TWar

It's incredible how much people still think of Kante as some sort of ball winning defensive mid. He is very much a box to box, has been for years. It's one of the biggest misconceptions in football. Kante, Lallana, Henderson, Fred, Thiago ect. all play as 8's. We don't employ 8's so there isn't much point in even discussing who he would replace.

If we had to facilitate Lallana we would play a 433 with Lallana and JWP playing as 8's and Romeu as a sitting DM, I don't think he would be a good 10 at all. This might be better than what we have, but I'd rather just stick to our current system with two up top and buy an actual attacking mid. Also Lallana and Kante both play as ball progressing 8's now, primarily in a midfield three or double pivot. Lallana is not an attacking mid/winger/10 and hasn't been for years and Kante is not a DM.

Yeah he needs to find somewhere he will start regularly but also get better service than here. He could go to a West Ham or Leicester but the latter probably wouldn't want him with Iheanacho doing well and bigger spots to fill elsewhere and the former are better than us this season but last they looked pretty poor so not definitely a step up. I hope we spend well on an attacking mid to convince him we mean business, we won't though.

Wages, our wage bill is huge. There was a time last season where we were paying something like £350K a week to players not even in our matchday squad, from paying part of loan fees plus players who couldn't make the bench. We didn't just waste transfer fees on these players, we also gave them massive contracts.

Gotta pick 4 keepers and Pope is injured. We don't have that deep a pool.

I think he'll make it. We don't have that many midfielders. Most likely we drop Ramsdale/Johnstone, a rightback (probably James), White, Godfrey, Lingard, Greenwood, and Watkins. Lingard is put in the midfielders despite being a forward in every game he's played as we already have way too many forwards and not enough mids.

Absolute nonsense. He stands out because he was one of the golden boot last season. If he was "surrounded by dross" then surely he would look worse as he has worse supply. He still got 12 goals this season despite limited minutes and team form.

JWP made it. It is more a sign he needs to play regularly all season to get in. Could be a mark in our favour, if he sits on the bench for City or United for half a season no way he makes the world cup squad.

Don't hate the idea of a loan tbh. We wouldn't be giving up on him, just getting him some experience and game time. Some great players have needed a loan or two to realise their potential.

Have we added Diallo to the "do not pick" list? I thought he looked quite good at West Ham, made some great forward passes and linked play. Bednarek is not worse than Stephens, Stephens was directly responsible for our loss against Leeds (along with Macca), just let Bamford wander off him. I think with our CBs it will always be a "grasses greener situation". Ideally we play Salisu and Vestergaard but we don't have an lb so we are playing a 352 so one of Stephens or Bednarek must play. Redmond must start too as he is our only LB option. Even when he isn't though aside from Armstrong (who has played at 6 more often than not) he is not worse than any other attacking mid. You can complain about picking the three of them but we don't really have better options.

Because there are atleast three teams that are worse? We are better than Palace, Burnley, Brighton, and pretty level with Newcastle. Norwich are no better than last time they entered the league and finished 20th, still have little money to reinvest, and have lost some good players already. Both Brentford and Swansea are very average sides with again very little money. And watford again are worse than last time they were in the league and don't have much money. That is 7 teams who we are better than, we have had a poor end to the season but we are definitely not favourites for relegation at all.

We've been playing with a 352 for our past few games, so that isn't true... We've also played a 442 diamond and a 343 in recent weeks.

Ralph needs backing, from both the board and the fans. Squad is too weak and has too many holes. Across a season 15th is a reasonable position for our squad quality, that quality needs to improve. We won't improve by sacking a manager who is doing fine given the resources.

New keeper, LB, and attacking mid. Keep Ings.

Calm down mate, we only finished 15th. We've been in league one on minus points in the last 20 years.

Adams is a great link up player, excellent hold up play, and a good support striker. He's not a good finisher.

It's not a coincidence, our keepers are bad, so they lose us a lot of games.

I actually can't remember last time we had a keeper I fully trusted over a whole season. These are the worst we've had though in a long time.

Has been poor but not really fair to blame him for not being a good emergency wingback. Is filling in way out of position.

Yeah without Ings we have poor finishers and both our keepers are crap.

We've dominated possession and created just as many chances as them, sorry I'm disrupting the pity party but we are one good keeper away from this being 0-0 and a good striker next to Ings away from being ahead. Over half the lads are doing ok, it's a few doing dreadful.

He's playing as a wingback and we have literally no one else who can play there. No right answer really.

We've had just as many chances with Minimino and KWP both going 1v1 with the keeper. Macca poor for both goals, first one he has to push round the post he can't be parrying that back out into the box. Second completely flat footed, rooted to the spot. He won't be expected to always save the second but he can try.

All three have been dross, but so have Stephens, Forster, Djenepo, Walcott, ect. there isn't good answers unfortunately. Redmond at wingback against it's first competent opponent is being shown to be woefully inadequate.

They can finish and have a competent goalkeeper, we can't and don't. Similar elsewhere.