TWar

Yeah leadership is important and players who aren't trying their best obviously exist and are obviously a burden but in the modern game it is rarely that which is causing losses. It's a lot more likely to be tactical or due to individual errors based on lack of skill. Macca isn't good enough, so he makes a lot of mistakes. Djenepo and Walcott aren't good enough at passing so it puts us under pressure due to high fullbacks who can't get back when the ball turns over quickly. Ralph is too conservative with subs, therefore our players tire and by the time he notices that it's too late as they've made tired mistakes. Things like this are much more likely to be the issue than just "soft attitude" which, for me, is just an outdated truism like when lazy commentators say "well they wanted it more". It's almost always tactical or skillbased and rarely effort based imo.

Have a day off discussing football on a football forum? No idea what you object to, this is completely on topic (tactical deficiencies and how signings could solve them in the transfer thread).

Turkish has probably seen a tonne of asymmetric formations as they've been prevalent for about three decades. He just didn't understand what he was looking at beyond "put the ball in one goal and keep it out the other".

Alright mate, you tried your best to get it, wouldn't worry any further.

I can see why you'd think that. I'll make it simple for you: 1) 10s are attacking mids who play in the middle 2) Wingers are ones who play wide 3) In a 4222 our attacking mids often play closer to the middle of the pitch vertically than the forwards and midfielders behind them 4) Therefore we call them 10s 5) Last season we often had one wide on the left and the one on the right in the middle, not always though sometimes we did use two "10s" as Ralph says 6) This is called "asymmetric" as the roles of the two attacking mids are not the same (but mirrored) 7) In order to facilitate this, our fullbacks also were asymmetric in that one of them pushed on (on the right to provide the width vacated by our right attacking mid) and one sat deeper, making almost a back three 8 ) Contrary to this, on the weekend both our attacking mids played wider, more like wingers and less like 10's 9) This made our formation a lot more like a 442 (or even a 4231 as Adams played much deeper, see the average position chart at the end of this post) 10) This is likely the reason why KWP and Armstrong saw themselves dropped as we didn't use a 10 and wanted a more conservative fullback. I hope this helps decode the riddles. Sometimes there is a bit more to football than leadership skills and passion, it has some tactics involved too, and not just on the playstation!

Our poor defending is due to: A) Truly crap goalkeeper who is poor at many things including commanding his box and filling CB's with confidence B) One bad CB (Stephens), one average CB (Bednarek), and one with a tonne of potential but needs to sharpen up and learn the prem a little more (Salisu) C) Sloppy passers in midfield (Djenepo, Walcott, Romeu) who put us under pressure when we are attacking as the fullbacks get caught out of position by the quick turn over D) High pressing actions which get steadily less effective as legs tire coupled with a seemingly unwillingness to use our bench by the manager Pass accuracy for Everton and Saints midfielders: Ways to fix it: A) Better keeper (not happening) B) New first choice CB (hopefully happening) C) Giving Salisu some game time and hoping he develops fast! D) Bench Walcott for Armstrong E) Potentially bring in Diallo for Romeu after he has gotten a bit more used to the pace of the league as he is a much stronger passer E) Coach Djenepo into being more safe with the ball, he is exciting and combines well with Perraud so I don't want to bench him but if he can't make better decisions then we will need to see Redmond/Ely considered F) Ralph needs to use his bench. Judging by his post match comments hopefully he has noticed this was an issue last week and will internalise that going forward.

The two attacking midfielders (Armstrong/Djenepo/Walcott/Redmond/Tella/Ely) are called 10's by Ralph as they often line up more narrow than the strikers/CMs. Last season we would often play with an asymmetric formation of Armstrong centrally as a true 10, Redmond/Djenepo wider as a winger and then have KWP push forward and Bertrand sit back to account for this. Sort of like a 3412. Not sure if the same thing is true this season, in the opening game Walcott and Djenepo played very wide and it looked a lot more like a traditional 442 with overlapping fullbacks. I suspect this change in shape is why Armstrong was benched.

