In that case I can claim a partial assist as I’m just out of shot in the crowd!
It’s not Barnes it’s the quality of the pass from Sara and Sainz pulling the deeper defender wide.
Any way Swansea next and possible play off place.
Might help if you explained that John. The deeper defender momentarily came off his man because he’s seen the runner inside the winger. He then sees the pass the other side of him and comes back. Dickie on the other hand, the defender marking Barnes and then also momentarily caught between dropping off with him or chasing back, starts back but has lost the fraction he needed because Barnes movement made him decide “him or me”. He ends up being the guy who tries to make contact, which is quite impressive given that the other lad was originally closer, but they end up tripping over each other.
I can’t embed the video else I would.
Swansea will be an entertaining but tense game. Hopefully Wagner will see what a high line they play and exploit it accordingly. It is bizarre.
Seems rather sad and wrong that Coventry now have to pick themselves up to face their nearest league rivals Hull midweek. It will be interesting to see if that plays to your advantage. Given the way the fixtures have fallen I actually think you’re pretty much home and dry for a play off place.
Interesting to note the differences in our fan base. There is already a small but growing view that it would be a bad mistake for our owners to aim for the EPL. The Championship and good cup runs are a potentially sustainable level for us but it’s going to take 2 or 3 seasons plus lots of infrastructure putting in place to get us there. There is little point getting out of league one if we then come straight back down again.
An all action game tonight at The Riverside, with The Mighty Whites cruising to a seemingly comfortable 4 - 2 victory, until Boro scored a third, with 3 minutes of normal time remaining.
We then had a further 9 minutes of squeaky bum time, until it ended with a Leeds win, (just), and we eased back up to second place.
Phew!
M.O.T.
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Sloppy & pedestrian yet we score 4 goals and leave us all in need of gas and air.
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For a neutral the Championship has been fabulous this season. The title is undecided. The playoffs are undecided. Relegation is undecided. With 2/3 games to go you couldn’t ask for anything more really.
Not sure there’s any point in commenting on the quality of performance. At this point of the season you’re either blasting over the line in a carefree fashion or running on empty hoping no more wheels fall off. It’s nothing to be critical of. It’s what a normal season looks like.
Across all 5 top divisions you could say that only ourselves and Stockport blasted over the line and that only after periods where we both played dismally and got results to match. Top of the EPL no-one is purring. They look leggy and tired. Chesterfield had an even bigger lead than Leicester and tried their best to blow it. Portsmouth have wobbled too. Mansfield were flying but have limped in.
The play off battles have been similar. Barnsley have played great football and have looked a certainty all season. Now after what was really a blip of the sort every team has they are managerless. The less said about Birmingham the better but who would have bet against Stevenage and on Lincoln. In our division there are 7 teams who have spent most of the season in the top 7 now in mid table or worse. It’s great.Who would have bet on a Donny team who spent the first half of the season in the bottom 8 having the longest unbeaten run of anyone bar Mansfield and being in contention for a play off place on final day.
This is what a football season routinely looks like though. Wonderful.
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I have no response other than likely a fairly world weary one 
One of the more naive things our owners did from the off was make it explicitly clear to our squad that they would be fully supported in any venture outside of football. Ollie already has his fairly bland clothing line. Jordan Davies is opening a restaurant, Max Cleworth is becoming a droll deadpan star of club videos, Mullin annd McClean appear to have entered politics and so on. I’m sure this was well intentioned and very relevant at both National League and even League Two level but it clearly becomes more problematic as we rise up the pyramid. Fortunately we’re ahead of schedule and shouldn’t see a further promotion for two maybe three seasons and there are obviously no guarantees on any of that so I guess they get away with all this kind of extra curricular nonsense for now.
It’s great cross-branding but not hard to understand why the fans of other clubs become weary with it all.
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I’m dry as dust about all this flim-flam as well, Mike. I just want to see how my eleven men in red and white get on versus the other lot, 3pm Saturday. Home and away. And then I want a match report. And we will tot up in the first week of May.
Obviously the commercial tie-ups, the partnerships yes, I accept it’s got to be done, but despite anything the Saints website tells me about the deals, or the backstage videos, I’m not that interested.
All this is in the context of a report on the Media page of yesterday’s i paper saying that Man City have 85 in the media team. Their Netflix documentary was actually made by the club, and then sold to Netflix. They reckon their content providers grow the brand, massively increasing their revenues etc.
Which is a rather long-winded way of saying it’s only going one way. Probably for all of us!
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“Flim-flam” is an excellent term for it all. There are just endless layers of irony.
