BFTG - Kidderminster (A)

[JedMaxwell]

I went, I did not enjoy it in the slightest.

For me Pauno has let down those youngsters, who he dropped into an unfamiliar XI with an incredibly negative game plan. They will have seen the reaction of the supporters at the end and it will not be good experience for them.

I feel desperately sorry for Rafael. I thought he had a decent game until the first mistake, then he just fell apart. It's a shame because he's been so solid for us in general, and just looks like he has the yips now. Looks like he could be out as Andresson has been called back. What I will say, is I hope some fans have longer memories and realise he wasn't terrible for us overall, just bad at the end. He's also a good person by all accounts, which means a lot for a club like us.

I thought Holzman looked very assured and Tetek was OK, but he really needs to get time in midfield as he will be getting called upon there much more often as time goes on.

I'm glad Puscas scored but he just looks totally deflated and lacking in confidence, even after the goal. There's real ability there but we've never found a way to harness it properly, and now sadly he needs a move. Wouldn't be surprised if his career got re-ignited elsewhere and we'd have to mark him down as another expensive mistake.

Good to see Rinomhota back from injury, hopefully he can stay fit.

Lastly on the playing side, Araruna's injury was just horrible to see. Having had such a long lay-off and having to do the terrible, boring repetitive rehab work involved for over a year, to last barely two minutes before getting another injury really is heart-breaking. I'm not sure we'll ever see him play for us again, but I do hope he gets fit again and can play in the future.

I think we missed a chance to get a win and some more match fitness for the first-teamers. Regardless of whether it was a cup game, we should be getting a win against the lowest-ranked team. We also had five subs so could have got quite a few players some minutes. Instead we play a weird thrown-together XI and sit back, letting a team with nothing to lose go for it and get a deserved win. I know we're never gonna win the cup but a decent result here would've helped us in the league, no doubt.

I'm not one who wants managers out and I think they should be given time to get their ideas across and get players in. Last year we had an identity but we couldn't last the distance, but this year we are just devoid of quality, ideas and even worse, fight. If we had a backbone, we'd have got through Saturday but I don't think the manager can motivate the team anymore. Once that happens, I think it's time to get rid sadly.

On Warnock, he loves being a pantomime villain and for a long time we enjoyed booing and hissing at him. But to be perfectly honest, back then we were well-run and successful and he managed teams we were in direct competition with. Now we're desperate for some stability because relegation to League One could ruin us. He's had a long and successful managerial career, and he's proud of his record, so if we did turn to him he'd do his absolute best to keep us up. It wouldn't be great to watch and we'd never be far from turning on him, but we're in no position to be picky about that if we do sack Pauno.

Whatever grudges anyone has against Warnock, the fact remains that he's a highly experienced manager at this level, won't take rubbish and knows how to get failing teams winning games again. Our fans need to drop sentiment and recognise that we need results. If we do go for a new manager then Warnock would increase our chances of temporarily getting the results needed to keep us up. He may not be popular but if him as our manager for even 4 months stops us spending 10 years in league one and two like Portsmouth and Bradford have then it's a no brainer.

Exactly. Good short-term appointment.

[Snowflake Royal]

You thought Holzman looked assured!?

I thought he looked terrified and all over the place.

[JedMaxwell]

You thought Holzman looked assured!?

I thought he looked terrified and all over the place.

I thought he was reasonable considering it was his senior debut and he had two different partners and three different full-backs on his side. He stuck to his task quite well overall and came out with a bit of credit for me. Granted I don't think he's the answer to our defensive problems at the moment, but I'd say he did alright.

[SCIAG]

Have we ever had any success with players we’ve spent good money on?

Lita comes to mind, you’d have to argue Joao too. But few & far between.

Back to Puscas. Pauno could’ve played Clarke up top with him. I mean…playing a team 4 leagues below was a perfect opportunity to try 2 up front and actually try and go for the win. But no, he decided to stick Puscas up top by himself, which he already knows isn’t very effective.

Pauno has lost it. He’s far from the only responsible one here, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to keep faith in his abilities

Depends how you define “good money”. Murty and Convey both cost about £750k which was a lot at the time, particularly when we signed Murty.

