Fabrice29

I’m not entirely sure what your point is here? But yeah, we’ve signed some of the best Championship players just this week, along with having a few already, and yeah going up via the play offs would be good 👍

Love the idea of us spending £20 million on Sargent to get promoted only then for the same people begging for him this year to be demanding another striker who can do it at PL level next year and not grasping the concept of a budget. Also Kieffer fucking Moore 🤣

1 season and 4 league games at a push. Not years. But okay so what drastic 1 player swap gets a drastic improvement do you think? You take out one of the CB’s and stick in who and where that suddenly makes everything better?

Apart from that time he left West Ham to join us permanently ffs 🤣 There’s some pretty odd takes on here about a player who we consistently miss when he doesn’t play and has signed for the club on two occasions despite presumably having other offers. All because a manger with broken English dropped him for a week or two before sticking him back in. Also as for the ‘Irons’ stuff, I’m pretty sure he was being taunted by both Blackmore and the fans at the time about binning off his boyhood club when he was under contract and not entirely sure what was going to happen. Our manager was in a press conference yesterday saying he loves West Ham also. These people are human.

I don’t think it’s an injustice ffs 🤣

Fixed.

Nobody interested in this guys poor start at Atalanta? Poor Ivan.

We're currently playing 3 CB's and have two on the bench and supposedly want to end up playing even less CB's so no we're not lacking a CB. Nor are we lacking CM's, we've signed one who couldn't play today and also have two others who for fitness/transfer reasons we haven't usedyet so unless they both leave we're fine there too. 4 strikers and playing only one up front too. So really cant agree with you here at all. Time to get the best out of the plethora of options we have rather than thinking everything is solved with more transfers, different formations, new managers.

It's absolutely not a controversial thing to say but the little I know of his previous teams is they are not known for any particular attributes (I emphasise the little I know part though). I think his whole thing is to keep teams in the game and get enough quality at the top end to go and win it and that kind of approach is going to lead to games looking a bit like they have done imo and I'm not convinced thats going to change. It's why David Moyes teams quickly get despised by fans the moment the results dry up. I think he'd quite like it if we stopped giving frustrating goals away though, that would help results, which is exactly what he has been asked to be judged on. Anyway, it's August still and anyone wetting the bed (not you) needs to get a life

What do you think that looks like or is going to look like when we're at it? I could be wrong but I'm not sure any of his previous clubs would say they had a particular style or look under him? I think you're hoping to see something he's not promised to show you tbh.

That's exactly what "adaptable" and "not wedded to one system" looks like though? Those were the buzz words people craved so much but the result of those cravings was always going to be "yet to see a Will Still team" the moment we stopped winning. Trick is, and always has been, stop believing that changing formations and managers are the number 1 and 2 reasons for football results.

Rumour on twitter is Fernandes was at West Ham without the clubs permission yesterday. Anyway, another interesting post from the first page.

If your left side is particularly adept at winging in crosses signing a player who is good in the air and at finishing to get on the end of them from the right feels…sensible?

First couples of pages of this thread is quite funny how similar to most transfer threads start. ‘Another promising signing rather than any idea if he’s any good on the actual grass’ - Somebody has found a message board or twitter for some fan responses - talk of can he play in goal - is it done yet? questions. All the usual stuff and an argument about Cedric.

Sounds like Edwards is off to QPR. Also noted someone on Twitter saying this earlier too was also saying if Hackney agrees something with a PL team Boro could pull out of the Azaz deal.

I do love a signing being written off largely based of opposition fans reviews. Even more so when it's a 3rd choice keeper on loan. Think more recruitment teams should conduct their business based on messageboards and texts from mates tbh.

"Dylan often plays with the 21s and we do need three keepers on training at times, so just for numbers I think we'll look to bring someone in," said Still. "I think it would be tricky or we'd be putting pressure on people that we don't need to put pressure on yet if we didn't, just in terms of numbers. "But we need to get the profile and the person right, and that person needs to come in and actually help the other two keepers and not create chaos. "So we're just assessing the situation and trying to get the right person in." If you want an actual answer it's quite easy to find fwiw.

Play 5 at the back and Armstrong up front on his own. Not a bad idea.

We are playing a completely different way to the Championship last time. Not sure it's fair to say we are so far away in terms of quality for that season. Think most would take Fernandes and Charles over Aribo and Smallbone for example and you need to give Downs a season or two before comparing his figures to Adams. But because we're playing a completely different style then different qualities are needed. Armstrong is nullified playing this way, Adams gone and our third top scorer (Smallbone) is injured/not rated. We need to recruit for this manager. We are absolutely desperate for players who have a drive to get into the box and be a presence. Crossing the ball to a tiny striker with tiny attacking wide players joining them is not viable. Buy a 10 and buy wide players who are a presence in the box.

In fairness, he did that in the play off final and people thought we should have played that way more.

He's not useless but he's not playing in a team set up to suit him anymore. Not entirely sure why we are so insistent on winging crosses into the smallest striker in the league who is flanked by a kid and the smallest winger in the league and backed up by a attacking midfielder who also is pretty small.

Daft old thread this. Can we stop putting the results of every single match on the manager please ffs

It's not about formations for me. It's about player characteristics. Neither Fernandes, Downes or Charles have shown in their career they are midfielders who are suited to being in the box so asking Fernandes specifically to play off the striker doesn't suit his best attributes. If you want all 3 to play then yes you'll have to change the formation and bring a defender out but just doing that when there's no conceivable player in the squad that is going to score goals from midfield seems silly.

The only midfielders in our squad with goals to their name are presumably very high on supporters wish lists to leave (Aribo and Smallbone). So just sticking another man in the middle when they aren't very productive isn't the answer. Get a midfielder who actually gets into the box and is comfortable doing it would be a really good start and moving Fernandes back to a controlling midfield role would also really help.