Many Wrexham fans spent years emeshed in the murky world of football finance and whilst that ultimately saved the club there was that lovely moment when many of us thought “Wow, now we can just go to the football” and of course that turns out to not be true as the price we pay this time is both literal and metaphorical. From one circus to another.
There is no game in which otherwise good people in our stand don’t crane their heads to see if the owners are in or take weird selfies with an owner in the distance. There is no opportunity for “growing the brand” which will be missed. The very type of accountability and transparency which led to the club and ground being separated, first for nefarious gain and then for safety sake, has re-emerged and puts us in clear danger. The presenting of us as “little Wrexham” is of course a nonsense and the owners who said “no loans, ever” now appear to have three loans in place. Our documentary is not obviously for our profit as there has never been any statement of where the monies go. Only the US tour, which was worth £8m, is money which comes directly to us. Loans will need to be repaid. Debt will accrue. A stagnant season or two will expose Shaun Harvey for all to see what he really is, and so on.
Allied to this has been a stunningly accelerated sense of entitlement. That ranges from fans (or indeed pub landlords) grabbing tickets for matches when others are struggling to taking the mickey out of Crewe and their Ice Cream Van Stand, which doesn’t sell ice-cream, as though it matters or somehow makes them that vile “tin pot” phrase. How easily we forget that we’re the Stok Cold Brew Racecourse but we can’t get Stok Cold Brew within the ground. I stare out at the Wrexham Lager Stand knowing full well you can get lots of things there but definitely not Wrexham Lager any more.
Then there are the fans of all ages who try to distinguish between themselves and newer fans. The fake discussions about loyalty schemes which are really young kids saying “I want to still go to away games and be a drunken arse” and so on.
I find myself still reading the Non-League Paper somewhat nostalgically.
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Stunning performance by the Foxes this evening which effectively ends Southampton’s hopes of an automatic promotion slot. Leicester seem to have overcome their recent wobble and again look nailed-on for an instant return to the PL.
Proving, if more proof were needed, that breaking the financial rules pretty much goes unpunished (unless the club goes into admin when the authorities give the club a right kicking) until it’s too late. But yes, it’s 1 from 2 now for 2nd place.
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Certainly didn’t see that result coming but it does look like Leicester have escaped their sticky period at the right moment.
Worth looking at the bottom of League One where not only could Cambridge drop into the bottom 4 for the 1st time on the last day of the season but Cheltenham could complete one of the great escapes. Top of League Two sees Doncaster’s incredible run put them in a play off place for the 1st time with 1 game left and everyone from Doncaster in 5th to Walsall in 10th is still in contention.
Just read that the gap between Langstaff and Mullin may be too big to claw back on Saturday, but 1 goal for Mullin and he’ll become the 1st player to ever score 25 goals or more in 4 consecutive seasons in the top 6 tiers of English Football.
Of course despite missing 6 weeks with a punctured lung and 4 broken ribs Mullin is miles ahead on goals per minute.
Talking of top scorers, I notice Szmodics is top for the Championship. Quite amazing given Blackburn’s position in the table.
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Interesting piece in The Groan about Henry Winter being made redundant by The Times last week and what that might mean for the future of football media. One immediate consequence is that I have just subscribed to Henry’s daily piece via Substack. Will give it a go
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The Mighty Whites rocked up at Loftus Road tonight, hoping to lay to rest the question of whether we might avoid the playoffs, and they certainly managed to do that, going down 4 -0 to QPR, who were much the better team on the night.
With our porous defence, non-existent midfield, and our totally inept attacking force, we deserved nothing better from this game.
Still, we must surely be seen as the most polite, well mannered team in The Championship, as we seemed to take the view that, since the match ball had been provided by QPR, it was only fair that we contrive to return it to them at every possible opportunity.
Playoffs, here we come, and with this run of form we’re in, not much hope there, is there?
M.O.T. 
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So Norwich vs WBA for the playoffs final then 
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On a brighter note, we’re nowhere near ready to compete in the EPL. Doubt I’m the only one surprised we came this close as it always looked likely we’d need more than 1 transfer window to sort out Orta’s mess. Despite all of that, the lack of fight tonight was unacceptable. We’re a side built on defence which can’t defend all of a sudden.
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I’d agree, we’re well short of EPL standard, and as things are, we’d simply get battered most weeks.
The worry is that another transfer window won’t help consolidate what we have, for another season in The Championship, since at least 4 or 5 of our best players will no doubt be offski.
True but those ‘best’ players have lacked the required temperament since the international break culminating in tonight’s gutless offering.
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