Chez

Is it?

no lack of desire, its quality that is the problem IMO.

no.

If Leeds can only attract Steve Bruce, then what are we going to come up with?

when we went down in 2005 we only had Crouch that anyone really wanted. We sold a few others Niemi/SKP for buttons, but there wasn't exactly a mad rush to take McCann, Van Damme and Jakobsson off our hands. The same will apply with the 2023 vintage. We have a couple of gems, Lavia is the right mix of youth and ability, but the idea that Prem sides will rush to buy loads of our players is wishful thinking and the other leagues can't afford to pay the likes of Djenepo £60k a week or whatever. We are going to be stuck with a lot of these guys. Expect lots of loans with us paying half the wages. The parachute payments wont cover all the remaining wages and the debt is going to rise very quickly.

It's amazing how many good players we have, performing well, yet we keep losing. By and large the consensus is that AMN did OK and Bazunu didn't do a lot wrong. So that would mean using your assessment of the others, the only starter that played badly was Bednarek. Perhaps Archers Road Stand is right, some fans favourites aren't actually that good and ought to be critiqued a little more.

and perhaps worst of them all, Stephen O'Halloran, all be it he only played once, but that was more than enough.

Nilsson, Lancashire, Bennet, Chris Makin...we've had some terrible defenders that you perhaps missed.

nah, I've got more important things to worry about like the expiry date of a yogurt in the fridge.

I agree, but what did you think was our main problem today?

you may be thinking of Chis Powell of Charlton fame. Darren Powell, the CB we had in 2008, certainly didn't have any England caps (it makes me chuckle just thinking about him playing International games) and he was the guy with a 50p head and the a turning circle of the Seawise Giant. He'd fit right into this Jones side we have right now. Aggressive, front footed (more two left feet really) and fucking crap.

Nothing. As I said, I am not defending Bednarek. I have said he was shit pretty much since the first game I saw him. As I recall, I was one of the first to say he was glacial slow and wsn't god enough - and that was a long time before this board came to the same conclusion. But hay, if you want to keep trying to make me out as the `Bednarek fan' just to gloss over you absolute shambles of an opinion that Darren Powell was the better player, thats fine.

yeah, but are you better than Powell?

You think Darren Powell is better than Bednarek. wow.

You're seriously suggesting Powell was a better player than Bednarek because Bednarek has scored some own goals? Bednarek is not very good, he shouldnt be selected ahead of ABK. but Powell is the shittiest football I have ever seen.

Yeah, I don't rate him so I must hate the French. He's scored two goals. Yeah. He must be fucking brilliant then. i'm more than happy to give my opinion on those players, none of which I rate and will all be contributing to our relegation, but the rest of the board seem to have them covered. If you rate Perraud fine. I think he's just another substandard player dragging us down to the Championship.

Worse than Darrel Powell?

he doesn't get any real flack on here, except from me. I'm clearly in the minority, and maybe completely wrong, but thats how I see it. He gives 100% when he has to runs forwards (he's perhaps that front foot player Jones keeps going on abouts), but he's a bit lazy getting back into position some times. Even if he didn't do that, it still wouldn't be enough.

to be honest unless you are in the Northam or Itchen 1, the atmosphere is pretty crap at SMS and you may as well be watching on the TV

I concluded that the Jones way was 5 at the back, two up front (with Sumelana playing off Onuachu) and any free kicks we got from a sizeable distance from their goal would not be taken quickly and instead would be sent into the mixer (no bad thing). Other than that, I didn't spot any differences. We did hustle and get stuck in during the first half hour, but it wasn't a huge change.

Unless you were in the family stand, they can fuck off.

they were terrible on the night - giving the ball away more in 90 minutes than they usually do in an entire season. We certainly pressed them. with Armstrong, JWP, Mara and Djenepo working hard. We also gambled a bit. I still think Jones made an error in not continuing with Mara down the middle and Armstrong wide right.

I know I keep going on and on about hm, but Perraud really is poor. I know you all love him and want round pegs in round holes, but he simply isn't good enough to start games in the Prem. He's far too slow, often too lazy to track back, crap in the air, touch is ropey, crossing shit and technically just not of the standard required to excel in the Prem. Yes, he harries opponents (so long as its running away from our goal), which we all love, but that ain't nearly enough. We are bottom of the league for a reason. too many Championship standard players like Perraud that are poorly managed.

running in the direction of the opponents goal?

when questioned about whether he sensed they were on top, he tries to get out of it by saying: "yeah we changed...were changing it..." but the reality is they were about to bring on a sub when they scored, but they didn't make a change before they scored to stop them scoring. He was too late. Nothing to do with today, but the time it takes for players to be ready to come on the pitch is ridiculous. The games changes so quickly, players should be strapped up, wearing shirts and ready to go in an instant. Annoys the fuck out of me that.