Football Season 2025/2026

[mikehughescq]

Back home finally. Weather issues proved to be somewhat overhyped albeit that we still had to taxi from Chester to Wrexham.

A classic FA Cup game with much drama in the background. Mullin laughably arguing he should be in the 25 and on the bench. Max out of the squad completely for the first time this season. Take your pick. Slight groin tweak? An opportunity to have a rest, or, a bid received from Villa?

Best away performer there was the offspring’s partner - a Forest fan - although they did buy a half and half scarf pre match.

An amusingly high number of highlights.

The Sean Dyche “Gorillas in the Mist” howl of anguish as the Guardian called it. The joy of Cacace coming back from two months of injury to score his first goal for us. The free kick save by Arthur. MOTM performances from Doyle, Arthur and Smith. The sense that the Smith miss was a turning point. Six great goals whichever way you dress it up. Being dead on our feet at 70 minutes but getting through another 50 minutes whilst still carrying a threat on the break. Arthur’s first penalty save. Morgan Gibbs-White giving it large to the Tech End after scoring his penalty only to find himself stuck in front of them rightly taking pelters a couple of minutes later when Forest lost on penalties. The fact 10,000 could see Macca was aiming for row Z and duly hit it.

On balance I’ll go for Dobbo’s free kick. The finest indirect free kick I’ve seen in the flesh.

I like Dyche but his criticism of Forest first half was well out of line. He had little choice but to rotate. Despite doing so they dominated possession. We played largely on the break and caught a break when against the run of play we took our two chances. The bigger problem he has was exposed second half when he brought the bigger guns on and they largely didn’t deliver. Hudson Odoi was excellent. Gibbs-White thought he was a midfielder and kept dropping deep to try and make things happen. He was beautiful to watch but completely ignored Dyche trying to get him up front. Extraordinary indiscipline.

[mikehughescq]

Afraid I despise the narrative around Macclesfield and Palace. Have now read in multiple places about what a big shock this was etc. Here’s a slightly more nuanced take.

Palace are a club owned by an ego with not quite enough money to do much beyond buy cheap and sell big. He got lucky with the current manager but now has a level of success which merely highlights the lack of money to give the manager a squad rather than a team stretched by multiple competitions and with injuries which appear a direct consequence of too many players simply playing too much football. Ultimately that’s a football issue not a Palace issue but sooner or later a manager has to prioritise survival and protect his players at cost to his own reputation. Palace would have been at risk today no matter who they played.

The romantic version of the Macc story is that they were wound up after financial mismanagement by the owner and a wonderful phoenix club emerged. Hmm. Important to remember they were liquidated following very deliberate overspending which, unusually, several staff knew was unsustainable but decided to exploit anyway for personal gain. The subsequent moaning about how much they were owed sticks in the craw. Ditto the claims of ground closures for safety reasons. Several games actually called off when there was nothing wrong just as a way to save money. The owner walked with zero known sanction. Those who colluded? Ditto.

[crispyduck]

A fair assessment of the Palace situation Mike

[MDS]

Of course it’s a big shock, @mikehughescq. The basic facts are a PL side, current FA Cup holders, were beaten by a team from mid-table in the National League North. Palace’s (arguably) overachievement last season and Macclesfield’s previous ownership problems don’t detract from the headline or place in the record-book.

[mikehughescq]

The history books will show NLN beat cup holders and PL team but that’s not the story at all. Nice for the fraudsters at Macc and the media but complete BS. It’s no more a shock than our win last night.

On paper, and if one is so simplistic about football that only the ‘’basic facts” matter, then it’s a shock. For anyone paying any kind of attention it was as good as a dead cert as you were going to get. A team with a squad stretched far beyond its limits playing a one off cup game on a 4G pitch which can cause players all manner of interesting injuries so they’re forced to rest their best player. A manager threatening to not renew his contract if the owner doesn’t fund a squad beyond the first team so he plays several other fringe players. A perfect example the night before of only funding the first team. Glasners pre match comments suggested very clearly he knew there was a realistic risk today. His post match comments mirror those of Dyche last night. No choice but to hang the players out to dry when that wasn’t really what was going on at all.

There is no world in which this Palace team at this point in time were ever going beyond this round unless incredibly lucky. They know that. Deep down anyone watching them this season knew that.

The other thing at play here, again only if people pay attention, is that Macc are in no sense a National League North side. Before Savage left for FGR he’d essentially built a cheaper version of the team which got us out of the National League. That team is packed full of players who are easily L2 quality and at least 3 who are L1 as well as one who’s being tracked by PL and Championship clubs. The so called chasm between the two was roughly 50% of what it’s been asserted to be. Only Rooney’s relative inexperience sees them in mid table.

I take no part in such things but my fellow Manc Reds regularly have accumulators on match days and one off bets. No fewer than five, yes five, of my fellow fans have won huge amounts of money today based on a Macc win. The bookies were offering 13/1, which again adds to the picture as those are not exactly what one might describe as long odds. I think the lowest win was £260 and the highest, as part of an “acca” was in excess of £50,000. He’s allegedly in the papers tomorrow as a Macc fan but he thinks it may not run if the bookies confirm that he’s not. 34 years ago you could have got 8/1 on us beating Arsenal. Again, stats portrayed as a shock now was back then really not so much.

