sydney_saint

I don't think the fee is as tragic as people think. No player his age or older has been transferred for more than JWP this summer in the EPL. He's presumably about equal with Maguire, but if we've got more upfront money then we slightly shade it. The prem is obsessed with youth at the moment

Pretty disappointed with some fans reactions. I get that everyone deals with their disappointment differently. But imagine staying at one club for about 20 years, working through the academy, captaining that side, and working your ass for that team and being one of their top few performers over several years. Then you get a move as you are headign towards the twilight of your career with an opportunity to play in front of 60,000 people, for a side historically bigger than us, and one with European football, and your own fans turn on you? Like I can't believe people saying 'don't show up on Saturday'. After a decade of playing for our first team, do you not think he's entitled to say goodbye? I bet the same fans turning on him are the ones bemoaning there is no loyalty left in football. Cos yeah there is some, but it's got to work both ways. And all other players will see is a fan base that turns on you as soon as you leave, regardless of the years you played. I hope he does do a farewell on the weekend, and I am sure the actual fans on the stadium will give him a proper send off rather than the sad internet trolls.

Gutting. I don't think I've felt properly sad about a playing leaving since that lallana-ignited summer exodus. But I am sad about this one. I know there is a small minority that were never convinced, but I do think history will show what a vital player JWP has been for us over the years. I feel that our last few seasons in the prem saw a very small handful of players constantly getting our incredibly poor squad out of trouble which were JWP, Romeu, KWP, and also Ings though of course he left earlier. I don't think it is coincidence that those first 3 all lost form, and as soon as they did, we absolutely plummeted. There was very little quality in the squad, and they could no longer be expected to keep bailing us out. They burnt out. I felt JWP was at his best when Ralph's 4-2-2-2 was operating at its finest in those first couple of seasons. JWP was so instrumental in that press, winning the ball back and pushing us forward. It was when his game transformed and played alot more forward passes, helped that we at least had a bit of quality for once up there with Ings. Not a natural captain, but felt he did his best to lead. The fact that none of us could barely suggest an alternative who had clear leadership skills and likely to start. It wasn't JWP that we lost so many leaders, that is the fault of the hierarchy. And besides, you could still the greatest of captains in last seasons side and they are still getting relegated, that's how shit we were. Gonna be gutting watching him break the freekick record elsewhere. Especially fucking West Ham. But he is one of the very few players I sincerely hope does well. Usually I just forget about a player and don't really care if they do good/bad (though some is amusing when they fail elsewhere) but JWP has earned the right to give himself one last opportunity to get into an England tournament side, and he can't do it in the Championship

Hmmm not liking the look of the body language out there. Promotion sides should have way more swagger to respond

Surprised by just how poor SW are, though we are also making them look poor. One thing I've seen is us swinging quite a few crosses in. I know he 'technically' got the goal. but Armstrong doesn't even look close to scoring. Hard to know at this stage if we have progressed, as I would expect our side last season to dominate possession, and we haven't actually created that many clear cut chances. I like how we are winning the ball back so quickly.

Man, if you are looking for top quality football, you are in for a horror season when you see Armstrong blazing it over from 3 yards out every week.

Can see why the club signed him. Had most of the ingredients to be a top level centre back. It was a good punt at that price and we made a profit. Some turn out worldies, some fail, and some end up just about good enough. The latter feels closest. Got some very good games out of him. But also not fussed that he is gone. Didn't stand up for most of last season and went missing both on the pitch and off it.

I think there were a few players that were burnt out. You can see by how far we plummeted that there were only a small handful of players that kept us up for a few years, and once their form finally dropped, we plummeted. I think these players are Romeu, JWP, KWP and Ings before he left. I would also include Ralph. A very small group had to cover the massive shortcomings in the rest of the squad for so so long. I don't think it is any surprise that all these players lost form. I think if Romeu had stayed, he may have continued that poorer form that he showed in his last few months. Not blaming him one iota for that, keeping this squad in the EPL would drag anyone down.

We signed a defender that stood out as particularly poor in a shocking Torino side. It's not his fault it didn't work out, he should never have been signed in the first place. I really wish that money had gone to getting a high calibre player in a more vital position. Instead of signing Armstrong that season, we could have spent 25m or so on a striker far likely to be successful than both Armstrong or Lyanco. Instead we got dross in both positions. Still, he did try and not his fault he wasn't good enough.

