Lighthouse

‘Results’ isn’t a style of football. I’ve no idea why anyone would think we prioritised a particular style over actually winning games. We thought we would succeed playing the way we did, it’s that simple. We weren’t wrong as such, it’s simply that the players and the manager who implemented that style didn’t get it right. We don’t have an obsession with City youth players either, we hired Shields and Wilcox, who both have a strong link to their academy, and went with the highest rated prospects they knew from their previous employment, with mixed results.

I’ve no idea what this is supposed to mean and people keep saying it. We’ve played a variety of different styles since Cortese left, from the old school, simple Hughes and Jones types to Ralph’s high press and Martin’s possession based game. None of these are exactly revolutionary, Martin is only playing the same philosophy that won Spain a bunch of trophies 15 years ago.

It’ll be interesting to see if JT makes the XI and for who. You’d have thought Holland.

Good Lord, no thank you on several levels.

Don’t disagree with any of that. My team was just an example of the skeleton we could realistically build around without further signings. Beyond the obvious need for a GK, CM and AM, as you say I’d ask for two better FB and another AM, ST and CB.

True. THB messed up last night, trying to get suspended for only the first leg. This is the game to do it, miss Leeds and both playoff games, you might as well book flights to Ibiza, taking off 7am on Sunday.

Horses for courses. There’s not one universal tactic that’s going to work for every match.

Playing a game of semi-realistic football manager for a minute, I’ve always preferred 4-2-3-1 as a formation and I think we’d be much better defensively. New GK Bree - - Stephens - - Bednarek - - Manning Charles - - New CM Armstrong - - New AM - - Fraser Stewart Subs: Lumley, Smallbone, Edozie, Dibling Thats based on the following assumptions: KWP, Adams, McC, THB, Stu, Rothwell, Brooks, and Downes aren’t staying None of our loan outs will be back. Somehow we can offload Aribo, Alcaraz, Mara and Sully to raise some cash and trim the wage bill.

Sigh…. Must we?

What makes you think our squad lacks experience? We’ve got absolutely bags of it. Buying experience and quality cost money and even if you spend it, there’re no guarantees. Orsic and Manning were experienced when we brought them in and both looked like a fish up a tree. We lucked out a bit getting Manning on a free, even if we’d spent £6m on him people would be saying, "excellent piece of business, bringing in an experienced Championship defender from the team of the season."

Say what you like about him, we played a thousand times better at West Brom and Ipswich with Stephens as the inverted fullback, than we did with Manning on the pitch last night.

So you’d rather play for a 0-0 against Hull, Bournemouth and Stoke than have a 5-3 or a 3-2? I’ll disagree there. I’m still looking forward to going to the Stoke game, dead rubber or not, knowing that pretty much anything can happen.

And yet the ball just kept coming back at us, time and time again. The defence kept dropping deeper to cover McC, they kept pressing us higher, we could play through it, they had tonnes of space in front of our back four for the likes of KDH to play balls in, etc. Not many of the 17 McC conceded in 6 games at the end of last season were directly as a result of his kicks/throws either but somehow in that period our average goals conceded went from 1.75 to 2.83. I didn't believe that was a coincidence then and I don't believe it was tonight either.

But that just goes back to my point. Without Bazunu, suddenly we look dreadful in a way we've not been since the start of the season. We can't soak up pressure, deal with a press or build threatening attacks.

Are you talking about being bored or being a good team because they're different things. I don't see how anyone can call this season boring, we must have set a record for games with five-plus goals.