James

Surely there comes a point where enough is enough. I’d say we are probably approaching it.

If we lose to Blackburn on Saturday I think he has to go. This can’t continue.

When we had Russell Martin we at least made light work of dog shit mediocre teams at home. With Still went can’t even get more than a draw out of those.

It’s not entirely his fault but Will Still just is not the manager we need in this situation.

We really are unbearably crap. Strap in for a stint of total mediocrity folks.

Archer is so poor. He does nothing in open play except sit on the shoulder waiting for a ball through and, as we know, when he gets those he can’t finish.

Another miss. For fuck sake.

Still, at least we spent a collective £22m on Azaz and Fellows so they could sit on the bench, despite us being told how “essential” they were to Will Still being able to play the way he wants…

Everyone knew it was a massive issue but the Club was messaging from extremely early on that they (including Still) were “comfortable” with the options we have. Every single year of their ownership SR have left us short up front. Every single year.

He really can be much worse tbf…

If Still was happy with these striking options then he is to blame too. His style seems to rely on having some physicality up top. No way to achieve that with a pub player in Downs and Stewart who is made of glass.

How we managed to sign a worse striker than Adam Armstrong for our Premier League season is genuinely mind blowing.

Archer you useless turd. If he cant finish those then what’s the point of him…

Just not good enough. Will be a long season.

Last 10-15 mins has been a lot better. First 20 was turgid.

Arma should score again.

OK Scienza is class.

I’m sorry but any half decent striker buries that.

Nice one Archer 🤦‍♂️

This is really bad. We have nothing going forward at all.

To play devil’s advocate, those are reasons that justify Still not being very good so far and I agree with those. Personally I haven’t seen anything from Will Still himself that suggests he is going to be good for us based on the games he’s managed. He might be, but if he is it will be a complete departure from how he’s managed us so far.

I would seriously question the club’s sanity if they were OK to keep Still if we drop into League One. Missing out on promotion if competitive sure but relegation from the Championship would be totally unacceptable.

Out of interest, what have you seen from Still to give him that level of trust? He talks a good game for sure but he’s been average at best in our good games and abject in the bad. I am really struggling to see what he is even trying to do, everything seems panicked and ill thought out in my view.

My main issue with Still is that there is zero evidence of what he is even trying to do. We started the season playing 5 at the back as he “didn’t have players” and we were, at best, average. Since he’s “had the players” we’ve been god awful really. At least with Martin, like him or not, it was almost immediately obviously what he wanted to do. Now, we can debate how wise it was to adopt the RM style but it was at least clear what it was. With Still it’s totally confused, he wants to get crosses into the box but the half decent strikers we have are totally unsuited to that and the one we did buy that fits the profile looks, to put it politely, very raw. I don’t really buy the “massive turn over” of players. The main two players that have come into the team are Azaz and Fellows, both have Championship experience and were playing significantly better for their prior clubs. They should not be going backwards as far as they have in the first two games. The fact they’ve been poor tells me the issue is coaching. I get we can’t keep sacking managers but there isn’t a shred of evidence to suggest Still is going to change this and if we keep waiting this season is going to be gone. It’s all in all incredibly frustrating that we made this appointment in the circumstances. He might have a decent career but this job came too soon and was too big.

Why not? You can’t seriously think our only option was to appoint a 32 year old that had only managed in Belgium and France. If we’d have made a serious play for Lampard (for example) I suspect he’d have been interested. Sure, a top manager might not have been available but there were other credible options that had actually managed a game in the league we play in…