Just like today, the narrative around that “shock” is complete BS. It remains “Wrexham had just finished 92nd and Arsenal were league champions”.

The reality “at the point in time” (which, like today, was the crucial bit) was that Flynn had built a young, attractive exciting team with 3 old heads and they were ready to fly. We weren’t yet setting the world on fire but anyone who’d seen us up to that match knew that 16th place didn’t really do justice to how much we’d improved despite results being indifferent. All that game did was light the blue touch paper.

The “League Champions Arsenal” has been equally used to misrepresent the facts. At the point we played them they’d had such a wretched Christmas that they were 7th and their title defence was over. They’d not won an away game in 3 months… even today the story of that game reads as 90 places between them” when it was actually 79.

So yeah, today was a “shock” if you want to believe in BS. In the real world, not a shock at all. The idea that the actual facts of a shock somehow shouldn’t detract from the fiction of it is one I will always find disturbing. These are tunes in which facts should matter no matter what the context.

[mikehughescq]

Here’s my actual pre-season prediction .

Now granted there was an earlier post but that also failed to make a prediction. It merely noted that we faced certain challenges i.e. lowest capacity in the division, no training ground, the need to offload a load of players on long contracts and maybe having 3/4 players of sufficient quality.

At the time of writing we’ve won a mere one game in the FA Cup. A classic but just the one. We’re on a lovely run in the league but it was just 23 days ago we lost to Swansea and were 5 games without a win.

My prediction remains “no idea”.

[Christopher_M]

From the BBC’s HYS following Southampton’s second half performance, away at Donny in the Cup: ‘Saints folded quicker than the laundry.’

[mikehughescq]

This rings true for me.

[mikehughescq]

… but this amuses me no end . Norwich did actually get worse after he left.

“Ducks…”

[JohnF]

We were poor with him!

[mikehughescq]

Agreed, but still worse without .

[JohnF]

There was less aimless pointing and arguing with the ref.
The biggest waste of money since Naismith!

[mikehughescq]

Ah, “leadership”.

[MDS]

I thought for a moment that headline was referring to the club 20-odd miles further East.

[Canaryfan]

I understand that there’s player unrest at Carrow Road after today’s cup game.

Apparently most didn’t realise that cup competitions can be more than one game, lose & go home, & are furious to learn they don’t get paid for any extra games……..

I feel awful saying that I didn’t expect a win today but pleased to get it wrong. It must have lifted spirits so I hope they can be carried over to our league form.

PS - Anyone know any good hotels in the Wembley area?

[mikehughescq]

I thought there was an awful lot to enjoy in that match if you were a Norwich fan. Walsall are a damned good team and they were taken apart. What I thought augured well was that all five goals were very different and involved some sublime touches, flicks and turns. That’s always a sign of confidence no matter who the opposition.

I’m also feeling quite smug, as many weeks before the season started, I expressed some surprise Sheffield United had let Slimane go. Some months later when we visited Carrow Road I expressed the view that Jurasek was an excellent player (to the extent we had to pull Doyle at half time to cope with him).

Good to see both playing with a smile on their faces. I still don’t rate Clement but he’s inarguably made a huge difference so far.

[JohnF]

Josh Sargent wants to leave!!!
Refused to play today and club in talks with Toronto $18m.
He’s contracted until 2028 so I’d hope for £20m.
Good job Makama is knocking them in.
Never a dull moment with Norwich.

[Canaryfan]

You know that I have never really had a very high opinion of Sargent, finding his overall game somewhat lacking for a top class striker. Fine if he is facing the goal & the ball is placed in front of him but unable to make something out of nothing, unlike Pukki & Holt.

I’m not surprised that no Premiership club appears to be chasing him as, to me, he looks a competent Championship forward at best.

With him supposedly refusing to play, I wonder if he has fallen out of favour with Clement?

It would be nice if, for a change, we play hard ball with Toronto & try & get the maximum for him, instead of letting players go at the first offer as we usually seem to do. Either way, let Clement spend the money, not Knapper.

Role on the next game. Oh, wait a minute………

[JohnF]

Except for Manning time, when everything went down the drain, Sargent has a very good scoring record and also troubles defences with his movement.
I think it’s his injury record that’s the biggest factor any prospective buyer would be wary of.
I’d hate to lose him in our current predicament but if a player wishes to go then sell him for the best price and avoid compounding matters with the disruption of trying to retain him.
The worrying thing is Clement stated Sargent will not be leaving this month.
I really hope this doesn’t become a matter of wills and Clement leaves, that would be big trouble.

[Canaryfan]

If it comes down to a battle of wills then the manager must have the backing of his board & win. If he doesn’t then anarchy will ensue & the club will rapidly fall apart.

I have stated here before that Lambert made very clear early on who was boss. The board backed him & the rest is history. Clement must stamp his authority on the team &, very quickly, demonstrate that he knows what he is doing.

Look at Sir Alex at Old Trafford. Not even the biggest stars were allowed to get away with anything. If I remember correctly, MU were quite successful for a time…..

Sargent should be treated as any employee would be in most walks of life. If he won’t do the job he is paid for, don’t pay him. If he still doesn’t toe the line, despite wanting to keep him, get rid.

I must accept that you have seen a lot more of him than I have & that my assessment of his abilities may be unfair. However, I do think it is telling that interest in him from top English clubs has all but disappeared as his early season form followed our dismal decent down the table.