BigJim

Trouble is, I'm not sure he sees it as poor play. He has put all his effort into turning us into a side that will soak up pressure and stop the opposition from scoring. We have to give him credit for that. If it's ugly to watch that doesn't bother him at all. I just wish he would hire a coach to do a bit of pattern and creativity work with the forwards, so that when we do break with the ball we can make it count a lot more often. Somebody said we are devastating on the break.... if only. If that had been true last night we would have had six.

Me neither. Fabulous result but we are still shockingly bad at going forward in possession. Great work by the back 4 and GW kept Preston out, but considering how they had a second or third choice defence we should have cut them to pieces. We had a number of chances to do so but never looked like playing the right ball at the right time, apart from Onomah's pass for the 2nd.

I think we need a striker to cover for Kodjia's eventual injuries. Hogan isn't doing it and McCormack won't come back (at least not under Bruce). I'd flog them both for whatever I could get and go for Alfredo Morelos from Rangers.

To bring this back on topic, over the course of a season or long cup competition, the better teams obviously finish in the top positions. "Luck" is eliminated as it evens out over time. In a one-off game however, anything can happen and a lowly team can "get lucky" against the favourite, with a deflection, or whatever it may be. We've all seen it happen, whether you call it a lottery is irrelevant. With penalties, no-one can put the ball beyond the reach of a goalkeeper every time, however much they practice. As for Villa in the playoffs, the common opinion seems to be we are unlikely to play the better football in 3 consecutive matches against other high placed teams, so we would need that element of good fortune to win through.

Can you totally eliminate the element of chance in football? I think it's fair to say playoffs are a bit of a lottery in that a lesser team can "get lucky" in a very limited number of games, much like they can and often do in cup ties. With penalties I'd suggest there is an element of lottery as well in that if the keeper chooses to go the right way he will quite often save it. If he does so you can say he's been a bit lucky, unless he's done loads of homework on the taker and "knows" which way to go.

I'm afraid you're right and I'm afraid it will come to pass. Preston are no mugs and they will deal with us quite comfortably.

and a few spells in the first half, when they simply looked a better side (which is saying something as they are really not very good at all)

Terrible first 60 mins, made Bloos almost look good. Snodgrass and Hourihane rightly substituted as both were very poor today, though Onomah can count himself lucky he wasn't taken off. We were a bit better with Davis on, but overall it was pretty dire and we've come away with a point we probably didn't deserve.

Yeah, but he didn't say = Goals, he said we didn't look likely to score. In other words, if we were set up as an attacking unit, we sure didn't know how to play like one.

Quite. He is nearly always half facing the right touchline when he receives the ball. So as he is incapable of playing a pass with his right foot, he inevitably knocks it square or backwards most of the time. I find him incredibly frustrating to watch. He's obviously got a shot on him, but doesn't show a lot of drive to get in a position to use it in open play. And from dead balls, we've also got Snodgrass whose left foot is at least as useful. I'd say Hourihane is close to being surplus to requirements.

@TRO Are you saying if some of the players "are not up for it" we can't blame the manager ? Surely if a player doesn't put a shift in (and I don't disagree with you about some of them) then he must get dropped, simple as that. We have plenty of promising youth who will at the very least work their socks off. If the manager continues to pick players who won't roll their sleeves up then we have a real problem.

Certainly contributed a whole lot more than Hourihane. Not that that's saying much.

Clutching at straws a bit maybe, but I reckon if he'd have come on earlier (like instead of Hogan) we might have made a better go of the last half hour. Not to mention if he had started instead of Kodjia (where tf was he today?)

A victory for attractive football. Wolves will deservedly go up; we, equally deservedly, won't.

Pleasantly surprised at so much positivity on here going into this one. Unfortunately I can't really share it. We've been on a great run but not played particularly well IMO most of the time, and the opposition has not been great. While we haven't conceded many, even Burton managed to create chances against us, so I can't see us keeping Wolves at bay very long. And I can't see us getting enough of the ball at Molineux to put much pressure on them. We will need to convert a very high percentage of our chances to win this. 3-1 Wolves. Hope I'm wildly off beam, obviously.

NV... I was expecting someone to post a pic of Maradona

We may see him selected at least for the bench in derbies and other games which SB considers are likely to get very physical. He can take it and dish it out better than most in our squad.

SB has changed things more than I dared believe he could. Long way to go though, as has been said many times. One probably unrelated thing I find pleasing is that we're getting a lot of the rub of the green lately: Penalty decisions, that "save" by Johnstone against Forest, the 2nd (mis-hit) and 3rd (deflected) goals against Burton, just to name a few things. The sort of thing we have seen go against us a lot in recent seasons. Fortune favours the brave?

He's doing what we bought him for and that's great but.... He is just so weak on his right side he will never make a top class midfielder.

Pretty much agree with all of that, and the highlighted bit especially worries me. If you take out Kodjia's contribution to both goals we would have been nowhere, who knows how we will cope if (when) he gets injured again. On the other hand.... I am fairly sure there is more to come from us. Davis is improving all the time. Kodjia will get better and better as he recovers, Snodgrass has a lot more to offer which will come as he gets fitter and used to his team-mates. Onomah had a howler but he's already shown he has a lot of class. Then we've got Grealish to come back in; and Jedi who must manage at least some games. Question is, can we bungle our way through like we did yesterday until it all comes together?

How about a combination: Played sloppily throughout but somehow won. Playing sloppily throughout is just not good enough by any measure.

Very, very lucky to take all the points today. Thank your lucky stars SB.

Sorry, I now see its an old story.

Supporters demand to know what the chairman is going to do, RIGHT NOW. Chairman, quite rightly, has no intention of letting them know. Probably hasn't made a definitive decision yet. Give the guy a break.

Well, you've had a lot more years to practice....