Fabrice29

The reason he’s being picked is because he’s miles better with his feet and I would hazard a guess that Tonda, like each manger before him values that extra man in possession over two pretty hapless shot stoppers to begin with. The build up to the penalty award yesterday being a perfect example. We should absolutely be in for a keeper and I think even Spors was hinting at that in his interview but we don’t need to go around making up some conspiracy about why he’s being picked. It’s obvious and nothing to do with pathway or any other bollocks like that.

Who are you playing right back and which of the front guys are you dropping to do this? Not sure why everyone wants to change things up when we’ve just started winning games. Stick to what we’ve done well and back ourselves to do what we do well. Trying something new against top of the league seems a perfect recipe for mistakes and being exposed.

And yet they needed us to miss a penalty (which we got because of the easily dealt with build up play) and score a handball goal to beat us. Yeah 5 wins in 7, we’re one of the most form teams in the league and we’re playing top of the table. Ditch it all and try something new makes most sense.

Good for you. Again though, you wouldn’t be saying we had their number if we had won because of a handball goal and a missed penalty. So you were overreacting after 10 minutes and now.

Little reminder of why we lost that 1. 1.07

I’d check McCarthy’s history against Norwich if I were you

I really think if we won a game because of a handball and the opponents missing a penalty you wouldn’t be claiming our manager had sussed theirs out.

Would Scienza play off the left, Fellows up the right, Armstrong down the middle with Azaz trying to link things up? Sounds similar tbh. All it does is take away a CB into a right back position and mean more responsibility on 2 CB's who are struggling with help now let alone on their own. I can see the desire to defend crosses better but we need the personnel to do it rather than some fancy graphic loaded up by the club before the game showing a formation you like.

That'll be a promotion on the cards then. Lovely.

Okay so literally nothing changes with how we currently attack then.

He's part of a squad 8th in the PL at the age of 19. Don't think disaster is the word I'd use tbh.

Who are you playing at right back then?

We don't have a fit right back. Nor does taking out a tall CB feel like a particularly wise thing to do for a small 11 in relation to set pieces. We also pretty much attack like this anyway.

He came off injured.

I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said but again, why do we have to think so matter of factly? Armstrong is the best therefore he’s number 1 for the whole season. Injured, form and different tactics have to be considered It’s perfectly reasonable to want a squad of strikers, especially with different attributes. So yes, Archer can step in, I’m with you on that, he’s more than capable of stepping up in a competent side at this level but what if we want a different profile of attacker? Something different against Millwall might have been nice. So that’s where Downs and Stewart step in, if fit and firing I’d say we’re all good in that area but if for whatever reasons the club feel they can’t contribute this season, another striker is a must because I’m not convinced the youth strikers have a different profile either. What I would actually suggest the club do is offload Aribo and bring in a physical presence that can play wide and down the middle. That makes most sense to me. If it’s a permanent transfer then I see no reason you can’t find somebody who you think will contribute in the PL over the years too. That’s the whole point of recruiting permanent players. Yes we aren’t necessarily going to sign a PL ready player who is knocking back those clubs for us but no reason we can’t sign somebody for the long term and now.

This guy is not the upgrade people think he is. We should be recruiting better if we’re focusing on that area.

Why do they have to play 2nd fiddle to Armstrong? Why can’t we squad build to have options? Why do you think Armstrong is set in stone to be first choice all season now? This isn’t the way a serious club would build a squad. It’s perfectly possible to recruit a player who could challenge Armstrong and improve to become an option long term to be an option in the PL too. That’s what Downs was supposed to be, the trick is getting it right. Or the club could back itself to make Downs a success.

Charles is back fit at Sheffield Wednesday. Given the amount of times he’s watched us in person this season I’d be surprised if we haven’t made a polite enquiry.

Set the team up a bit too high on reflection. Attempted to camp opponents into their half which sounds good but meant when you win the ball back there’s quite a lot of players to get through. Now we’re set up slightly deeper and have better patterns of play. Players are clearly responding to that detail but ultimately the space the deeper set up allows is there to be exploited by an attack that’s best attributes are dribbling. Also, and this probably ties into the above set up but I really can’t stress enough how much more ruthless we’ve become up front. You take your chances and the game looks so much better.

So too late then actually? Fellows was injured. Scienza went missing in the 2nd half, likely for the reasons you said. I thought the subs made sense at that point , trying to stretch the play rather than compress it which had worked so well in the first half but like you said WBA had made changes to negate it. I think bringing on Romeu and Aribo continues to be piss poor though. I think it’s just about physical presence at that point. We could do with a RWB being fit and Charles back.

Yea, so all results before them shall be discounted. Except for Millwall.

First real test was conveniently the one he lost. These mysterious better teams around the corner. Cost us the promotion we’re getting closer to every week.

Eh?

Because the strikers ahead of him weren’t available at the time. He’s not near their first choice squad.

Genuine question but what do people want in terms of game management? Aribo sub poor and doesn’t help so happy to accept that as criticism but I thought recognising we’d lost control and bringing on physical players to defend the box and break quickly was actually quite good? We aren’t going to keep control for 90 minutes every game, not least because we’ve evidently moved away from that as an attempted tactic so we will have to soak up pressure to create the transitions everyone is enjoying so much.