Our £1m+ signings:

- Lita - hit
- Seol - hit
- Halford - miss
- Bikey - hit
- Fae - miss
- Rosenior - hit but only at a lower level
- Matejovsky - miss
- Mills - hit?
- Leigertwood - hit
- Gunter - hit but only at a lower level
- Mariappa - resounding hit
- Blackman - miss

By this point I think £1m becomes too low a threshold, so above £2m:

- Vydra - miss (just not enough goals)
- Ilori - miss
- Mannone - miss
- Aluko - miss
- Baldock - miss
- Ejaria - hit
- Joao - would be a resounding hit if not for injuries
- Puscas - miss

Looking at it negatively, it’s only really Mariappa where I can say it is a resounding success without any caveats. Lita had long spells where he was awful, Seol trailed off and left after a year, Bikey had his temper, and Ejaria hasn’t quite been with it for a little while.

Looking at it positively, we still made our money back on a lot of “misses” like Fae, Halford, and Blackman as well as Seol and Mills. Gunter and Rosenior weren’t good enough for the PL but gave us good service in the Championship.

[Orion1871]

You thought Holzman looked assured!?

I thought he looked terrified and all over the place.

I thought he was reasonable considering it was his senior debut and he had two different partners and three different full-backs on his side. He stuck to his task quite well overall and came out with a bit of credit for me. Granted I don't think he's the answer to our defensive problems at the moment, but I'd say he did alright.

You don't understand how this place works. If Snowflake says something then he is right, you are wrong and you should be ashamed of yourself for thinking differently to him.

[Zip]

Have we ever had any success with players we’ve spent good money on?

Lita comes to mind, you’d have to argue Joao too. But few & far between.

Back to Puscas. Pauno could’ve played Clarke up top with him. I mean…playing a team 4 leagues below was a perfect opportunity to try 2 up front and actually try and go for the win. But no, he decided to stick Puscas up top by himself, which he already knows isn’t very effective.

Pauno has lost it. He’s far from the only responsible one here, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to keep faith in his abilities

Depends how you define “good money”. Murty and Convey both cost about £750k which was a lot at the time, particularly when we signed Murty.

Our £1m+ signings:

- Lita - hit
- Seol - hit
- Halford - miss
- Bikey - hit
- Fae - miss
- Rosenior - hit but only at a lower level
- Matejovsky - miss
- Mills - hit?
- Leigertwood - hit
- Gunter - hit but only at a lower level
- Mariappa - resounding hit
- Blackman - miss

By this point I think £1m becomes too low a threshold, so above £2m:

- Vydra - miss (just not enough goals)
- Ilori - miss
- Mannone - miss
- Aluko - miss
- Baldock - miss
- Ejaria - hit
- Joao - would be a resounding hit if not for injuries
- Puscas - miss

Looking at it negatively, it’s only really Mariappa where I can say it is a resounding success without any caveats. Lita had long spells where he was awful, Seol trailed off and left after a year, Bikey had his temper, and Ejaria hasn’t quite been with it for a little while.

Looking at it positively, we still made our money back on a lot of “misses” like Fae, Halford, and Blackman as well as Seol and Mills. Gunter and Rosenior weren’t good enough for the PL but gave us good service in the Championship.

Mariappa wasn’t really that much of a success. He didn’t play that many games for us and was sold on for a small profit. Seol also didn’t play that much for us so a sort of so so signing.
Bikey also not really a hit or miss for me. Somewhere in between. Didn’t we sell Blackman for a good profit? Apart from his purple spell he didn’t do much for us but we made very good money on his sale.

[The Royal Forester]

I went, I did not enjoy it in the slightest.

For me Pauno has let down those youngsters, who he dropped into an unfamiliar XI with an incredibly negative game plan. They will have seen the reaction of the supporters at the end and it will not be good experience for them.

I feel desperately sorry for Rafael. I thought he had a decent game until the first mistake, then he just fell apart. It's a shame because he's been so solid for us in general, and just looks like he has the yips now. Looks like he could be out as Andresson has been called back. What I will say, is I hope some fans have longer memories and realise he wasn't terrible for us overall, just bad at the end. He's also a good person by all accounts, which means a lot for a club like us.

I thought Holzman looked very assured and Tetek was OK, but he really needs to get time in midfield as he will be getting called upon there much more often as time goes on.

I'm glad Puscas scored but he just looks totally deflated and lacking in confidence, even after the goal. There's real ability there but we've never found a way to harness it properly, and now sadly he needs a move. Wouldn't be surprised if his career got re-ignited elsewhere and we'd have to mark him down as another expensive mistake.