He would probably do okay at a Championship side in the bottom half. If we are serious about promotion, he isn't anywhere near good enough. He was lucky that he joined a club that was willing to stick by him for most of the season and risk relegation. But. We did get relegated. I don't want us risking promotion just for his development all over again. He seemed horribly overpriced when we signed him and that's how it has turned out.

Exactly this. The reason why he is 'not invited to the debate' is because he has nothing to add except cherry picked data, ignoring other data, and in some case including utterly false statistics. He literally has no expertise or even wider understanding that can add anything. But it gives him the opportunity to scream that he is been cancelled, even though he literally had nothing to add except regurgitated information he discovered on the internet, usually from dodgy sources. But hey, it makes him the victim and centre of attention right

I mean, in 60 seconds of research I found a huge number of articles from the 'MSM'' from across the political spectrum. I don't think it's this big hidden conspiracy you think it is. Though you don't help your case when you quote the wrong stats, or in some cases, simply make them up (like the 15-20% since mid 2022) The guardian https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/15/britain-excess-death-rate-covid-nhs-cost-of-living BBC https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-64209221 Research Professional News https://www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-politics-2023-1-uk-s-pattern-of-excess-deaths-deserves-close-scrutiny/ Sky News https://news.sky.com/story/excess-deaths-reach-highest-level-since-pandemic-peak-how-much-are-nhs-failings-to-blame-12780446 The Spectator https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/sweden-covid-and-excess-deaths-a-look-at-the-data/

Hard to get excited about this one. I'm not expecting a Bosz, Gallardo type manager, but I would like a manager with a bit more status. Viera would have been perfect, but he could probably still get a prem job so fair enough, probably unrealistic. But we have a decent enough squad for this level and will have a few managers interested. Even someone like Garcia could do a good job. Not quite sure what the obsession is with a manager that knows the Championship. It's not a league in the far off reaches off the world, it's one of the most watched divisions in Europe, with many of the clubs and players having played in the Prem. Burnley didnt bother about that. Still hope for the best, but I can't help but feel our most successful managers in recent times are the ones you instantly expected to be successful. Pardew came with reputation and did well, Adkins was managing in the division above and had a good reputation and was an enormous success, Poch is the outlier but there was probably some ignorance on my part when he joined as he had a reputation in Spain, Koeman huge reputation and equalled huge success, Puel with an okay status and was an okay manager, who the fuck was Pellegrino and was awful, Hughes was hated by most of the clubs he had recently managed, Ralph great reputation and was overall a good appointment, who the fuck was Jones and awful, and then who the fucking fuck was Selles and has been dreadful. It just feels when we try and get too cute, it blows up on us.

It's hard not to draw parallels between him and Lemina. I can see why the club signed him, and he's clearly really talented. But attitude will most likely hold him back. He's had some monstrous matches for us like against Man City, but the big clubs aren't gonna sign you on the back of a few excellent performances. If you look at his entire time here, he's maybe had 3 months of consistent performances. No big club is gonna sign him on the back of that. VVD spent far longer putting in monstrous performances for us, Lovren had an entire season, Alderweirald consistent as well. Salisu is just flashes. Will probably end up somewhere like West Ham

He managed to stand out as particularly bad in a dreadful Torino side. The bottom third of Serie A isn't much better than the top 10 or so of the Championship in my opinion. I am not convinced he will cut it that division if we want promotion straight away. He has turned out exactly how it said on the tin when we signed him - not good enough and more wasted money. I'd maybe keep him as back up for Championship, but even then not sure about it.

The Cup thing is probably the only thing I feel really annoyed about. There were some seasons, such as the Poch season, where we had a great team and the chance to win silverware. Yet we priortised finishing 8th. What alot of the clubs out there don't realise is that relegation will come for nearly everyone eventually. You can talk about black boxes and special recruitment, but you only need a couple of bad seasons and the rot sets in. I will be very surprised if Brighton don't go down at some point in the next ten years, so it is critical they try and win something. Leicester could well go down this season, but at least they are going down with a couple of trophies. We had some of our best chances of the last 30 years. If we had genuinely tried each season to win the cups and fell short, so be it. But I feel we threw some away. For what? So we finished a few places higher, but ended up getting relegated anyway.

