SWLondon Saint

If Bree is happy to come back rather than stay with mad Nate I'd say he'd be the perfect fit at RB/RCB. Cancel Jelert's loan as he seems to be injured the whole time. But I would bet Charlton will do their best to keep him.

That's what I reckon as well. The problem at the moment is Fellows is forced to defend as a full back with Azaz ahead of him tracking back. Be better if Edwards was there with Fellows ahead of him. Also most of the time when they have the ball, right now we have 3 CB standing in or around the penalty spot with at least 1 marking 'space'. And it's really hard to pick up the guys running forward from midfield into the box when you're back on your heels.

I also agree with taking off Scienza as early as possible to protect him - actually I think he could've come off at halftime as it's sometimes easier for a sub to come on then and get up to speed in the game. No-one (well, very few) is 'having a go' at Tonda, people are just rightly concerned at the terrible defending / second half when West Brom deserved to come away with a point except for a terrible miss at the end there. I don't agree that having a 'Ben Mee type' would make the difference UNLESS they can also tell the midfield to stop camping on top of the box and get further up and out. If you let as many crosses as we do come into the box, sooner or later you're going to concede no matter how good you are at heading it just based on luck.

Well even with 3 CBs we don't seem to be able to win a header in the box, those corners they had were ridiculous, they won the header 4 times in a row. That can't be right.

For some reason all our recent managers seem to think 3 CB makes us more secure or something but I have no idea what they're seeing. The huge problem with the way we do it is they all want to defend in front of the goal which means on the flanks the wing back is often 1v2, so a midfielder has to drop back there which opens up a ton of space elsewhere to switch it, cross it, whatever really. Just having 2 CBs and then a FB and winger defending the flanks would make a huge difference. OR if he's determined to stick with the 3 CB then the one on the ball side has to go out wide. But that does not seem to be part of the plan right now and we're getting shafted.

Again, even though I would love us to replace Bazunu, I honestly don't think a different GK and / or CB would help as the problem is us just being far too deep and allowing the other team to cross at will.

On their corner goal, he was some way away not even in contention so something's gone wrong imo. The marking on the corner before with Frazer on the front post where he had no chance also looked f-ed up.

It wouldn't help if we bought another 3 CBs, the problem is we have too many on the pitch and not enough bodies in midfield - we just leave so much space the crosses come raining in from either side and the CBs all seem to be confused / unable to defend anything.

A thousand times this. He literally drops into the back 3 and that sucks the front 3 backwards and opens up space deep in our half. Also, I think he actually confuses the defenders as it always feels like attackers get free as no-one knows who's marking who. Ideally one of our defenders should be shouting at him to f*** off 10 yards further out of the box but we've lacked an organiser at the back forever.

None of ours was as glaring as that totally open goal miss by them though. If that had gone in for 3-2 I don't have a lot of confidence we'd have held on...

Yeah, I was thinking it looked just like against QPR and Millwall. Our midfield 2 drop back and our front 3 are all about half way between our box and the centre circle, then it's really hard for us to get out. Why play so deep? We're not playing bloody PSG or something. I just don't get it.

Good win against a decent team, though they are a bit crap away from home. I only caught from about 30 mins so missed the first 2 goals. Attacking looked decent especially when Leo is on the ball, agree he's probably the best attacking player in the league. He's also good at receiving the ball under pressure and buying the foul when he can't get away which is an invaluable skill to relieve pressure. Defensively we looked pretty ropey though especially on our left. Last 20 minutes was backs to the wall stuff with everyone in our box which I just don't understand. Honestly feel like the 3 CBs are a huge problem for our shape under pressure, if you just surrender the midfield and let lots of crosses come in you are going to concede, which we should have done with that incredible miss by them. Anyway, hopefully Tonda can figure that out, we do have options...

All about Leo 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼 Also, f*** me these Birmingham taters are annoying. They make Adam and Joe sound completely neutral.

Good luck to him - just have to hope he's learned from the Millwall mess up. He got absolutely schooled there, they knew exactly what we wanted to do and were all over us, and then he compounded it with shit subs. We'll have a better idea if he's figured it out today I guess.

Bloody hell, so that's the difference Tonda made...

Bloody hell, the one game I can't watch at all and we go and do that - watched the highlights, but what was the difference? Formation and players pretty much the same as always, was there a change in tactics? Or did the players just hate Still?

Well, to be sort of fair to him, Cap'n Jack has never really done that - he's not an inspirational lead by example guy, he doesn't get the team going, and he doesn't take responsibility. He's much more the 'niggle at opposing players, wind yourself up and lose your own rag and get sent off' type of leader...

That's a fair shout and I thought of them, but I'm not sure they'd count as caretakers, certainly Andrews got the job outright and it seemed well planned. I think the problem actually stems partly from being a 'caretaker', as it means you've just been given the job and not earned it which undermines authority from the word go. That definitely applies to Eckert plus Wigley / Selles.

It is possible for 2 things to be true at the same time - I don't think AM would have stopped the shot vs Sheff Wed either, it came through legs and he seems to be slower getting down to the sides this season, the Blackburn 1st goal was a shocker. Having said that I also think Baz is not good enough. I hate the way Baz flings himself at everything and seems panicky - that spilled cross he followed up with a decent save stemmed from him not communicating, making a clear call and getting Wood out the way then catching it. We should have cut our losses on him some time ago and got someone better than him or AM for this season.

OK, if it's not 'brain dead', name a single caretaker manager who was promoted from within a club to be full time and was then successful in the last 20 years or so. We've done it twice and it was a disaster both times, so why do you think it would be a success this time? The only one I can think of who had some success was Di Matteo at Chelsea and he was sacked within a few games of starting the next season anyway. And you can't say Chelsea were a basket case with managers without acknowledging we've been worse the last 3 seasons.

Looks like Baz has some competition, think that was going over if the keeper hadn't got a hand on it 🧈✋🏻

Pretty sure this is why there's so much speculation about Cap'n Jack or someone else calling the shots as it just doesn't seem to make any sense...

It'll be the same as always, 5 defenders, 2 overrun CMs, 3 up front unable to press as not enough support. I don't know why the f*** anyone at the club thinks this is working as it really hasn't been for weeks.

I've been banging on that he needs game time in the u23s and nothing I saw last night changed that. The problem is not effort, the problem is he's completely lost. He looks to be a player who needs structure (which can be good or bad) and right now we have absolutely none, no strong leadership on pitch, none from the sideline so he just wanders around. Pressing wise he moves like there's one player ahead of him, he falls back into the midfield line - that says to me no-one is setting up how we play against the ball. He should not be dropping back to the edge of the area no matter what, someone should be telling him to stay forward but to be fair, AA often drops back that far so the precedent is there. He needs a manager like Ralph or Poch who actually helped their players learn where to move, when to press, when not to. He's getting absolutely none of that as a young player in our chaotic shitshow, and he's been put in a position he's not ready for so I blame the management and the senior players, not him.

Points are always good especially when you're in 21st, but the 'team' just looked even more like a bunch of randoms sent out in a vague formation and everyone just doing whatever they felt like.