Good to see Rinomhota back from injury, hopefully he can stay fit.

Lastly on the playing side, Araruna's injury was just horrible to see. Having had such a long lay-off and having to do the terrible, boring repetitive rehab work involved for over a year, to last barely two minutes before getting another injury really is heart-breaking. I'm not sure we'll ever see him play for us again, but I do hope he gets fit again and can play in the future.

I think we missed a chance to get a win and some more match fitness for the first-teamers. Regardless of whether it was a cup game, we should be getting a win against the lowest-ranked team. We also had five subs so could have got quite a few players some minutes. Instead we play a weird thrown-together XI and sit back, letting a team with nothing to lose go for it and get a deserved win. I know we're never gonna win the cup but a decent result here would've helped us in the league, no doubt.

I'm not one who wants managers out and I think they should be given time to get their ideas across and get players in. Last year we had an identity but we couldn't last the distance, but this year we are just devoid of quality, ideas and even worse, fight. If we had a backbone, we'd have got through Saturday but I don't think the manager can motivate the team anymore. Once that happens, I think it's time to get rid sadly.

On Warnock, he loves being a pantomime villain and for a long time we enjoyed booing and hissing at him. But to be perfectly honest, back then we were well-run and successful and he managed teams we were in direct competition with. Now we're desperate for some stability because relegation to League One could ruin us. He's had a long and successful managerial career, and he's proud of his record, so if we did turn to him he'd do his absolute best to keep us up. It wouldn't be great to watch and we'd never be far from turning on him, but we're in no position to be picky about that if we do sack Pauno.

Whatever grudges anyone has against Warnock, the fact remains that he's a highly experienced manager at this level, won't take rubbish and knows how to get failing teams winning games again. Our fans need to drop sentiment and recognise that we need results. If we do go for a new manager then Warnock would increase our chances of temporarily getting the results needed to keep us up. He may not be popular but if him as our manager for even 4 months stops us spending 10 years in league one and two like Portsmouth and Bradford have then it's a no brainer.

If Warnock did come here do you think he would make sure we are relegated as payback for all those insults he's had from us over the years?

[South Coast Royal]

We don't set the price - the home team does.

I'm not sure how many games you attend but with our injury crisis most of the players are close to first choice or returning from injury, with three exceptions. Camara, Holzman and Osaria, We were hardly playing the U23 side and that team should have been capable of beating a team 4 divisions below.

And I don't think playing £10 or £15 to watch that shitshow would have eased the anger at our shambolic performance.

Fair point but Bristowe, Tetek and Araruna are very inexperienced and probably only U/23 level any way so that makes 6 in all and much like a Carabo Cup team.

BTW to add to my earlier examples of teams putting out their best 11, Forest (a team now focusing on the top 6) put out their first team and got a great result.

In my view, the team would have been a lot stronger had we not been playing tonight as well - none of us should be under any illusions that tonights game is the priority. If we'd had a clear week, then we would have seen a slightly stronger side, or at least a stronger bench. So I think tonight and the risk of having players have to go through ET as well played a part.

In comparison, Fulham made 10 changes from their last league game - so means their likely first team tonight will not have played since 20th December. However, unlike us Fulham haven't had COVID, so will have mostly been training normally throughout.

I'm not particularly disagreeing with you and the proof of the pudding will be how fit and firing the team is tonight.

Knowing that so many of our players have missed so many games I thought it worthwhile to check out exactly how many games our players have turned out for, bearing in mind the stuff that is always spouted about the tough schedule in The Championship with supposedly so many games on a Tuesday, Saturday routine (the inference is that it is like that most weeks when in reality it isn't.

So, within our squad so far Laurent has played the most with 24 games with TDB and Swift playing more than 20.

Looking at Chelsea as a comparison these are their top performers for games played :-
Rudiger 27
Mount 27
Jorginho 26
Havertz 24.

So around the highest level of our game , where arguably pressure is greater and with European travel involved, their players do play a lot of games and are not rested (nor obvs so often injured) as much as ours and I would argue that our players need to play more not less.
Also those players will have played International matches as well so might now have appearance numbers in the 30s.

A lot of the Chelsea players were picked on Saturday after a midweek Cup semi-final and they have another Cup semi-final tomorrow where doubtless these regulars will play again whereas our lads have had quite a bit of time off lately and, according to the manager, need games for fitness so why not fcuking well play them?

