SWLondon Saint

Well, that's the point - the current status is that members of the majority are elevated over minorities. There's a well known study showing if you send out the same CV, some with a white 'Anglo-saxon' type surname, and others with a foreign person of colour name, the foreign one gets worse responses. For the exact same thing. And a similar study asked lawyers to critique the exact same legal documents with majority or foreign names and people scored the one written by a foreigner lower. So the evidence is that we do need some DEI just to be aware that if not, we all tend to hire or promote people who look like us or are familiar to us.

This setup actually works for Kane though, he comes short and you have players with pace running beyond like Madueke and Gordon. Even our fullbacks are making runs behind. Anderson looks class, a proper number 6. Could establish himself there for England for years to come.

We need them to stay up this season and then blow up next season ideally if all goes well 😉

I wonder if Rambo doesn't get any game time at all behind Pope, if he might ask to be released from the loan. He definitely won't have any chance at England if he's not playing...

To be fair, if the main concern for him is money, that is a life-changing amount, so...

Apart from the shouting, Wood absolutely does seem that kind of player to be honest, he got his head on a lot the other day. Quarshie also has looked excellent in the air and dominant when players have challenged him with strength. And much as I don't rate him, Cap'n Jack definitely seems the 'fight in an empty room' type of player with his shithousery attempts.

I don't take it personally, can definitely see your point, but Jander is primarily seen as a DM and was generally speculated to be going to a higher end Bundesliga side so he's clearly meant to fill that spot. At the back, I'm not a huge fan of any of our CBs to be honest, but I can see why Quarshie has been brought in and hope he plays a lot this season. The championship is a bit of a weird one for central defenders, I do think there's a lot of mediocrity so maybe the thinking is we can just get by. Upfront it looks like they want to get it done by committee - Archer looked decent for a half at least yesterday and is clearly finding his feet again. I'd actually like to see Stewart given a shot as he looks well up for it. So I think there's probably enough there overall. But not unreasonable to doubt them as well.

If we can shift Edozie, Aribo and Smallbone, I think that'll be pretty much everything anyone could have asked for except for a Baz replacement...

I agree about his general stropiness and attitude, I just can't see who buys him to be honest? He's too much for a champ team and not good enough for the PL and no-one else has the kind of money we'd want...

I mean, I posted this as a joke, but who knew this is what Spors looks like with his glasses off... 🤓

I think the way to look at the first goal is that about 4v things went wrong and Baz's save or non-save depending on your opinion is just one of them. - No pressure on cross field ball at all. - wtf is Manning doing, you can't just wait for fouls off the ball to be given, have to assume they won't be noticed in this league - Huge gap on left side of mf / defence, too many sucked towards the ball? - Baz's positioning for save / non save It's still a great finish right inside the post and if Cam Archer had scored it we'd be saying what a great goal it was, not commenting about the keeper. My first thought when it went in was 'why is there so much space there and who's lying on the ground', not necessarily the save or lack of. While for Manning's goal my first thought is 'keeper's got to get that'. I'm not a huge Baz fan, but the strategy is clear, just hope he's good enough till we get promoted and Rambo comes back. It's gonna be a long season if everyone's just complaining about Baz the whole time, he's not the only one at fault so far. If he lets a trickler in, then sure.

Said it in another thread somewhere, but too many of our players seem to be in what I'd call the 'lazy attacker' mode, ie go in hard so you either win it or foul someone and don't have to bother fighting for position or running back round. Charles took a yellow today when he didn't need to dive in on the Australian lad, he should have hassled him running back and got goal side. You've got to put in those hard yards against the ball, which Jander has said he enjoys, so I guess a lot is riding on him being a success...

Yeah, I know - honestly think he should be looked on as a first team player, not in the u21s, I think he's looked the part so far. Of course he'll mess up at some stage, he's a kid, but we needed his physicality today.

Btw, did anyone else see Downs chase back on defense and take that yellow and think, 'Bloody hell, can we see some of that pace going forward please?!' Get him running in behind and he'll scare defenders.

I think they messed up with the midfield today. Sesay should be on the bench regularly this season already, I liked what I've seen of him so far, good motor and willing to chase down and do the dirty stuff. Both Charles and Downes seem to do the 'make one attempt to win it or foul', which is the 'can't be arsed to run back alongside and jockey someone off the ball' approach, which when you miss the tackle and the foul means your defence is horribly exposed.