Willo of Whiteley

Three CBs or five at the back supposedly closes up shop if you’re defending, but you need to have defenders that are good enough, that we don’t. There is no benefit in playing a back five, you lose an attacking option. Sitting in the Chapel end today, the amount of times Fraser or Manning had the ball and there wasn’t a single player to play a through pass to. Armstrong made runs but that’s all he could do. Downes and Charles are basically the same player, both were playing no further than maybe five yards ahead of the CBs. Throw Matty Fernandes who dropped very deep pretty much most of today and we effectively had three CDMs and three CBs, Armstrong on his own against two 6”4” centre halves and Fraser and Manning out wide with seemingly no one to pass to. If these amazing tactics are to whip it into the keeper and play a diagonal ball for ninety minutes it’s going to be a long season.

We need four or five players and we need the deadwood to go. Dibling, Edozie and BBD gone. ABK gone. A CB gone.

Tell me something he did wrong today? Id argue he was better than Charles, Wood etc

I don’t think you can blame Armstrong for anything this season. Seriously how can you? He’s made runs, he’s pressed, he’s had shots at goal, put people through etc. But when you’re against at least two defenders a foot taller than you and largely playing on your own, what do you expect?

Tactically awful decisions today. Back five, again. Really?

Charles and Downes are the same player sitting deep; and all Fernandes did was run and play deep too. So we effectively had three holding midfielders not moving forward with three CB’s behind them.

If Will Still’s tactics are to drill it out from CB to wingers, and then to just float balls in for the keeper to catch every time, hen this is going to be a long season. That was a terrible performance. Absolutely abysmal. The attitude of some of those players, heads dropping, no urgency. They can all bugger off. Will Still got that entirely wrong today.

Absolutely fucking abysmal. Tactics from us is just crossing it to their keeper, low and behold, it works for them. Fucking terrible.

How have we not made another attacking sub!?!

I reckon Damion Downs will come on, he’s not on the pitch at HT with the others.

Three at the back does not work. It’s very simple. Players are overloaded with sideways options to pass to this not getting the ball up the pitch quick enough; and you lose that attacking threat, thus inviting the opposition to press.

This is a really, really, really terrible game. The tactics are all over the place. No attacking threat. Lots of sideways and backwards passing. Very Russell Martin-esque this performance. We need forwards on. Stoke spent more time rolling about in the ground, time wasting has been monumental. Ref has been poor throughout. Biggest cheer has been the home and away fans being bellends towards each other in the Chapel.

My wife has gone full tourist in the Chapel end, snapping photos of anything and everything. 👀🤣

Absolutely love this idea 🤣

Allow lots of time those that are coming into town. Every route is gridlocked. What should’ve been a twenty minute journey took us over an hour. On the bright side, wifey has less time to spend in Primark pre-match. 🤣👍🏻

People need to move on from Spertsyan now

Scratch Dibling off that list. 🤣 2-1 win, hopefully. We won’t get a clean sheet though

Tyler Dibling is at Staplewood this evening for the U21 game

Completely agree. Calling Marinakis a nob is probably a little generous. Nuno’s pre-match presser spoke volumes.

Ward-Prowse getting a few pellets on social media so far this evening 😂

I hope Nantes are paying ABK’s wages. Can’t wait to be in the same position next summer.

Great piece of business for the club. A player with good potential but hasn’t lit the world up yet necessarily. I just hope he gets his head down and knuckles down, firstly because of homesickness (his previous move away), and secondly because if he doesn’t perform those fans from Merseyside will be on his back immediately

This entirely

Maybe they could use some of their benefits money for the game. Or just avoid being a crate or nine this month.

I don’t see Mads being a part of the squad. I think he’ll go with a back five, but I really hope not. Bazunu; Suga, THB, Stephens, Manning; Charles, Downes, Fernandes; Fraser, Downs/Stewart, Robinson That’s a team that could cause problems, more so with the likes of Armstrong and Dibling on the bench.