always honest, always whole-hearted, always fair.

Andrew needs jailing for that. The act of an absolute coward. 12 matches isn't enough either - thugs like that don't belong on a football pitch. He should never play again. That was cold, it was brutal, it was calculated, not some heat of the moment incident.

Agree with that. Peter has been a great servant for Bury FC last season and a very nice guy off the pitch as he is a true warrior on the pitch.

As for Calvin Andrew. Absolute scum. But then again, look at the club he plays for now and that tells you a lot. Just the sheer fact that the Dales are criticising Peter Clarke for "provoking" Andrew into elbowing him and complaining about the length of the ban is ridiculous. Deserves every minute of his ban does Andrew

QPR sack Hasselbaink

Can't really argue with that really. The table is probably hiding how poor he has been there of late. Tim Sherwood is favourite to take over the reigns, but I'd love to see Holloway go back there!

Two points dropped yesterday. We thoroughly deserved to win, but a lack of cutting edge, switching off at a set-piece and rank bad refereeing (yet again) cost us.

First point, we need a big striker. Nahki played well, dropping deep and looking dangerous, but we didn't have enough presence in the penalty area. We lacked the options at times to get a quality ball in. And given how deep Birmingham sat, we needed that alternative which couldn't be cut out.

Second point, it's hard when all their players are taller, but we lost 3 headers. Only thing they did all afternoon, just to rub salt in the wounds. Only way they were going to score, and they did. Smith was probably fouled at the back stick, but should have been stronger when the lad got a run on him.

Third point, Jesus Christ he was bad. The free-kick we didn't defend properly wasn't a free-kick - Mooy took the ball and Jutkiewicz fell over. In fact, he fell for Birmingham falling over an awful lot. He seemed to have Clayton Donaldson twigged early on, when he told the diving wee so and so to get up after Hefele was just too strong for him, but after that any time they fell over he blew. And they fell over a lot. Not just going over softly, outright dives. Gleeson did the whole clutching face in his hands after jumping for a ball with nobody actually around him. To contrast that, Wells got tripped in the box and he just ignored it despite it being a penalty. And he let Birmingham bully him. They were in his face, crowding him, berating him and influencing him all afternoon, and he did nothing about it, and I think all know my views on crowding officials.

So... top of the table, 7 league wins in a row, and building a gap on the play-offs. Not bad, even if I hear the second half v Cardiff left lots to be desired.

Surprised Norwich seem to be falling apart at the minute. They were appalling at Brighton last week, and apparently were second best against Leeds. But I guess there's a hazard now they've committed to Neil of then going and sacking him, hiring in someone from the lower league treadmill that takes them backwards, and they get stuck in the 2nd tier for a while. Perhaps. At the least, he got them promoted when I didn't think they would in 2014-15 and were a few individual errors from staying up last year, so its not like they're that abominable atm. Even if some of their fans seem to think so, judging by social media. As per.

As for JFH, feels a bit odd they were quick to back him at QPR after he surfaced in the Telegraph corruption allegations, and now they've sacked him almost as quickly. But given they've started largely badly, can't really say that its a surprise on football terms, given the end of manager job security seems to be approaching terminal velocity.

Similar to me tbf. What the fuck did Andrew think he was doing?

Fuck off Flitcroft

Well, he has!

And thank fucking fuck for that!

After yesterday's SHAMBOLIC 5-0 defeat at Wimbledon we'd have been the first team to play its home games in front of away supporters only if he were to stay. We've been absolutely woeful the last couple of weeks and Flicker's stubborness, naivety and his sheer quality at falling out with his players were his downfall. Depsite all the recent troubles, let's not forget about all the good things during his tenure. Remember, we were on our way to the conference when he arrived, and got us promoted last season. Tranmere away one of the best days if not the best day I've ever had as a Bury supporter. Our cup run last season also brought us the great games at Rochdale and Bratfud which will long in my memory. However, it's the right call, and I'm glad our chairman made it. Be best for both parties.

Leaves us with the big question: WHO NEXT?

Well, some interesting names available. I personally do think someone like Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink would do well here, or someone like Russell Slade as our clubs would tick all of the boxes he excels in (small budget, low fan base, etc). As always, due to him being a local boy the name NEVILLE (Phil in this case) is being thown in. According to SkyBet his odds crashed down from 30/1 to 3/1 in no time. For now it's Ryan Kidd and Chris Brass in charge, so why not give them some support in the meantime eh?

On paper that Bury team is very handy and can do some real damage. The right manager with that side would stand a chance of promotion. Russell Slade would be an excellent shout.

Wow, Bury really hate going to Wimbledon. That's 10 conceded against them now?

Had to lose at some point, shame it was so pitifully. Neither the fans nor the players were up for the game today, maybe complacency on both parts. Grimsby played very well to their credit; played us well and took their chances - Omar Bogle is a very good player for this level.

Good chance for a quick turnaround to Tuesday at home where it'll be bitterly cold, I'll drive an hour 15 there and 1 hour 45 home because the main road is closed and we'll lose in the 97th minute.

Even when we're top of the league I'm still pessimistic.

Massive improvement today however because we scored one goal today!!!!!!! Actually even 13 in 3 games of add in the away match we played at Wimbledon in L2 2014/15 lolz.

To summarize the game: WHAT THE ACTUAL FEKKING FEKK??? Absolutely furious and sigusted having to watch that. How the hell is it even possible to concede three fekking goals in three minutes?? Like literally, if you don't have a spontanious chromosome outburst on the pitch and put three or four at least half decent passes together you should be keeping a clean sheet for anohter two minutes. But no, our professional footballers can't even do that. Antony Kay, Leon Barnett, Tom Soares, you name them, they all fekked it up. It was brutal. 14 goals in the last three league games is unacceptable.

However, there are positives to take from this, as it seems very unlikely our caretakers should even be near the job. Absolutely crucial to get the right man now. We're on a fekking slide to Narnia at this rate!

Goals conceded from open play: 6.

Goals conceded from set-pieces: 15.

Goals scored from open play: 18.

Goals scored from set-pieces: 1.

I mean, we score some wonderful goals. Billing's goal today is the best goal scored at this level this season. It's a piece of technical genius - he's running across goal and somehow manages to strike it first time on the volley into the back of the net, effectively behind him at the angle he's running, all from 25 yards. The first goal is also a wonderful piece of football - Palmer's vision, Smith's run. Playing like that, there's not a more attractive side in the country.

But we can't defend set-pieces, which is criminal. We can't score them either. It's been a problem for years and we just can't solve it. We've scored fewer set-pieces than anyone in the division since we came up. It's an absolute travesty. It's such a basic part of the game that we should be sorting it, but we're conceding almost a goal a game at the moment, over the course of the first third of the season. Sort this weakness out and we'll be absolutely fine, but it's such a massive weakness.

We need to give Coleman a chance in goal, too. Two goals were down to Ward today - the first one he has to come and claim and the second is just poor goalkeeping. He doesn't command his area and needs to be told what to do. Coleman deserves his chance after Ward's recent form.

Despite that, we're still fourth with an on paper easier run of games. Norwich are in worse form despite spending squillions, too. Which is reassuring. Get some points on the board and we'll arrest the decline. But it's such a frustrating problem.

Rob Greene lol

Well... we're not going to face such a generous goalkeeper every week.

9 points clear of 3rd now. Can't complain with that.