Saint Garrett

Sure we went a few years without a home draw. Seem to have had loads the last few seasons. Can’t complain. Early rounds in the league cup have been a great chance to get some good away days, like Cambridge and Newport.

Got Salisu too.

Ha I’m expecting a quick turnaround. Heathrow !

Gimme Sulemena and Vitinha and we have a chance. Anyway. About to get on a flight to Newcastle, hopefully we’ve signed them both by the time we land.

AYEW KIDDING ME?!?

Thought they were signing Azmoun?

Ah that was the joke 😂

Onuacho is something like 6 foot 8. Giant of a bloke.

Vitinha would be an insane signing, but I’m not expecting it to happen. Fully Expecting someone else to come in for him between now and EOP tomorrow and we end up signing Ayew on a free.

Anyone got any pub shouts? We arrive in Newcastle tomorrow morning. Will be a fun few days regardless of the result

We've been after him for ages it seems, so would be logical. Not seen much of him in recent years, apart from he got someone sent off against West Ham in the Europa League last season. I think he is as good as we could possibly get, so Id be very happy with this if we can make it happen. Sure half the league would be in for him at that price though, so not really sure what we can offer him that others can't.

Not sure why we bothered signing him tbh. Clearly we didnt think that much of him, because we then bought Larios in.

11 I think including the dome!

Apparently we'd rather play a RB and LB and a CB at RB than play players in their proper positions...

I think you're being incredibly harsh... Personally I think he was a great success here. You look at the shitshow he inherited after Pellegrino and Hughes, and he did a fantastic job. He galvanised a lost fan base and created a real bond in the club. Ultimately, for whatever reason, it went stale at the end, but that's the same with most managers. Personally, If I look at the bigger picture, I don't think he could have done much more with the resources he had. Yes he had a few shockers, and they were unacceptable, but he created a very brave side who defensively was a bit all over the place, but normally recovered from it. He was let down by the board this summer, and I think we would have been fine if we'd signed a striker in the summer. I'd love to know how many of the players signed in the summer were his choice. (none probably). I also wonder how much influence the board had on him this summer, regarding systems etc.

WTGOR, It is also up to him to influence the game, and although I agree with you, we are really struggling to create chances under Jones, we also need to have strikers that can be involved in creating chances. You can't just wait for the perfect assist all the time.

Would seem bonkers to leave Staplewood tbh. I was lucky enough to have a tour last year, and despite part of it being a bit dated (sports science moves incredibly quickly), they were planning on putting in a new high performance gym, with all the latest technology involved, no idea where they are with this atm. It's still an amazing facility, and is perfect for us IMO. The only downside is the location if players want to live in London/suburbs and commute daily

Yup - we are a club that, in recent years, has been able to appoint Pochettino, Koeman and Hasenhuttl. Regardless of the risk, we would still have been a decent option in November. We weren't bottom until Jones took charge.

You can only carry a striker like Adams if you're playing 2 up top like we did under Ralph, or if you have goalscoring wingers / midfielders. Similar to Firmino at Liverpool, he didn't score many at all, but Mane and Salah were banging them in every week. Before anyone jumps on that, I'm not saying we can possibly buy players like Mane and Salah but we could have certainly been in the market for other similar players. Orsic doesn't look like a goal threat so far, I know it's early, but he looked pretty ineffective on Saturday, Adam Armstrong might nick 1 or 2 between now and the end of the season. So basically we're relying on the odd worldy (Djenepo vs City) or we're relying on JWP to stick a free kick in every week. So we either bring in another striker to play alongside Adams and play a 4-2-2-2/4-4-2 type system. Or we sign a goalscoring wide player or two, and hope we can keep some clean sheets and nick the odd goal. Or we bring in a replacement for Adams who can score goals. Whats the chances we do none of the above!?

Yup, he looks a shadow of the player he did under Ralph unfortunately.

Oh, not based on info unfortunately. Not been told much at all recently. Probably cos I stick it on here! 😂 I just think we need at least 2 to stand a chance of staying up, and probably a different manager!

“We tried really hard but…” I do expect at least 2 in that will go straight into our first team. We’ll see if that actually happens or not.

Do you actually believe this?! The style football is worse, and i don’t know the stats but it feels like we are creating less chances. Football is more sluggish and feels like we don’t really have a plan going forward. Defence still cannot buy a clean sheet, and Jones has played against Lincoln and Blackpool at home. Midfield looks better than the last few games under Ralph because Lavia is fit again. That’s pretty much it. For me, we’d have got more points in the league games under Ralph than Jones, but obviously you’ll never know. For me, to justify sacking Ralph we had to find someone to do his job better, and personally, I feel like we have failed with that so far. Especially when he was basically given a pre season over the WC months.

Clubs done a huge amount of work since we got back up, but generally this is the knock on affect of us getting promoted 10 years ago. A lot of these kids would have been recruited once we got back into the premier league…we couldn’t attract them when we were in the lower leagues.

But we nearly conceded twice at 0-1 in the last 5 minutes so what’s he saying?