Chez

Will that concern Jones?

Do you think he has the quality to play in the Prem? The AA idea is not crazy, but we'd have to give him a massive payoff to balance the different wage bills. Those moves never happen. Have to say that I am not terribly fussed about how greedy a striker is. I want him to shoot on site if he is on form, not pass. Armstrong is completely selfless and that has not helped us at all. When strikers are passing rather than shooting its because they have lost confidence in themselves and are taking the easy way out. OK, yes there will be the odd occasion when a square pass rather than a shot would have meant a goal, but in general strikers shoot better than they pass - and with the game as fast as it is the passing window is often very small anyway - so just take on yourself.

Someone on here with more knowledge than me about ACL injuries pointed to the fact that running in straight lines is a very different from being fit enough to handle the rigours and movement of playing football, so he may still be a while before we see him. He started extremely well and was fantastic going forward initially, but IMO he was pretty average to poor for a while before he got injured. KWP should have replaced long before he did. His defending is not the greatest at times. He ball watches badly. Obviously I want to see him back and pushing for a starting place, but I am not confident he will solve all our ills. Creatively certainly is one of those, so maybe I am wrong.

You make some very fair pojnts. There are some parallels with our own situation. As is often the case when a new guy comes in, he inherits a losing side and needs to turn the ship around, which is tough task. An ability to see the problem and solve it is very important. Can he see our problem(s) - beyond the 'we need to score more goals' - and find a way of solving that? One thing I agree with you on is him inheriting a decent academy (assuming we continue to invest heavily in scholars) and good young players. If he is relatively successful - i.e. keeps us up - there are some players there, like Edozie, Ballard and Jimmy Jay, that could form the basis of a very exciting side. I believe that a managers success at a club can often be determined by the situation they land in. Arriving just as an amazing batch of young talent is coming through has nothing to do with that manager and everything to do with their timing. Lets hope Jones' timing is perfect! As I have said in other posts, I am looking forward to see how he does. I'm hoping he emulates Potter at Brighton and we are patting the board on the back for seeing his talent.

They had some good players and a very tidy side. We never beat them once at their place in the 80s. We are often absolutely "garbage" (Chris Nicholls words I think) on the plastic. They stuffed us by 6 and 7. I think they only beat us a couple of times at the Dell though.

I wonder if Wolves and Leeds might also be considering him. He'd be another player I suggested we sign when he was a nipper only for us to recruit many years later. With Redmond and Aribo not exactly working out, I am wondering if we should pass on Diaz.

Right back is therefore an issue. If not Wan, then maybe Djed Spence.

Thanks for post. Some great insights. I don't think his time at Stoke should be completely ignored. Sure, Stoke was a nightmare job, but ours isn't a bed of roses too. We have been on the slide for some time. His failure to turn that oil liner around is a concern. Like them, scoring goals is an issue for us. The question I have, is how is he going to change that? Buying a big target man and hitting diagonal balls seems to be the answer. That big lad is gonna have to be bloody good.

Gonna be flippin tough, but I'm looking forward to the next chapter. Hopefully its a long successful one. Obviously there is some trepidation, there is with all new managers, but compared to the appointment of Wigley this seems a smart move. How smart we will have to wait and see. At least he seems bloody happy to be here which is more than you can say for saggy.

are we going to win this right here right now

pretty sure everyone will know he is the manager, but we will want to announce it tomorrow. The club is always keen to spread out its big news/events.

I'm not defending Ralph, I simply stated what I was told. Edozie has not impressed in training. I'd of given him a lot more time on the pitch. Not sure I'd of started hm, but he'd of been on at half time in several games.

him being in the stand watching the game was a bit of giveaway.

My understanding is he simply hasn't shown it in training. That is why he hasn't been picked by Ralph.

Great to see Jimmy Jay in the squad. He scored goaLs while away on England duty and is brimming with confidence. This next batch of kids may actually be the real deal.

Stoke were terrible. They won, but they were terrible. Luton dominated. They played a lot of longish stuff, but did pass it too. A decent mix. Their problem was they just didn't have any quality in the final third. Just like us. They had a couple of golden chances but the strikers fluffed them. No matter the level, if you can't score, you are fucked.

63% possession. Total domination, but they don't loo like scoring. Smallbone a total non entity in midfield. No change there.

That certainly wasn't my assessment, but we are where we are. All that matters is what we do from here.

Hmm. No matter the formation we look horrible.

they finish like us too.

based on what I have seen of us over the last two years, we need him to change the formation and tactic immediately. What we have been doing just doesn't work.

half this forum moans about us not getting it forward quickly. They want us to play more (lower percentage) forward passes and less `safe' square and backwards stuff that keeps possession but doesn't get the ball into dangerous areas. I can't imagine he will have us playing long and winning second balls as our main tactic, but perhaps there is middle ground. We used to play a short possession game under Adkins/Poch, but then a long diagonal to Lambert would be very effective change of play. I don't think our players are good enough to beat a press. Having a direct method that bypasses midfield could be handy.

https://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/ryan-shawcross-nathan-jones-diamond-6163373 Interesting that Shawcross suggests Jones wanted to use the diamond midfield formation, that had worked so well at Luton, but Stoke didn't have the fullbacks or midfielders to make it work. I wonder if he is still using that formation at Luton and whether he'd try to use it here. If he does, do we have the players to make it work? We certainly need a change. Is that the way to go?

They will have been considering a change for a few weeks. They took their time to make that decision. Never easy to sack a manager, but that time taken will have given them an opportunity to get their ducks in order. Posts on here suggest they talked to him in the summer, so they already did their due diligence, so to speak. Once they fired Ralph there was no point in hanging around. They made the call to Luton and it was Luton that revealed it to the press, not Saints.

getting Luton into the play off with a very small wage bill no doubt was a major factor. He improved them from 23rd (when arriving) to 19th, then 12th the following season and then 6th last season.