Forester

1 hour ago, Eric The Red said:

Would prefer NOT to play Man Utd a 3rd time!  The good news Forester is if instead of losing to Man Utd we beat Bournemouth on your plan we would have 39 points and near certain safety

Sorry, yes I had a malfunction!  And you are right, Bournemouth a great opportunity for three points

In terms of creativity and attacking verve, compare current talent with the last decade in the Premier League, from the first season up to now.  This has seen, for example:

Adkins/Poch era: Jay Rod (pre injury), Lallana, Lambert, Davis 

Koeman: Tadic, Pelle, Mane, Davis

Puel/Pellegrino/Hughes era: Redmond, Tadic, Gabbiadini, Davis

Ralph early years: Ings, Adams, Redmond, a fit Stuart Armstrong

The current forward line is genuinely a drop in quality, irrespective of how good the coaching is.  This is why, if we go down, Sport Republic are accountable for allowing the season to start so devoid of quality in front line 

It’s looking unlikely, but because of how tight things are and the many “six pointers” around us I haven’t yet written it off.  But no doubt at all last night made it harder.

There are always shock results, but a realistic route that may see us stay up (not certain that it would) is as follows:

Beat Wet Spam, Palace, Forest and Fulham

Draw with Spurs and Brighton

Lose to City, Newcastle, Arsenal, Manure and Liverpool

That would get us to 36 points, which most seasons is not enough but maybe this year.  I would go as far as to say that if one of the “draw or lose” matches could be flipped to a win I would be confident that 38 or 39 points would do it this year. 

10 hours ago, david in sweden said:

Great news.      Have you got your seat booked on the supporters bus ?

No a long car drive, but worth it!

Gavin and back four superb, JWP and Lavia very good and I thought a decent performance from Adams.  One goal conceded in four PL games is excellent, and continuing to defend that way will give us a real chance.  
 

Bigger picture is that we started the weekend six points off 12th placed Palace and we end it just five points.  It’s going to be a hell of a relegation dog fight but we finally look like we have the character for it, and fans, players and manager all on the same page which is not the case at Wet Spam and Leicester.

1 hour ago, Micky said:

When we were a half decent side we'd struggle to get anything at Old Trafford, so I really can't see anything other than yet another loss.  They'll be looking to erase the memory of Anfield, so we will be in for a real tough afternoon.  I'd snap your arm off now for a point but realistically is gonna be more about keeping it respectable. 

We have won twice and drawn twice since our return to the Premier League up there.  I have been there three times in that period and am yet to see us lose!

Without question our goals conceded ratio is helping us to catch up the other strugglers.  Interestingly though this improvement from an awful 2022 defensively actually pre-dates Selles, although he has further improved this.

It may surprise people that in 2023 (so including the Forest game) our record is nine conceded from eight Premier League games (there is a three in Brentford game within that), or 16 from 14 in all competitions.  
 

I was banging on week after week under Ralph that we were always doomed to struggle until we could get our goals conceded down to say 1.2 per game, which if you look back to our four seasons in the top eight under Poch, Koeman and Puel is what really drove the success.  An obvious statement but you are always in the game and can take points from scoring no more than one goal.

That is what is helping right now 

Encouraging that we showed more creativity first half than of late, and equally concerning at how our performance dropped second half.

Credit to our back four who look a good unit.  It seems bizarre to criticise the keeper after conceding one goal in three league games, but he really doesn’t inspire confidence.  Fully appreciate he is young and it is his first season, but his selection is stretching loyalty and patience to the limit.

Six points separate the bottom nine teams!

Massive game today.  Win, and we could be one point from safety, off the bottom and Selles having won two of three Premier League games in charge.  And a positive feeling ahead of many more home games to come.

Lose and we could be cut adrift, six points from safety, with three consecutive defeats in all competitions.  

Would like to see 433 or 41221 out of possession as follows 

Bazanu

AMN, Bednarek, ABK, KWP

Lavia

JWP, Stuart

Walcott, Kamaldeen

Tall Paul

I estimate we had some players out there tonight on over £60K per week being beaten by others on £3K per week.

What an absolute disgrace

A long journey to see such a dispiriting performance, particularly after the hope of last week.  A few thoughts which are different to the pile on of Bazanu and Bednarek that occupied much of this thread:

- Completely agree it was a lame goal to concede with multiple players at fault.  But of far bigger concern to me was the total absence of creativity or any discernible pattern of attacking play yesterday (having been encouraging against Chelsea in the first half last week in particular)

- while everyone will scrutinise the goal, and rightly, Bednarek made one error first half with a careless back pass, but that apart actually defended very well yesterday, as he did last week.  To be clear, I would not have selected him at Chelsea, or recalled him from Villa,  but I am not pig headed enough to then ignore what we see.  And Bazanu has started to command his area a little more these last couple of games.

- if you stand back from the frustration, we have conceded a total of one goal in two away games.  That is good by any definition. And should yield four or six points.  So while those reliant on two mins Twitter clips will focus on the goal, and I get that, we are not looking defensively shambolic right now.

- so the problem is creativity, which is not the same as earlier in the season under Ralph where the problems were defending and finishing chances.  Don’t forget last week took a JWP free kick, as did Everton away, to win.  So this has been going on for some weeks,

- yesterday I thought there were shockingly poor performances from Moi, Armstrong and Kamaldeen.  Additionally we saw almost no overlapping from full backs, with some fleeting moments from Perraud.  AMN has defended well but isn’t either confident, capable or allowed to bomb on

- if we are going to start with Tall Paul we have to give him service, which means crosses in the box.  Next to nothing is coming in from wide positions.  And if we are going to play long ball (which Selles said in interview he doesn’t like) then we have to get runners close to and beyond him or there is no point.