Incidentally my son told me just now that a few of the fans really had a go at Pauno close-up on Saturday telling him and his coaches to clear off, having asked to know why the club aren't dealing with Ejaria properly when there is a hotel next to our ground that he could be staying at rather than mixing with his large family in a covid hotspot.

[Hendo]

Have we ever had any success with players we’ve spent good money on?

Lita comes to mind, you’d have to argue Joao too. But few & far between.

Back to Puscas. Pauno could’ve played Clarke up top with him. I mean…playing a team 4 leagues below was a perfect opportunity to try 2 up front and actually try and go for the win. But no, he decided to stick Puscas up top by himself, which he already knows isn’t very effective.

Pauno has lost it. He’s far from the only responsible one here, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to keep faith in his abilities

Depends how you define “good money”. Murty and Convey both cost about £750k which was a lot at the time, particularly when we signed Murty.

Our £1m+ signings:

- Lita - hit
- Seol - hit
- Halford - miss
- Bikey - hit
- Fae - miss
- Rosenior - hit but only at a lower level
- Matejovsky - miss
- Mills - hit?
- Leigertwood - hit
- Gunter - hit but only at a lower level
- Mariappa - resounding hit
- Blackman - miss

By this point I think £1m becomes too low a threshold, so above £2m:

- Vydra - miss (just not enough goals)
- Ilori - miss
- Mannone - miss
- Aluko - miss
- Baldock - miss
- Ejaria - hit
- Joao - would be a resounding hit if not for injuries
- Puscas - miss

Looking at it negatively, it’s only really Mariappa where I can say it is a resounding success without any caveats. Lita had long spells where he was awful, Seol trailed off and left after a year, Bikey had his temper, and Ejaria hasn’t quite been with it for a little while.

Looking at it positively, we still made our money back on a lot of “misses” like Fae, Halford, and Blackman as well as Seol and Mills. Gunter and Rosenior weren’t good enough for the PL but gave us good service in the Championship.

Mariappa wasn’t really that much of a success. He didn’t play that many games for us and was sold on for a small profit. Seol also didn’t play that much for us so a sort of so so signing.
Bikey also not really a hit or miss for me. Somewhere in between. Didn’t we sell Blackman for a good profit? Apart from his purple spell he didn’t do much for us but we made very good money on his sale.

Made money on Halford as well (somehow).

[Zip]

Depends how you define “good money”. Murty and Convey both cost about £750k which was a lot at the time, particularly when we signed Murty.

Our £1m+ signings:

- Lita - hit
- Seol - hit
- Halford - miss
- Bikey - hit
- Fae - miss
- Rosenior - hit but only at a lower level
- Matejovsky - miss
- Mills - hit?
- Leigertwood - hit
- Gunter - hit but only at a lower level
- Mariappa - resounding hit
- Blackman - miss

By this point I think £1m becomes too low a threshold, so above £2m:

- Vydra - miss (just not enough goals)
- Ilori - miss
- Mannone - miss
- Aluko - miss
- Baldock - miss
- Ejaria - hit
- Joao - would be a resounding hit if not for injuries
- Puscas - miss

Looking at it negatively, it’s only really Mariappa where I can say it is a resounding success without any caveats. Lita had long spells where he was awful, Seol trailed off and left after a year, Bikey had his temper, and Ejaria hasn’t quite been with it for a little while.

Looking at it positively, we still made our money back on a lot of “misses” like Fae, Halford, and Blackman as well as Seol and Mills. Gunter and Rosenior weren’t good enough for the PL but gave us good service in the Championship.

Mariappa wasn’t really that much of a success. He didn’t play that many games for us and was sold on for a small profit. Seol also didn’t play that much for us so a sort of so so signing.
Bikey also not really a hit or miss for me. Somewhere in between. Didn’t we sell Blackman for a good profit? Apart from his purple spell he didn’t do much for us but we made very good money on his sale.

Made money on Halford as well (somehow).

Thought we broke even but yep surprising that we didn’t make a loss given he was with us for all of five minutes.

[Who Moved The Goalposts?]

Depends how you define “good money”. Murty and Convey both cost about £750k which was a lot at the time, particularly when we signed Murty.

