Ex Lion Tamer

Honestly though, you can't just take players off like that at half an hour. Jander is an important player, we need to manage his confidence.

Second half means playing against tired legs, so it is different. And Larin is not ready for 45 minutes so you're still looking at 45 of Archer

You seriously think someone with his injury record can start 2 games in 4 days?

Transferring players is not the only or even the main benefit of the multi club model

Or they go to the middle East etc for a last payday

This is the kind of thing that fans don't always see but I expect we inquired about a bunch of players including strikers but got turned down, leaving us with Larin as the best available

Given that Armstrong should never have been playing up front in the first place, this isn't a bad way to look at it

Never go back

If we manage to get into the Premier League through the playoffs then we'll have gone on such a good run that a lot of players will have shown themselves to be a lot better than they currently look to us now. So I'm not sure we can rely evaluate it at this point

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