Hodgey

There is some very good talent coming through, Prest is maturing and I think both Middleton and Albert have got what it takes. Bowling wise there is Turner, Wheal can look useful, plus I think Currie has something. I do get your point though - it’s an odd team with either under 23s or over 30s, and you’d imagine this is the last season for two of Barker, Abbas and Abbott. You need a few players in their prime to win championships. Might also be the season where Eckland shifts Brown out. To the missed opportunity - agree with that, and you can pretty much point to the failure to address the openers (they’ve gone from Weatherly and Soames to desperation in two bowlers in Holland and Organ). Still looks like a problem now but Orr and Middleton look like they have the potential if not the application yet. think they’ll do alright this year, but further of winning it than last.

Our policy of signing City youth players has been a poor one. Edozie, Bazuna, Larios, Charles all at best average championship players. Yes we struck gold with Lavia - but he looks highly injury prone. When you think about it, buying expensive youngsters who have barely played professional football and asking them to succeed in high pressure environments straight away is silly.

Not quite sure why people are claiming Ipswich are lucky. They are top of the table, lost fewer games than anyone else, all on far less resource than 3 other teams. Those are the kind of comments that we’d get upset about - they deserve to be where they are and are clearly a very good team. think it’ll be close on Mon - reckon we’ll be dominant, 1-0 up and miss a few chances and they will get a late equaliser as they seem very mentally strong.

I’m surprisingly not as bothered as I thought I would be, I got marginally excited when Leicester lost, but when that equaliser went in for me it just confirmed what I’ve felt for a long time - we are the 4th best team so play offs. in an odd way, I wouldn’t be bothered if Ipswich beat us - that would put hope of the autos out early and we could mentally adjust to winning the play offs and hopefully play with a bit more freedom. what is also telling is deep down I don’t really want to go up, but we have to given our perilous finances and for momentum. This team and manager would get absolutely hammered in the Prem. Also next season we’ll only be an above average Championship side if we don’t. I’ve had a funny feeling about Norwich for over a month now - I think they’ll beat Ipswich, we’ll beat WBA, and they’ll beat us in the final.

That’s the exact team I would pick except Edozie for Brooks so Arma goes back to right wing and hopefully finds some form - Brooks coming on early. I get the Smallbone criticism and on a one for one basis and on form you would go Aribo, but for me it’s about how the midfield complement each other and Smallbone adds to a midfield where one breaks up play and the other drives aggressively forwards but loses the ball a lot. For me it’s between Aribo and Stu (and Rothwell) and I go Stu.

I’m really hoping the club are looking at this as a ‘assume he’ll never be fit and as good as he was, anything else a bonus’, ie we should be looking for another striker pre season. We should have learnt a valuable lesson with M Svensson which for me started our decent down the divisions. worked with Ings, didn’t here - those are the risks…

Anyone else notice he is suddenly using his left foot - 2 left foot goals in two games !. Every other season he would have tried to run round both those shots to get it on his right. Be annoyed if he’s suddenly become a two footer striker just before he’s off.

I do wonder if some of our difficulties in getting a striker is understanding what we want. That’s not an Adam Armstrong style player - he struggles playing up top but has looked excellent as an ‘inside forward’. What is clear is that RM wants a player with the style of Ross Stewart (not seen enough of him to know how he plays). Extremely hard position to get in Jan, so can understand the focus on a right winger instead - which we also need as all our wingers perform and prefer on the left

Strange way of looking at it. Pretty sure Bazuna isn’t worth more than the £12m we paid for him, Bree has already done it at this level last year so good signing if we did it now, but a dreadful one in the Prem. The other 3 yes - our loans have been good - but we are adding value to 3 players for other clubs and if we don’t go up at least 2 of those won’t be here (hence the need to buy players wisely - not continually piss it up the wall) Our transfer business (buying players) really hasn’t been good in my opinion - either poor players, injured players or players not ready for the level we signed them for. You could certainly argue Lavia - but he does look a bit injury prone. Outside of that I’m really struggling for successes over the past 3 years. I guess Livramento - but we didn’t see much of him

I think overall having a pop at our transfer business is fair. Yes we’ve used the loan system well but given we have little money we’ve spent £20m on a very questionable left back, an injured striker and a city kid who isn’t ready (didn’t learn that lesson from last year). Honestly - I don’t think we would be any different position wise if we hadn’t signed any of them. £20m is a lot in this division and we should be spending it much more efficiently

Not sure about this - have those 3 significantly improved or found their level ?. I still wouldn’t trust Bazuna or Armstrong in the Premier League , they are clearly good Championship players - have they actually improved ?. Same with Bree - he was one of the best championship right backs last year so has he really improved ?. I’d go Edozie (end product), Bednerak (genuine senior player now) and S Armstrong (fitness and attitude). Bazuna would be 4th choice - he’s definitely got more confidence playing for a top side in the division and is improving , but I fear we’d see just as many errors in a struggling Prem team. its a good debate though !

Does anyone know what kind of striker thrives in a RM team ? I know Piroe did but didn’t RM suggest he’s more a support striker and he was happy with Armstrong doing that ?. I genuinely don’t know what style of striker would thrive as our one up top - I don’t know enough about Stewart to know what type of player he is. My instinct is that a highly mobile striker with close control and link up play is probably more suitable than a classic finisher but interested in others opinions.

If you look at it another way - if there is a £1m loan fee and we cover £100k a week with an obligation to buy if we go up then you are looking at £3m. i can see that appealing to all parties. Given there is £100m plus on offer then that doesn’t actually seem like too much of a gamble - it’s probably less of a gamble than finding a younger £5m striker and hoping he can do it. Plus by season end you would hope Stewart and Mara would be in a better place if we don’t go up.

He can’t play the lone striker role - that has been one of the major issues. RM has created a role for him that plays to his strengths but really pleased for him as attitude and effort were never the issue.

Is it correlation or causation ?. Looking at the facts he played half the terrible game against Leicester, half the loss to Ipswich, he also wasn’t on the pitch when we scored winners against Bristol, Hull, Millwall and West Brom. He was great against Leeds and I’d argue was the winning difference there, the rest ? Honestly not convinced if he didn’t play in any of them our results would be any different. And that is the problem for me - Tella was the winning difference against Sheffield Wed and Plymouth on his 3 games for us - that is the impact we need.