Our £1m+ signings:

- Lita - hit
- Seol - hit
- Halford - miss
- Bikey - hit
- Fae - miss
- Rosenior - hit but only at a lower level
- Matejovsky - miss
- Mills - hit?
- Leigertwood - hit
- Gunter - hit but only at a lower level
- Mariappa - resounding hit
- Blackman - miss

By this point I think £1m becomes too low a threshold, so above £2m:

- Vydra - miss (just not enough goals)
- Ilori - miss
- Mannone - miss
- Aluko - miss
- Baldock - miss
- Ejaria - hit
- Joao - would be a resounding hit if not for injuries
- Puscas - miss

Looking at it negatively, it’s only really Mariappa where I can say it is a resounding success without any caveats. Lita had long spells where he was awful, Seol trailed off and left after a year, Bikey had his temper, and Ejaria hasn’t quite been with it for a little while.

Looking at it positively, we still made our money back on a lot of “misses” like Fae, Halford, and Blackman as well as Seol and Mills. Gunter and Rosenior weren’t good enough for the PL but gave us good service in the Championship.

Mariappa wasn’t really that much of a success. He didn’t play that many games for us and was sold on for a small profit. Seol also didn’t play that much for us so a sort of so so signing.
Bikey also not really a hit or miss for me. Somewhere in between. Didn’t we sell Blackman for a good profit? Apart from his purple spell he didn’t do much for us but we made very good money on his sale.

Made money on Halford as well (somehow).

But had to spend a chunk of that on the new doors and damaged walls when Roy Keane visited town!!!

[paultheroyal]

I went, I did not enjoy it in the slightest.

For me Pauno has let down those youngsters, who he dropped into an unfamiliar XI with an incredibly negative game plan. They will have seen the reaction of the supporters at the end and it will not be good experience for them.

I feel desperately sorry for Rafael. I thought he had a decent game until the first mistake, then he just fell apart. It's a shame because he's been so solid for us in general, and just looks like he has the yips now. Looks like he could be out as Andresson has been called back. What I will say, is I hope some fans have longer memories and realise he wasn't terrible for us overall, just bad at the end. He's also a good person by all accounts, which means a lot for a club like us.

I thought Holzman looked very assured and Tetek was OK, but he really needs to get time in midfield as he will be getting called upon there much more often as time goes on.

I'm glad Puscas scored but he just looks totally deflated and lacking in confidence, even after the goal. There's real ability there but we've never found a way to harness it properly, and now sadly he needs a move. Wouldn't be surprised if his career got re-ignited elsewhere and we'd have to mark him down as another expensive mistake.

Good to see Rinomhota back from injury, hopefully he can stay fit.

Lastly on the playing side, Araruna's injury was just horrible to see. Having had such a long lay-off and having to do the terrible, boring repetitive rehab work involved for over a year, to last barely two minutes before getting another injury really is heart-breaking. I'm not sure we'll ever see him play for us again, but I do hope he gets fit again and can play in the future.

I think we missed a chance to get a win and some more match fitness for the first-teamers. Regardless of whether it was a cup game, we should be getting a win against the lowest-ranked team. We also had five subs so could have got quite a few players some minutes. Instead we play a weird thrown-together XI and sit back, letting a team with nothing to lose go for it and get a deserved win. I know we're never gonna win the cup but a decent result here would've helped us in the league, no doubt.

I'm not one who wants managers out and I think they should be given time to get their ideas across and get players in. Last year we had an identity but we couldn't last the distance, but this year we are just devoid of quality, ideas and even worse, fight. If we had a backbone, we'd have got through Saturday but I don't think the manager can motivate the team anymore. Once that happens, I think it's time to get rid sadly.

On Warnock, he loves being a pantomime villain and for a long time we enjoyed booing and hissing at him. But to be perfectly honest, back then we were well-run and successful and he managed teams we were in direct competition with. Now we're desperate for some stability because relegation to League One could ruin us. He's had a long and successful managerial career, and he's proud of his record, so if we did turn to him he'd do his absolute best to keep us up. It wouldn't be great to watch and we'd never be far from turning on him, but we're in no position to be picky about that if we do sack Pauno.

Whatever grudges anyone has against Warnock, the fact remains that he's a highly experienced manager at this level, won't take rubbish and knows how to get failing teams winning games again. Our fans need to drop sentiment and recognise that we need results. If we do go for a new manager then Warnock would increase our chances of temporarily getting the results needed to keep us up. He may not be popular but if him as our manager for even 4 months stops us spending 10 years in league one and two like Portsmouth and Bradford have then it's a no brainer.

If Warnock did come here do you think he would make sure we are relegated as payback for all those insults he's had from us over the years?

