 | Forum
Reply | I've never felt more like starting the Blues Match Thread..
at 15:45 10 Mar 2026
Sadly, we only seem to have one player in form at the moment - Steve Cook - and he's unlikely to get onto the pitch for contractual reasons  .
The state of us  . It's going to take quite something for us to even score, let alone get a draw or - gasp - nick a win. |
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Reply | Koki Saito
at 15:19 10 Mar 2026
Great point, and yet our finishing remains poor, our passing accuracy is terrible, our closing down and tackling is pathetic and there are only two players in the entire squad who can deliver a decent set piece, Vale and Madsen .
It has got to the point where we are crying out for yet another coach, Head of Football Basics.
Poor  . |
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Reply | QPR thrashed, Boro run riot, night follows day, bear seen heading for wood
at 10:04 10 Mar 2026
* * * * * * * *
"...but the main thing now is to give this experience for young players".
* * * * * * * *
Take a long, hard look at that. When have you ever heard a football manager or coach say that?
It's not about the results any more. They're just incidental.
I frankly cannot believe that JS wants to do that, relying on youth makes his (alleged) job of winning games very difficult, especially when our young players are so far short of the required standard.
Surely it's an instruction from someone else? Nourry? Doesn't it make you wonder which other decisions are out of JS' control? Substitutions? How to play?
Sack the manager, bring some other poor sod to this circus, but how on earth can we ever prosper when the head coach/manager has his hands tied like this?
Fans need to understand the reality of how we operate now. Clearly, some of the errors *are* down to JS, but too often on here, I see posters raging at what JS has or hasn't done, as if everything is down to him. It simply isn't.
Meanwhile, our young player development isn't fit for purpose, employees - including senior players are - treated like dirt, plus the fans are starved of information and even lied to.
We need an experienced DoF now, someone who can rebuild the club's culture, show respect to its players, staff and fans, and most importantly, start to help us progress.
PS: Great report, I hope reliving that grim experience didn't depress you too much. |
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Reply | WE WANT NOURRY OUT SAID WE WANT NOURRY OUT
at 18:40 9 Mar 2026
That list of performance staff is incredibly long! 
It reminds of something I used to hear people say when I worked in software development: If you throw too many people at a project you end up subdividing the work and responsibilities so much that the extra heads actually become counterproductive. The sheer number of inputs makes progress difficult. |
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Reply | I'll take one for the team Boro Match thread!!!!
at 17:35 8 Mar 2026
In mitigation, Boro are second and have been right up there all season.
That said...
We are a very average team and toothless without Burrell. The good results are the outliers, I fear.
Sigh  |
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Reply | Cricket 2026 County/International Thread
at 14:11 8 Mar 2026
India putting NZ to the sword currently, 98-0 after just 7 overs.
Ooh, but wait, Ravindra has Sharma caught behind off the very next ball... |
| Forum
Reply | Heat Pumps
at 16:16 7 Mar 2026
Some people might want a heat pump just to reduce their carbon footprint. That's why we installed a solar thermal hot water system, which was brilliant for 14 years and probably still is (we sold that house last year).
They might also want to go down that road to avoid gas supply and pricing issues. Most of the UK's gas is imported. |
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Reply | Chair
at 11:05 7 Mar 2026
It's very frustrating. The dearth of information about our injuries and the inaccuracy of the snippets they do deign to give us is compounding fans' annoyance. I say this as a retired PR manager  .
I do recall that during Sky's televised coverage of one of our recent games - possibly the Soton one - the commentator let slip that Chair had had a setback in his recovery. Groan.
Taking a broader view of things, if something doesn't change with how we manage our players' fitness and injuries, we fans might need to change our whole attitude to players availability.
No point talking about "when everyone is fit" any more: They weren't fit before they got injured and, although it's rare for any team to have 100% player availability, we're never going to achieve that.
Stop getting excited about how so and so's return from injury will help improve results: That return could be many months off.
The club's lack of openness and honesty is very poor, and frankly, disrespectful. We shouldn't need to rely on third party sources for information . |
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Reply | Heat Pumps
at 23:57 6 Mar 2026
Taken from Socialist Worker, er, I mean Which? 
Are air source heat pumps good in winter?
All heating systems have to work harder to keep your home warm in freezing weather. The colder the outside air, the more quickly heat is lost from your home through the walls, windows and roof, so the boiler has more work to do to continually replace that lost heat.
Air source heat pumps are designed to work at low temperatures – down to minus 10C, which is sufficient for most parts of the UK – but they use more electricity to extract sufficient heat from the air. In very cold weather, efficiency may drop from around 300-400% to perhaps 200%; however, they are still more efficient than a gas boiler.
Heat pumps are surprisingly popular in cold countries. The top four European nations with the most heat pumps per household – Norway, Finland and Sweden – experience much colder winters than the UK. It's common to see heat pump units covered in a thick layer of snow that are still working perfectly well.
Heat pumps have an automatic defrost mode that should kick in to prevent the system from icing up. However, a broken sensor, low levels of refrigerant or blocked vents can lead to a frozen system, so it's important to keep up with the maintenance schedule.
If you live in one of the colder parts of the country, you can get a heat pump that's designed to work down to minus 25 degrees. Alternatively, consider a ground source heat pump; they are more efficient in winter because the ground temperature stays reliably warmer than the air temperature.
https://www.which.co.uk/review
On the subject of legionella, here is what Ideal Heating Commercial says:
The new breed of natural refrigerant heat pumps, especially those that use R290 or R744 natural refrigerant, can achieve flow temperatures up to 75°C and 70°C respectively. When the water is kept at these constant temperatures Legionella bacteria will swiftly die.
It also says legionella bacteria cannot survive above 60 degrees C.
https://idealcommercialboilers |
| Forum
Reply | Heat Pumps
at 20:09 6 Mar 2026
I know a little bit about them, from my own research and because my aunt has had one for some time. I presume you are talking about an air source heat pump 😀.
They heat properties differently to gas central heating, they tend to be on for longer but keep your radiators at a lower temperature than they would be with gas, I.e. the rads won't be red hot to the touch.
They make most sense in well insulated homes.
It used to be the case that radiators needed to be upgraded but that isn't always necessary now.
Refrigerants have come on a lot, to the benefit of efficiency and output, and heat pumps which use R290 refrigerant tend to be very efficient.
The Energy Saving Trust should be a good source of info.
I'd love to have one and plan to do so, they're good for the planet and reduce our reliance on imports  . |
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