Yeah I can understand. I think I has personal circumstances which may have added to it. I was 15 at the time so that could have played a part. I was also in Australia so was confronted with the reality that I would only see us on TV a couple of times a season. Right now I wish I was in a position where I could only watch us twice a season!

When we went down in 05, I had this gut wrenching pain for a long time. Both in the relegation battle, and also in the month or so that followed. I couldn't function at all for a day or two after that last game of the season, it felt like the world collapsed. This season I have got angry and frustrated at times, but within a few hours I have largely shrugged it off. A few exceptions here and there where I have been seriously pissed off for a few days, but largely ambivalent between match days. I don't know whether it's because I am older, whether I don't love football like I used to because of all the money and corruption, or whether it's because we've been here before. I dunno, I'm really not that fussed about going down. But I don't know if that is something shared by everyone else, or whether I have fallen out of love with the game? I'm also curious how are the younger fans feeling? When we went down last time, I and many fans had never experienced relegation. There will be some younger fans who will have some memories of us in the lower leagues, but most of their memories will be in the Prem. Do you have that gut wrenching pain like many of us had last time?

We used to have innovative modern tactics as well. We also had a period of success longer than them. The challenge for them will be to reinvent themselves when they lose more players and their tactics get found out (which they always do). We weren't able to do this, neither has anyone really. You get teams that challenge for a couple of seasons like us and Leicester, but to sustain that is hard.

I can't remember many players that pretty much all the fans are saying 'leave with our blessing'. Cos yeah, who can blame him for leaving. He's a young, ridiculously talented footballer destined to reach the top. I'd question his sanity in all honesty if he actually wanted to stay in this shitshow.

Completely agree with this. You chuck about a dozen championship keepers in the EPL and they will make some stunning saves from time to time. David Marshall is a big recent(ish) example of this. Shot stopping isn't what makes a top flight keeper, it's all the rest that goes with it. That's why keepers mature later, and why pretty much all the keepers in the league are in their midlate 20 or older. Plenty of 20 year olds with good sharp reflexes and agility. But it is so much more than that. Even the Championship most of the keepers are older.

So you don't believe we would have about 5 points more if we left Ralph in charge, bearing in mind we got more points from his 14 games then the next 17, and the next 17 had far more winnable games?

In terms of players we have made three catastrophic decisions. 1. Playing a keeper that is woefully out of his depth. In front of a young defence as well. A single good game all season, and many many mistakes. To play him every single game is insanity without at least trying one of our more experienced pros. 2. Playing elyounoussi as an attacker just about all season. An assist all season. Amazing record 3. No signing a striker in the summer, and then overspending on a mediocre one in January when prices are always more expensive If we had a competent older keeper, a striker that could score 10 goals a season, and a 10/winger who could create a bit more than Moi, and I believe we would have stayed up. The rest of the team isn't too bad. But we just had to do things differently and fancy.

Also you could argue Ralph had a more challenging set of matches in that 14. We didn't have that run of winnable home games that Jones completely blundered.

Those that were frothing at the mouth to get rid of him didn't have a plan. They just wanted him out. There were few reasonable available managers out there available. Replace him for sure if there was an Emery willing to take over. But there was hardly anyone. They seemed to think things couldn't worse. Well they damn well did. People can say 'sacking him wasnt wrong, it was the replacements that was the issues'. But how many good replacements were out there that would realistically have taken the job? We were always more likely to end up with a downgrade like Jones than we were to find Emery or Lopetegui. If Ralph was still here, we would have about 5 more points. We would still have a chance. But those that frothed will never possibly imagine that they made a mistake. As said, happy to get rid for a clear upgrade. But even at the time I scrolled throw the prospective maangers list, and it was underwhelming manager after underwhelming. I felt our best chance was to get Ralph a break with the world cup. Let him try to find his spark and mojo again. The summer was hard cos it was shortened and we had a huge changeover of players. He should have had the world cup period to rediscover that zip.