The way things are going, I wonder how many fans we will have left to drink anywhere if & when this goes ahead.
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The biggest single complaint fans have about our play is that Sargent is isolated up front negating his threat and are worried he’ll want to leave in January.
After sixteen games we have no discernible style or system of play, all we do is play possession football for the sake of it which is truly boring to watch.
The attendances are dropping off as a consequence of the above.
On top of this a fortune has been spent on players who are not up to the job, the perfect storm for any club.
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Looks like time has run out for Bloomfield and the trigger has been pulled. It is a shame, he was a decent bloke (as was Edwards before him - & look what he has moved on to!) but the expectation is high this season and the performances have been dire and as the players have said, they have got used to losing but the players also need to be held to account for some pretty half hearted football. Bloomfield’s post match interviews have been more and more depressing with no real answers. I hope that the board take this seriously this time round and not rely on a ‘hopeful’ posting or a Postecoglou (should he become available 
). The international break will at least give us time to breathe and fingers crossed, rediscover the passion and commitment that has been lacking. Watch this space…
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Hilariously I’m going to end up as the thread optimist at this rate. 
Luton fascinate me. A push upwards which, in very broad terms (I know I’m missing out loads of detail here), led to you getting too close to the sun and spiralling into non-league. The moment you’re out of non-league the upward arc begins again. You hit the PL but are now accelerating into a fairly disastrous doom spiral. One wrong move at this point and you’ll be back in non-league and wondering what the heck happened.
Football is always cyclical and I’m not so stupid I don’t believe it couldn’t happen to us too.
I rate Bloomfield very highly. The Wycombe team he built really was superb even when you took Kone out of it. Dodds managed to screw them up and it seems unlikely to change in the short term but Luton looked exactly the right move for him. I suspect he has a “bad apples” issue. Players he needs out but which nobody wants. Horrendously, that won’t change with a managerial change but might with a further relegation.
As is typical with football clubs, you’ll likely target the decent manager, get a new guy in, get relegated anyway and then find you need to replace the new guy with someone of the competence of Bloomfield to have a chance of getting going back up again.
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Yep, spot on Mike and we always have such a high expectation but to be honest just give me some decent football at the moment. I like your comment about the thread optimist . It will always be cyclical for teams such as Luton: we were very fortunate to get out of non-league and then to process reasonably rapidly to the Prem (somehow all the dots aligned) but the seasons before that we were relegation candidates which is easily forgotten. I can’t think that we still have bad apples with the clear out that we have just had unless we have taken on more of them in the transfer window but there was something definitely amiss. We will roll the dice with another manager and see how that plays out…who knows. Another relegation would be hilarious. In the meantime I am hoping that Bloomfield has a chance to rebuild his reputation with another team and we have a backroom of ex-Hatters stepping up in the interim.
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That’s quite telling. The team he built at Wycombe played some seriously decent football. They were our first game back in L1. Going into that game our perspective was focused on two things.
Firstly, that our opening performance ought not to look like our opener against MK Dons the previous season. The opening 20 minutes of that game were terrifying. We were rabbits frozen in the headlights.
The second thing was that everyone had told us pre season that the expectation was that Wycombe would be mid table at best.
It was a great great game of football, contained the goal from Marriott, which was heading for our goal of the season until Mullin came along, and was both reassuring but also terrifying.
Reassuring because we were far better than the MK Dons game and played some really good stuff. Terrifying because we looked at them and thought “Blimey, that’s what mid table looks like”.
Our fans were enraged at the goals we conceded that day but, when you look at what they did until he left, it suddenly looked like an excellent result.
Challinor is building up Stockport into promotion contenders once again but last season was transitional for them and they knew it. A fair few young kids who needed protecting in big games so they changed tactically to keep things much tighter and less expansive than they’d usually play.
I went to watch Wycombe play them at Edgeley last November as we’d not a game until the weekend. Wycombe put 5 past them and tbh it could have been 10. Played the best football of anyone we saw last season, including Birmingham.
For that to not be repeated at Luton suggests something very amiss for me.
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I think it’s cyclical for everyone.
Liverpool dominance was ended by United. United dominance ended by Chelsea and then City. City dominance will end soon enough.
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That report is very telling Mike & I think that your last sentence does it for me: there is something very amiss I think and a new manager might just be papering over something sitting deeper. Regardless, we certainly have the knack of turning proven strikers impotent.
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Did you ever watch us in non-league? 
