Viking Saint

FFS

Right now, I'd settle for actually winning some games, building momentum and getting some confidence back in the team. 'Learning' that some of our players aren't very good at the expense of being embarrassed and dumped out of the cup by a L2 side doesn't help us in the slightest.

Canny bastard. Does this means he's resting his starting XI and putting his reserves out?!?

Agree, gives us a different focal point. I'd start him against Gillingham on Tuesday and give the lad a chance to show what he can actually do

whether he knew anything about it or not!

Has Ballard had any game time in preseason??

I know he didn't play, but let's not rate the lad on what he's been like in preseason. We know full well from last year that the lad is quality and that whatever we get in to replace him is not going to be a step up.

Not until we ship some out by all accounts, and are we really going to be upgrading on the likes of JWP, KWP and Lavia if they go and making ourselves stronger??

Exactly this, my concerns too. Lots of first half possession and only one goal to show for it against effectively a L1 standard opponent who equalised with their only shot on target at that point.

And when he scored, the commentator said something like 'but hang on' and I thought 'FFS, not again', but he went on to say that there were still a lot of minutes left. It's just nice to be able to celebrate goals again!

In fairness, there's only so much you can show in 6 minutes of game time

Didn't show much in what game time he had last season

My mistake - forgot about Bree, though he is largely forgettable

We need at least two options per position. Is Bree going to be good enough cover??

RM has made this point a few times in the media and agree with him. Radio 5L mentioned this morning that Klopp was complaining (hard to believe, I know) that the window in the Saudi league downstairs close for 3 weeks after ours does. Mental.

Some people have got short memories. He was generally fairly shit for us and no one was bothered when he left on loan. He's now being touted as potential captain material after a season of inconsistency with Bournemouth. We might have dropped a division but we still need to be aiming higher. Same goes for Bednarek, wasn't good enough then, isn't good enough now

Not in the slightest. When you match someone, you are equal to them. Given that they had a goal more than us, we weren't matched. A grasp of English is clearly not your strong point, or is it too subtle for you??

Playing some really good stuff, yet not scoring, conceding soft goals and bedding new players in with the first game of the season 6 days away. Worried???

How are we matching them if we're 0-1 down???

I was at their stadium a few weeks ago, thankfully not to watch this waste of a shirt.

Or we could actually play a style and system that suits the players we have at our disposal, rather than the 'square pegs and round holes' policy we've seen with our last few managers. If Martin is sacked by Christmas, we'll be looking for 11 new starters to fit his replacements style of playing....

We were warned about this being Martin's style of play. It annoys the shit out of me that we seem to consistently hire managers who lack the flexibility to have more than one style of play. What happened to assessing the strengths and weaknesses of your players and adopting a system that suits what you've already got, rather than buying in players who play 'your way'? Granted, I'm not sure what some of our players strengths are, but forcing poor ball players to play out from the back is asking for trouble and inviting pressure.

Slight thigh pull in last few minutes against Reading

It's the Bin Dipper Way