Bizarrely I still haven’t given up hope because there are other poor teams near us, but we aren’t going to win games creating nothing.  I would like to see Grimsby game used to develop attacking patterns rather than just resting everyone to see more of the same against Leicester 

In the situation we face, a sensible appointment.  We have poor track record of promoting assistants (Wigley, Gray) but this is a particular short term challenge

Bazanu

KWP, Bednarek, ABK, Perraud

AMN, Lavia

JWP, Stuart

Tall Paul, Kamaldeen

An obvious comment, but wins against rivals are much more valuable than us beating top half teams.  Still have Palace, Leicester, Forest, Wet Spam, Leeds and Bournemouth to play.  Win four of those and we have a great chance

I am not sure everyone is grasping what an absolute clusterfuck this is from the club, whether you wanted Marsch or not.  Think of it like this…..

- If you wanted him, offering him just six months reeks of lack of confidence, disrespectful, why would you accept that if you were Marsch?   Why not offer 18 months and pay him off in summer (only one year) after sacking him?  So now everyone else knows that they are not really wanted by the club and will only be interviewed or, in the case of Selles, given interim role because we have been turned down by our first choice.

- if you don’t want him, then why have club allowed it publicly to be known he was preferred choice?  You may be pleased he isn’t coming, but whoever we get will be appointed with everyone knowing, including the players, that they were not wanted.

What a mess, and that is after Jones was offered a multi year deal as recently as November!  It is great that they spend money on players but I am rapidly losing confidence in judgement of Sports Republic who seem themselves woefully out of their depth

7 minutes ago, Bad Wolf said:

Tbf the worst they could say is no...

What makes you think that they haven’t already, via their agents?

Don’t understand some of the negativity about Marsch.    Leeds were looking likely to go down when he went there a year ago, he kept them up and then they sold their two best players in Raphinha and Phillips.

He had 32 games in charge and picked up 33 points with what is in my opinion a bottom four or five squad.  And that was his first Premier League job where you would expect him to have learned a lot about the league.

So am not claiming he is a genius but it would be a solid appointment.  Could see him staying and mounting a promotion charge if the worst happened too.  

Don’t understand some of the negativity.  Leeds were looking likely to go down when he went there a year ago, he kept them up and then they sold their two best players in Raphinha and Phillips.

He had 32 games in charge and picked up 33 points with what is in my opinion a bottom four or five squad.  And that was his first Premier League job where you would expect him to have learned a lot about the league.

So am not claiming he is a genius but it would be a solid appointment.  Could see him staying and mounting a promotion charge if the worst happened too.

Cannot believe some on here are writing off rest of season and just looking at Championship already.   No matter how crap it has been we are still ONLY FOUR POINTS OFF SAFETY FFS!!!!!

Added to that we still have games against Bournemouth, Leeds and Wet Spam.  If you went to those teams’ fans and asked them how confident they are you would not hear much positivity.

We may needs as few as six wins, seven almost certainly would do it, and those other teams will also struggle to see where five or six wins come from too.  So yes it’s very tough, but absolutely not at the stage to write off yet.

I could not see the Sports Republic crew today, and I sit close to the directors area.  Did anyone else?  Semmens to be fair was there in front row to face the music.  

I enjoyed the first half, a bit primitive but who cares given the need for points.  New signings added something different.

Awful second half, made worse with changes,  cannot see how he survives that.

3 hours ago, stevegrant said:

My understanding is that Semmens has had effectively zero input into the footballing side of things since the end of the January transfer window. Which is basically fine, he's the CEO, not the Director of Football.

I agree on the general point, the club is a big business and needs a CEO focussed on all aspects not just the day to day playing stuff.  But any Board member won’t enjoy turning up to meetings and being a lone voice defending the indefensible, and I think Ankersen will increasingly feel the heat if he was the loudest proponent for the appointment.  At some point the Board will say enough is enough even if he is a lone voice backing Jones.  And Ankersen will lose credibility and political capital the longer a crisis continues.

Let’s all hope we go 2-0 up ten minutes into Saturday and somehow get a breath of fresh air all round.  But very much hope over expectation

14 minutes ago, macca155 said:

I thought it was a reasonable performance from the board. They seemed to say it how it is.

They were never going to slag off Jones publicly, but that was as close as you get to 'last chance saloon'. When your boss says ' I didn't enjoy' and 'disappointed'  you aren't sitting comfortably.

Jones has been disappointing on the football front, and a disaster on the PR front. I guarantee he's had a meeting without coffee, and told to keep his mouth shut.

The football could improve, but he needs wins and a coherent strategy. The former takes the heat out of the situation, the latter gives some hope.

I can't see it myself, but at least the board haven't retired to their bunker.

Yes agree with this.  Having listened to the whole hour I think Jones is skating on thin ice with the Board, and would imagine that a poor result and performance saturday will be time up.  Many fans may think that is too late, and that is fine, but I definitely did not get “full backing” vibes….

If Jones is still here, which I would be surprised by, I hope everyone ignores this circus and gets behind the team.  The points are more important.

I learned my lesson back in the day wanting us to lose to remove Wigley.  Games are running out

Genuinely don’t think Marsch would be a bad appointment for us.  He came in and kept Leeds up last season when they looked doomed.  Then they sold their two star players in the summer, Phillips and Raphinha.  They tend to have lost tight games, have had Bamford injured most of the season and have a pretty weak squad.

I wanted Benitez, Cooper or Dyche back in the summer all of whom were achievable then.  Rafa still is, I would add Marsch, Gerrard and Nuno as other Premier League experienced managers all out of work.  Don’t think Lampard would be credible.