Ex Lion Tamer

You can't have it both ways of saying you can't be expected to know what players are on the market, and then say there definitely must be better players on the market.

And yet you assume that such a player exists, that they would want to come, we could afford them, etc. Maybe running a football club is harder than you think?

I think this is a long term decision with next season in mind. Get money for Armstrong given his contract is running low then be in a better financial position to strengthen in the summer. Worst case scenario Larin sees us through to comfortable mid table. Best case he gives better balance to the team and even if he doesn't score many himself, he helps others to. It's not an exciting outcome for the fans but there's a cold logic to it.

"Big" chances created: Two in the top ten ain't bad, imagine if we had a clinical striker!

The biggest frustration is that this league is wide open really. Get a good run going and we could definitely make the playoffs

He played on the wing two years ago and now he's playing up front. He was rubbish up front two years ago too. There's no way you can compare the two

We knew two years ago that he isn't a striker and should be playing off the wing where movement matters less and where he will still score plenty of goals

We've known for ages that Armstrong isn't a centre forward but is very useful coming off the wing in this league. Let's get back to using him in that role.

Branfoot was at the club for two and a half years. That was frustration. At least this leadership is prepared to change managers when it's not working

He's said exactly what a manager should say in his position which is that we're looking at options but that he also trusts the players we have. It's not his job to be honest, it's to build his players' confidence and give them the best chance of playing well.

It does but also shows a willingness to face facts and move on. How many times have I read on here that the club will stick with e.g. Bazunu out of pride and refuse to admit they're wrong - not true actually

I will say that his performance as a manager doesn't have much relevance to whether he's a good assistant. Look at Steve Wigley, he was assistant manager when we were excellent under Strachan but he was never a manager. Or Stuart Gray, who supported Glenn Hoddle during a great period but was hopeless stepping up

Not my era but as others have said, Fisher looked really great here

We tried to sign Gakpo for big money that summer and he wouldn't come. While I broadly agree that we should have spent more on strikers over the last few years, it's not that easy to bring in £40m calibre players. And even if they do come there's no guarantee they won't flop, meaning even more money is wasted

They brought in mostly good players this summer to be fair. The problem was they didn't bring in a keeper and their big striker signing was a huge flop

A couple of good players in January and we can easily get promoted through the playoffs

I remember how convinced people were that we wouldn't get promoted this time two years ago

It's pretty obvious that we find it hard to break teams down when they sit back against us. Add a proper striker and a goalkeeper to that game and we probably would have won

If we called it a 3-4-3 then maybe people would get it a bit more. There might also be a case for a full back to go into the back three to make it more attacking (Roerslev?). As has been done many times in the past, e.g. Gary Neville for England. I think Ryan Bertrand did it for us previously?

There's always West Ham to solve that problem

The club have all the power. Local journalists are totally reliant on them for access and stories, so they can't rock the boat too much. And to be fair, why would they allow a local journalist to undermine the confidence of a fragile goalkeeper? It's counterproductive.

People like to dismiss stats but if a 20yo striker has 10 goals in 29 games in Bundesliga 2 then they're going to have to improve a lot to step up to the Championship. At best he's a long term project, more likely just a bad signing

He's hungry apparently, posted this a few days ago: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DSX6mbljQpP/?igsh=MW5reTZ6dm10a3dmYQ== Honestly I think he's one of the few players who could have made a difference off the bench against Coventry - he badly lacks end product but can go past players like they're not there, which is useful against a team parking the bus

I kind of thought the club was quite stat driven but did that stop a few years ago? Is the fabled Black Box a thing of the past?

I think we had a limited budget and decided to strengthen other parts of the squad