The Kraken

On the opening day of the season we started Moussa Djenepo at left wing back. We are absolutely that desperate.

One would hope so but I doubt it. Although, given that it hasn’t rained for about 3 months, it perhaps wouldn’t be too full right now…

Given by how much he throws out the confused emoji, Matt Le God seems confused most of his life.

Cancelled out by the loss of Livramento and Broja right now, both of whom are not available to our first team. Add in Che Adams’ potentially, based on last week he’s not in out starting eleven.. Lavia is a prospect for sure but I think Romeu us better, right now. So, no, I don’t agree that on balance we are better. Particularly when Jan Valery gets a spot. If he’s an improvement then we need help.

I prefer the Chinese takeaway on the northern side of the ridge.

On the flip side, the last time we sacked a manager after three games we ended up with Nigel Adkins and won promotion that season. It’s definitely not too late. I think the club have a successor lined up. The question is how quickly it comes.

Chaz is doing enough sniffing for both of them…….

To be honest I don’t think the transfer window factor is that high. The club clearly had a plan to get in Joe Shields from Man City as head of recruitment, and he has already brought in two Man City grads in Bazunu and Lavia, with reported interest around others. The club will want a manager, Ralph or a new guy, to buy into that ethos. So I don’t think that’s a big factor. Going into a new season with an under motivated squad and a clueless formation that has such obviously massive flaws given the personnel employed? Well, yeah, that’s pretty abject.

Sorry, which match thread are you reading? Im reading this one. It’s fairly consistently negative about the performance. Half time is pages from late 9 onwards.

There’s a difference between the last few years and now. Footballers are a notoriously precious and fickle bunch, and once players start kicking off about the manager it mostly only ends up one way. Whether fans like it or not, player power often trumps all.

Does it? I can quite easily see Che Adams and Stuart Armstrong being on the list, don’t think anyone really wants rid of them. Wouldn’t be surprised if KWP was one too. Broja likely told the club what he thought of Ralph before he left, I think this has been mentioned before. If JWP hasn’t expressed concerns I’d be somewhat surprised.

KWP definitely has. Romeu as well, he was very good early in the season before his legs gave out later on.

I wouldn’t say Calum Wilson is a strange person, but if he doesn’t want to take the knee any more, I wouldn’t classify that as having a issue with making a stand against racism.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/62493260 BBC article where Calum Wilson confirms that players were instructed to take the knee. "Doing it week-to-week, just because it's something we've been told to do, I think it's probably faded and lost its impact," said Newcastle forward Wilson on the latest episode of the Footballer's Football”.

There weren’t a lot of options at left back / left wing back, we all know that Ralph had one hand tied behind his back. Personally, I’d have taken the option that Perraud was fit enough for the bench therefore fit enough to start. But we didn’t lose this game just because of Djenepo, he was merely contributory to it. We did have some other options though, including switching KWP to the left which gives options of Valery at RWB (not ideal at all but more defensive that Djenepo), or even JWP and shoring up CM with Romeu from the start. Like I say, none of those were ideal options. The problem I have with the Djenepo ‘solution’ at LWB is that we all saw it for what it was in pre season. Djenepo was ok going forward and against lesser teams, but in defence we looked completely vulnerable on the counter particularly down the flanks, Djenepo’s side mostly. Some of that was tactical, getting the wing backs to play high, some of that was the player just not being a defender (KWP for instance in pre season made the right side work a bit better). Playing away against one of the best sides in the division, we were on to a hiding to nothing with that system and the players we had to fill it.

I hope Ralph knows that 3-5-2/5-3-2 and 4-2-2-2 are not the only formations allowed in football.

AA was subbed off at half time, so that’s bollocks.

What you said and what @FarehamSaintJamessaid are not mutually exclusive. Salisu would definitely develop with someone good and experienced alongside him. He’s quite good now but 23 is still young for a CB, playing alongside someone better and more organised would give him a very good licence to learn and improve. Salisu may be the best we’ve got but he’s got a lot to learn himself. Same for Ketchup.

That’s the opinion I got about playing 3 at the back, it was almost like Ralph was saying “there, “we” think it’s the answer but it’s not”. Mara being binned off after after 45 minutes and thrown under the bus seemed like a reaction to a player he didn’t want.

I’m intrigued to know why we played a new default formation of 3 at the back for almost all of pre season, then after the first game of the season the manager stated that it’s not the right solution after all. What was the process involved in adopting this formation, and did we recruit players based on 3 at the back other than 4? If so, where do the manager’s comments leave us?

Have we actually initiated a moneyball strategy? I’m yet to see it if we have, yet I see a lot of references to it on this board. Moneyball is not about buying players cheap and selling them for a profit. That’s a strategy we are certainly going for, buying some young players and providing a route to the first team with an indication that we’ll happily sell players to bigger sides if they do well for us. Good strategy, but not in itself moneyball. Moneyball in baseball relied on detailed sabermetrics to identify high value, low cost players via a different scouting and assessment criteria to that commonly used. Basically picking up players that were undervalued and less popular to other sides, backed up by a massive amount of analysis and statistical evaluation. Are we doing that? Don’t know but it’s not instantly apparent to me that we are.

This is my thinking, we’ve spent a lot so far and are talking of spending more. So, are we spending all the money that was loaned in under Gao, are SR financing us, or are we going to look to balance the books with sales? One would hope that money can be generated by offloading Elyounoussi, Bednarek, Redmond etc. but that’s going to very hard to get meaningful cash for them. The other options are selling the established players, Adams unfortunately seems like a possible contender there. The nuclear options are JWP and KWP, but obviously we all very much hope that they are not even in consideration. I’ll remain concerned until the window closes, there’s a long time to go yet.

Not surprised. The club has spent a good deal of money so far this window and is talking about spending more. I’m still expecting one or two players to leave to at least in part finance that. Worst case solution, JWP goes, and towards the end of the window. Just my opinion.

Or “Never play chess with a pigeon. The pigeon just knocks all the pieces over, shits all over the board then struts around like it’s won.“