Sheaf Saint

Unchanged from last week then. Like it.

And we were runners up when we were promoted from L1 as well.

Happy with this. I'm confident we can overtake them, and it takes points off Ipswich.

None of whom are managing even close to the numbers A Armstrong has so far, so there's no guarantee any one of those would have improved us, or would have chosen to sign if we had bid anyway.

No, because that's not the point I'm making and you know that full well. Alex claims we could have signed literally anyone. Clearly we couldn't, and he can't even name a single player who definitely would have signed for us when pressed, or would definitely have improved our squad. So signing Stewart was a gamble, given he was still recovering from injury when he joined, and there obviously would have been better options if we could literally choose anyone we wanted. But Alex is vastly overestimating our actual pull in the market, given that we'd just finished bottom of the PL with a dismal points total, been through 3 managers in 6 months, signed an unproven new manager with no experience of promotion challenges, and sold off pretty much all our best assets.

OK so which striker specifically, in that category and who moved clubs in the summer, should we have signed instead in your opinion? And can you guarantee he would have chosen to come to us?

We really do. Never seen such a ridiculous over reaction to news of an injury setback. It's unfortunate, and frustrating, for us and for Stewart, but not really worth getting the pitch forks out for is it.

Did we? Were they all LITERALLY queueing up to sign for us? But we rejected them all in favour of Stewart?

Scoff all you want, but there is more than one person on this thread channelling their inner MLT and saying a hamstring injury won't sideline a player for 6 months so there must be more to it. Whereas in actual fact that's not even what's been reported. It's just a knee jerk reaction based on zero evidence. A particularly bad one could quite easily take up to 3-4 months for full recovery if it needs surgery, and then given his low starting point with match fitness, would take him at least another month to get to a point where he might be able to play more than half a game. Like Russ alluded to, there's really no point rushing him back this season given all of the above. So yeah, we can berate the club all we like for making such a poor signing (honestly, some of the comments on here - fuck me!) But the truth is we could not possibly have predicted that this injury was going to happen.

Lots of ignorance and assumptions going on in this thread. Nobody is saying he will be out for 6 months. This injury occurred at the very end of November and the season ends on the first weekend of May, so if he is out for the rest of it then that's 5 months, not 6. Furthermore, all we've got at the moment is a vague statement from Martin (who isn't exactly well known for being succinct and objective in press conferences) saying it will be a bonus if we see him play before the end of the season. That's not the same as ruling him out completely. So no, there doesn't have to be anything suspicious about this at all. It's entirely possible, and likely, that it is a torn hamstring and not a recurrence of his prior injury that the club are trying to keep hush hush. It's just that, given his lack of game time this year, it will probably take him a bit longer to return to full match fitness than someone at peak fitness who has been playing regularly all season.

Given the latest news on the Crock Ness Drogba, any chance we can recall him in January?

All fair points. I agree he is overall a very inconsistent player, and I don't believe he makes a conscious choice to lift his game during the window before deciding to down tools afterwards. But he's obviously wanted out for a while (as shown by him refusing the contract extension) and it does seem odd that his purple patches seem to coincide with the window being open. Alex makes a fair point that his game isn't suited to our current style, so if he's really that inflexible and can't adapt to Russ's tactics then it's best for both parties if we can move him on so he can get a fresh start somewhere else and we can replace him with someone who can. I'd rather we try and do that in January than let him run his contract down and spend the second half of the season going through the motions for a pay cheque and wasting a space in the squad that could be filled by someone who a) is more suited to our setup and b) actually wants to be here.

So if we get Ings back on loan in Jan then he should start cooking again, yeah?

I don't think those stats paint a full picture though. 3 of those goals came before the transfer window closed, when his overall form and ability to impact a game spectacularly fell off a cliff. In the few starts he's had since then, he's been absolutely shocking and has rightfully been subbed off each time. You might argue that there could have been a fitness issue that contributed to this, but exactly the same thing happened last season too. He made a decent contribution for the first handful of games then went missing.

Obviously didn't watch the committee hearings. The evidence presented was damming. He was told repeatedly by his lawyers that there was no evidence of any electoral fraud, but he kept repeating the lie anyway to inflame his supporters. Then after he was given intelligence that many of the 'protesters' were armed, he led the march to the Capitol (against all advice) and let it all unfold while watching on the TV from a distance and ignored repeated pleas from his staff and advisors to intervene and ask them to back down and go home. He knew exactly what he was doing.

And schools, not firing ranges.

How we haven't offloaded him yet is beyond me. If he cant even make the bench after dropping a division, in a season when our first choice LB is so bad, he's clearly got no future here. Maybe he realises he's never going to get a contract as good as the one he has now, and is just dragging it out until it expires before disappearing into lower/non league obscurity.

Agreed. I don't even want to think about what would happen if we get promoted and start next season in the PL with Manning at LB. He'd be ruthlessly found out defensively, like Danny Fox was last time we went up.

Interesting point. One thing I notice with him this season over previous ones is that he never seems to get caught out of position and then make an absolute hash of trying to get back and make a block/tackle like he used to do with alarming regularity. I wonder how much of that is down to playing at a lower level and how much is down to the new style? Under Ralph he was often part of a high defensive line when our entire front 6 were pressing hard, and that led to a lot of his mistakes. This season he's still often found near the halfway line, but only when we're passing it around comfortably and keeping the opposition back in a low block, rather than chasing them down and trying to win the ball back in the oppo's half.

That's Leicester who have by far the fewest goals against in the division and have a GD of +28 without even being the top scorers, yeah?

No, they reset after 19 games I believe.

And they managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory at Hillsborough on Saturday as well. They had a couple of decent results before that, but I don't think they are likely to really threaten us. It's a game we should win on paper, so I'm going for another frustrating 1-1 after we dominate possession in the first half and then concede a soft goal in the second.

We can't include a right to buy for a player who is out of contract in the summer anyway.

Che is leaving. Whether that is in Jan or in the summer is still uncertain, but he clearly doesn't want to be here and the feeling is mutual. Whatever strengths he might have shown in the past, they've all but abandoned him this season and when he should be tearing up this league, he's actually just an empty shirt going through the motions. If SR don't want to fork out for a new striker while he's still on the books then the best bet would be to pack him off on loan in Jan and bring in another loan replacement. If Ings is willing to come then it's a no-brainer.