He has done alright at all the other clubs he went to where fans hated him. One more would not hurt.

Could Warnock get us the 8 wins to stay up, absolutely.

[Millsy]

100% in for Colin, he'd do a great job for us I'm sure.

Noone has really ever hated him, he's a big and tough enough to appreciate that. Just footy banter, he's good for the game and it'll be a sad day for English football when he retires.

[John Madejski's Wallet]

Fukk Warnock......ever decreasing returns ever since his first retirement

[Franchise FC]

Depends how you define “good money”. Murty and Convey both cost about £750k which was a lot at the time, particularly when we signed Murty.

Our £1m+ signings:

- Lita - hit
- Seol - hit
- Halford - miss
- Bikey - hit
- Fae - miss
- Rosenior - hit but only at a lower level
- Matejovsky - miss
- Mills - hit?
- Leigertwood - hit
- Gunter - hit but only at a lower level
- Mariappa - resounding hit
- Blackman - miss

By this point I think £1m becomes too low a threshold, so above £2m:

- Vydra - miss (just not enough goals)
- Ilori - miss
- Mannone - miss
- Aluko - miss
- Baldock - miss
- Ejaria - hit
- Joao - would be a resounding hit if not for injuries
- Puscas - miss

Looking at it negatively, it’s only really Mariappa where I can say it is a resounding success without any caveats. Lita had long spells where he was awful, Seol trailed off and left after a year, Bikey had his temper, and Ejaria hasn’t quite been with it for a little while.

Looking at it positively, we still made our money back on a lot of “misses” like Fae, Halford, and Blackman as well as Seol and Mills. Gunter and Rosenior weren’t good enough for the PL but gave us good service in the Championship.

Mariappa wasn’t really that much of a success. He didn’t play that many games for us and was sold on for a small profit. Seol also didn’t play that much for us so a sort of so so signing.
Bikey also not really a hit or miss for me. Somewhere in between. Didn’t we sell Blackman for a good profit? Apart from his purple spell he didn’t do much for us but we made very good money on his sale.

Made money on Halford as well (somehow).

Squeaky ?

[SCIAG]

Have we ever had any success with players we’ve spent good money on?

Lita comes to mind, you’d have to argue Joao too. But few & far between.

Back to Puscas. Pauno could’ve played Clarke up top with him. I mean…playing a team 4 leagues below was a perfect opportunity to try 2 up front and actually try and go for the win. But no, he decided to stick Puscas up top by himself, which he already knows isn’t very effective.

Pauno has lost it. He’s far from the only responsible one here, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to keep faith in his abilities

Depends how you define “good money”. Murty and Convey both cost about £750k which was a lot at the time, particularly when we signed Murty.

Our £1m+ signings:

- Lita - hit
- Seol - hit
- Halford - miss
- Bikey - hit
- Fae - miss
- Rosenior - hit but only at a lower level
- Matejovsky - miss
- Mills - hit?
- Leigertwood - hit
- Gunter - hit but only at a lower level
- Mariappa - resounding hit
- Blackman - miss

By this point I think £1m becomes too low a threshold, so above £2m:

- Vydra - miss (just not enough goals)
- Ilori - miss
- Mannone - miss
- Aluko - miss
- Baldock - miss
- Ejaria - hit
- Joao - would be a resounding hit if not for injuries
- Puscas - miss

Looking at it negatively, it’s only really Mariappa where I can say it is a resounding success without any caveats. Lita had long spells where he was awful, Seol trailed off and left after a year, Bikey had his temper, and Ejaria hasn’t quite been with it for a little while.

Looking at it positively, we still made our money back on a lot of “misses” like Fae, Halford, and Blackman as well as Seol and Mills. Gunter and Rosenior weren’t good enough for the PL but gave us good service in the Championship.

Mariappa wasn’t really that much of a success. He didn’t play that many games for us and was sold on for a small profit. Seol also didn’t play that much for us so a sort of so so signing.
Bikey also not really a hit or miss for me. Somewhere in between. Didn’t we sell Blackman for a good profit? Apart from his purple spell he didn’t do much for us but we made very good money on his sale.

Mariappa played 29/38 matches for us that season after McDermott stuck with Pearce and Gorkss for the first five games. Once Gorkss burned through the goodwill he had accrued, Mariappa was a fixture. Defence was much much better with him in it iirc. Then sold for a profit despite us getting relegated - clear success.