SWLondon Saint

I agree, I definitely think there's a bench plan in there as well. Would expect to see Manning / Suga / Archer + possibly Dibling even towards the end of the game if we need goals.

2 deeper and 2 central attacking midfielders usually. Gives you serious numbers in there but relies on wingbacks or fullbacks to provide width. Ball in behind on the flank is the danger.

It'll be a box midfield probably, 2+2. *Should* be very hard to play through the middle and force them to the flanks. No long out ball, has to be played to feet.

Yeah, I have to be honest I've switched from dislike of BBD to puzzlement. He can't always have been this bad, he's had a pretty decent career, so I wonder if Still was talking about him and Archer in particular when he said some players need to remember how good they are and 'trauma'. I mean, having to play Russ' purgatory-ball and probably getting yelled at for trying anything risky, then being frozen out of the 2nd worst PL team of all time can't be good for your confidence. Fraser seems reinvigorated by Still but I think he has that stubborn resilient kind of character maybe the other 2 don't.

Never judge a book by its highlights video 😅

Did he even play that much for B'muff? Honestly, Dibling and Fernandes are bargains at £50m in comparison to him and Hutchinson imo...

The other good thing about this is it makes the West Ham offer for Fernandes look as daft as it truly is. £37.5m for someone who had less impact going forward than Fernandes and had a decent striker to supply and a team that was far less shite and who didn't have to adapt to moving overseas and didn't have 3 different shit managers.

It's not rocket science, just copy exactly what Brum did as they neutralised Ipswich completely. I watched some of the game and I seem to remember Jack Clarke kept drifting infield into traffic hence he wasn't that effective. Don't know what his game normally is but he and Szmodics looked like they didn't fancy it much against admittedly a very pumped up Brum who were allowed to get away with a fair amount of fouling.

As said before, literally the only thing SR have been good at is getting decent value when selling. Not that worried.

I think people are on the whole being pretty fair - he *should* be burying those chances, and he clearly knows it, he was super frustrated after the one last night, which unfortunately makes things worse as he then tries too hard. Still far too early to make any judgements, as I said above, we have to cross our fingers it's just nerves.

Absolutely this, the problem right now is he's just flat out running as the pass is made, he's not anticipating having to adjust as it's struck when you can move to the flight of the ball. It just all says panic stations right now. Calm down lad! For all the criticism of BBD, the one thing he really does seem to do well... Is cross it. Which considering he seems to lack most of the tools to get in position for it regularly, is just. Weird.

This is exactly it - the English game is so heavily scouted it's near impossible to find a 'diamond in the rough' type player from the Champ or L1 these days. Rudoni would cost the same as Fernandes, who I know we got on the cheap, but still....

Admittedly I've only watched his highlights reel from Coventry, but that frankly is less good than I'd expect from a 'highlights'! About half his assists were corners, the majority of the rest were aerial crosses and I'm not sure those find an unmarked player as often in the PL. Most of his goals were headers, he has the knack of drifting into the box but Coventry have some decent wingers which we don't really. At £15m I'd say he's definitely a 'best of the champ but no more' type player. He doesn't have the athleticism for the PL, which would be OK if he had the touch and guile to make up for it, but not sure he does.

Come on mate, you need to get your glasses on, or at least watch the games, particularly the Brighton one where he made a goal saving block in the area and also won the corner we got the equalising pen from with a good run inside AA. When he and Welington were on against Brighton and we went 3 at the back we were much better. Wrexham and N'hampton he's been totally indifferent for me, not that good but not that bad. Dunno what people are seeing, it's not like we're getting cut to pieces in either wide position, can you think of any times a winger got to the byline or in behind out wide?

He's just trying way too hard right now, trying to play 1 touch flick passes and fancy layoffs, and getting ahead of the ball is part of that trying too hard. Fingers crossed he does figure it out because the raw materials are there. Couple of times tonight you could see they didn't fancy getting in a footrace with him and he looks strong. He should be bullying defenders, not letting himself get pushed around.

Now that I can get behind... 😅

Tbh it wasn't just him tonight, we didn't pass well at all because we were outnumbered in midfield and had no presence up front at all. Our pass stats were 300 successful out of 390 which is about 76% aka shit all round. The 'passes' that bothered me the most were the front 3 trying a bunch of 1-touch layoffs which pretty much all went wrong and gave the ball away. Just take another f***ing touch!

I mean, if you're going point the finger at anyone, it has to be our front 3 who were bloody awful, couldn't hold the ball, no threat - the only one who gets a sort of pass is Downs as he's new and looks nervous. BBD and Archer have no excuse.

Seriously, this is getting ridiculous, I don't want to defend the guy as I don't rate him for the PL but what is with the Sugawara hate? He didn't really do much wrong at all today and yes, I endured watching the entire game.

I thought he had absolutely no problem tonight - which isn't exactly tough considering it's league 1 opposition, there was 1 decent cross from their left all game when Fraser was out there on their winger.

I think Archer forgot Archer, he's been invisible 🫥

We can't play this 3-4-3 formation with these forwards, none of these is a winger type. Simple as. But part of the problem is only having 2 in the central area, they're too stretched up against 3, one of the CBs has to step into midfield more but none look confident enough to do it.

Honestly, it feels at times like Still is trying some kind of passive-aggressive 'buy-me-a-number-10' routine as the side is crying out for someone in that spot to get on the ball.

We desperately need a 3rd man in midfield. Can also see why AA started up front on Saturday now, these 3 look absolutely hopeless. What is going on with them? Downs just looks a bag of nerves right now but at least he's trying.

BBD looks awful every time it goes near him. Need an extra man in midfield, not at the back.