Especially when you consider what we got Livramento for

How can you be lucky to finish in the bottom 3? That's the worst that can happen, what else do you expect? For the club to disband?

Yeah for the record I think Forster maybe does better with the second as he's taller and his positioning is a bit better but maybe not and that's about it. Doubt he claims the first as his cross claiming is awful and the ball went through Macca for the third but we see that happen with Forster all the time too.

To be honest I just want the best player possible, be it some lad from the Championship or someone from the French second tier or the russian league. I think anecdotally most of our good signings came from other leagues like Mane, Tadic, Pelle, VvD, Alderweireld, ect. or came up with us. I can't think of that many great Championship signings we've made since being back in the prem, JRod, Redmond, Clyne, Charlie Austin, and Adams are the first who spring to mind and that is quite a mixed bag with no real worldstars like those we picked up from the continent.

I think the Championship is getting further and further away from the prem in style and with the importing of european managers we play more and more like clubs on the continent. For example, stylistically we play a lot more like one of the RB clubs than anyone in the Championship (although unfortunately much less successfully) as that's where Ralph learnt his trade.

Always counter examples though, like for West Ham it took Bowen and Benrahma a while to establish themselves into the side after stepping up but Coufal and Soucek who both came over from the Czech league came in and hit the ground running immediately. I think players after promotion are a bit different as they have already been training and playing together for years so they will obviously adapt more quickly than an individual player to a new team.

I imagine so, plus a language barrier. On the other hand does that offset the fact that the jump in quality between top 5 leagues is significantly smaller than that between the Championship and the premier league?

I always wondered this, why would a player stepping from the Championship to the Premier league need less time to adapt than someone from the Spanish/French/German league to the premier league? Do you think the prem is more similar to the English second tier than the German first tier, for example? Quality-wise it is certainly closer to the German first tier. I'm not necessarily saying I think the opposite as I don't know, I just think it's an interesting thing people tend to say quite often and wanted to know what was behind it.

If he's not started for a premier league side regularly he's a hipster signing, otherwise how else would people have heard of them? Through the playstations I imagine!

Yeah it's pretty unlikely I'll admit but you never know. I think Spurs and West Ham have courted multiple of them and will likely only buy one each which means the remaining players will be looking for somewhere to land, not sure Saints will be favourable but you never know!

Maybe controversial but I'd rather we wait for the end of the window and see if any of Milenkovic, Tomiyasu, Kouyate, or Caleta-Car end up without a club to go to and we can pounce. If not I'm sure we can pick up one of Tosin, Kabak, Worrall then but I think waiting till players/clubs get a bit more desperate means we might end with a bargain.

After a bit of research Forest conceded the 5th least in the championship despite finishing 17th so that is pretty impressive. They didn't score many so hopefully they aren't just a hyper defensive side and that makes Worrall look better.

Still feel like we should be aiming higher though. Caleta-Car would be much better imo

Worth noting this doesn't include the "traditional big 6", which is what this other14 thing means. Weird thing to do given teams like Leicester and West Ham were very competitive with teams like Arsenal and Spurs last season.

Apparently has gotten a tonne better since his loan at Rangers, fans on twitter are bigging him up quite a lot, calling him one of the stand out players in the championship

No way any keeper would claim a ball dropping from height into their own 6 yard box? Are you sure about that?

Agreed, maybe I'm being too old school about things but two clear rules for me: 1) For the first goal a keepers 6 yard box is theirs to control, if a ball loops into it from height you better believe they should claim that. 2) For the second, you don't get beaten at your near post (unless they are like 3 yards away from you), simple as that. These things should be goalkeeping 101 for me. The third, if the ball comes right at you then you shouldn't let it go through you, less cut and dry as the others but still something I don't think Macca was blameless for.

Not how I saw it at all, it was high over Salisu's head when it passed him, he definitely didn't "duck" as you can see above. He didn't backtrack into his own 6 yard box as he thought the keeper would come and maybe should have, but there is no way in hell he ducked. Below is another angle with the ball circled, it is way over Salisu's head, no ducking at all. And look at McCarthy's body position in the below one, he is retreating to his line, not coming to claim it at all!