They all dried up when they came to us. Andy Bishop, Alex Reid, Connor Jennings, Chris Holroyd. Even worse with midfielders.
People whining about the fact we’ve not won at home yet need to be forcibly reminded of those 15 years and be equally forcibly reminded that we’ve scored in every game this season. Scroll back 5 years and there were entire 90 minutes without chances and an entire month without goals or points.
Incidentally, would welcome your take on Issa Kabore. Our more knee jerk fans are entranced whereas I think his crosses are at best speculative and he likes a lie down with an alleged injury a little too long. Defensively more than good enough for the Championship and lightning pace obviously but I’m not seeing any of his previous loan clubs bemoaning his return to City.
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Avoid Russell Martin and especially Steve Bruce 
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That made me laugh Mike…I thought that it was just us & strikers! Kabore is an interesting one: he was a bit injury prone, had some games where he absolutely shone with a great turn of pace. His delivery was always suspect and when he was bad, he was very bad. We might have thought about signing him but I guess the drop and a few other things likely prevented that. Yep, certainly ok for the Championship as long as you take the good with the bad.
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& what connects them?
Oh yes…
I’d argue literally nothing connects them 
.
Martin has a set of tactics from which he won’t deviate. Nothing unusual there. Didn’t get PL level players to execute it at Southampton so it cost him his job. Bumped up against player power at Rangers and it cost him his job. Whether you like or believe in his tactics is another thing altogether.
Bruce on the other hand is famous for literally having no tactics. His modus operandi is that you bring in good players in the right position and they should know what to do. He’s effectively a glorified cheerleader.
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My connection was supposed to be light hearted.
They both played for us. I wouldn’t want either as manager.
Tobe fair, Martin was a good player & Bruce was desperately unlucky never to win an England cap.
My response was equally meant to be light-hearted. I’ve a sense you lot are losing heart.
And before the season even gets serious, from the beginning of November to the end of March, too! 
We should never have let Barnes go!
On a serious note I wish we’d never let Kieran Scott go to Middlesbrough he was the person who made us a lot of money and produced entertaining football.
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It’s getting increasingly difficult to look on the bright side.
Didn’t expect to see new owner, manager & influx of new players to turn us into a Premiership side in waiting instantly.
Equally, didn’t expect everything to go south in such a spectacular manner. I see no signs of improvement at all at the moment.
I hope we stop bringing in foreign players from obscure leagues & am disappointed that the new owners have continued to do so, dispite so many disappointments under the previous regime.
OK, we can’t compete financially with the big boys for the better foreign imports so why aren’t we recruiting from the lower English leagues? I can believe that there aren’t some hidden gems there if you care to look for them. It appears that if your name is Joe Bloggs/Fred Smith etc. you can’t possibly be as good as a foreign player with an unpronounceable name.
Also, I doubt if our foreign scouting network is as sophisticated as that of the big boys, if such a network actually exists. I suspect that most of our purchases are made from videoes sent to the SD by the players agents. If actual scouts have been watch the players we have signed I would have to question their abilities.
So, yes, losing heart at the moment but like the majority of fans everywhere, better times are likely round the corner. Surely…
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At this stage in the season, I believe it’s possible that your team might be suffering as a consequence of being ‘data-driven’. Seems that nearly everything in the modern game can have a metric on it. But as far as I know, there is not yet one for ‘gelling’. But we all recognise it when we see it.
The above imo is broadly applicable to my own team, perhaps yours too.
Edit: I have just looked at this again and it looks a bit motherhood and apple pie. But I’m sure everyone gets it.
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No such thing as an international friendly with those two nations but an interesting match nevertheless. Usual pattern with Wales under Bellamy has been 45 fantastic minutes of fantastic pressing and high octane on the floor football followed by a literal running out of puff. He’s been waiting for someone to turn up second half but they almost never have so… new tactics. Abandon everything asked and expected of you for 30 minutes and see if you then have some second half energy. Clearly worked, almost, if it weren’t for a dreadful couple of early goals and then an unstoppable one .
Took Wales until 35 minutes to get over their own stupidity at the back and after that it was pretty even. In a parallel universe, where the fine margins fall Wales way, then they pull two goals back second half but them’s the breaks.
Thought I’d try Wembley’s ADC and, remarkably, it was okay. Interesting to hear from friends that neither TV commentary spotted that Wales twice changed formation whilst both radio and ADC did.
Onwards to Gwlad Belg for tomorrow nights crunch game.