Midfield_General

Pound for pound, one of the best signings we’ve ever made. Terrific player who will be really missed. Never once let us down - good luck to him.

Bournemouth pens about to be shown live on SSN

Legend. RIP Dave.

Totally agree with this. The concern around CB seemed to be whether ABK was ready to step straight in as a reliable first choice. If he is - and on yesterday's showing he definitely looks like he is - then I think that's CB sorted. Lyanco and Stephens are perfectly adequate back-up to Salisu and ABK as the starting pair, with Valery as fifth choice for emergencies. Ship out Bednarek for a decent fee to reinvest elsewhere and job's a good 'un. Only reason I see we'd spend on another quality CB would be if we're going to persist with 3 CBs. So if we don't buy another, then that hopefully suggests the end of that experiment.

Our point against Leeds starting to look better by the minute

Nah. We didn’t create much but we were generally solid in a way we haven’t been for a while. The free kick aside, how many times did Bazunu get properly tested? We kept them at arm’s length, stayed in the game and then picked them off by taking our chances. We definitely need to improve our creativity in the final third, but it was a pretty sound away performance.

Yeah, that was ridiculous. Cleaned him out. It was easy to tell he hadn't got any of the ball as the ball continued in the direction of the run. Yellow all day long.

Defence looking better a) as a 4, and b) without Bednarek in it. A few wild early swipes aside, Djenepo doing just fine at LB. A Armstrong a weak link, again. Given the ball away so many times when the pass has been on. 0-0 at HT is decent though. Hopefully see Adams before too long in the second half and maybe then something will start sticking when we play it forward.

Also, ‘Garner’ doesn’t rhyme with ‘saga’. Do you know what a rhyme is?

No you don’t understand, it was a brilliant hilarious joke

It's amusing reading the pre-match thread on FoxesTalk: 'I hate to say it but it's already a must-win game for us, even this early in the season' 'I just pray he ditches the 5 at the back nonsense - everyone can see it doesn't work with our players' 'If the manager loses this one I don't see how he can stay' Sound familiar?

I think you'll find it's 'enigmii'

Difficult conditions for both teams. Leeds pressing the way we’re supposed to and we’re second best all over the pitch. Ref giving us nothing until the last few minutes. Lucky to be level at half time. Toothless up front and our final ball is pub-level awful. Like the look of ABK. Maybe Aribo will be able to spark something when he comes on. Pretty joyless, overall.

Man Utd have asked us to keep him safe and sound ahead of the transfer

Yeah - what on earth is that about? Perraud must have had a late injury surely, even Ralph isn’t that mad

Could see Everton throwing silly money at Poch to try and get him to come after they’ve canned Lampard (i.e. probably around the beginning of October). Another big money Ancelotti, Benitez type appointment. He’d want to go somewhere he can splash serious cash on the squad though.

Fantastic goal from Ings

2019-20: finished 11th 2016-17: finished 8th 2015-16: finished 6th 2014-15: finished 7th 2013-14: finished 8th 2002-03: finished 8th 2001-02: finished 11th 2000-01: finished 10th 1994-95: finished 10th For a club our size, that’s ‘shit’ is it?

Kept that quiet mate, should have mentioned it

I think it’s highly unlikely anyone would walk away for nothing when they could stick it out for another couple of weeks, get sacked and walk away with a pay-off of millions instead. EDIT: Oh god, I’m agreeing with MLG.

Answer: security, and lack of any better options. If I was coming towards the end of a contract on a huge amount of money that I knew I wasn’t going to get close to anywhere else, and someone offered to guarantee it for another 3-4 years, I’d sign up too, whether I was happy or not. The real question is why on earth we offered it to him if there were major question marks over performance. Same as McCarthy. It’s just really poor executive management.

Who should ‘name the players involved’? They’re leaks, not officially sanctioned interviews. The whole point is that they’re anonymous. Obviously the Athletic isn’t going to name their source, and it’s not like the club press officer is in the background calling up the Athletic and saying ‘Do you want half an hour on the phone with Che to talk about how the manager’s lost the dressing room?’ It will be happening via a disgruntled player’s agent on condition of anonymity.

All summer to plan for it and almost a full squad to choose from, and he comes up with that absolute mess of a side. Leaving Adams on the bench in favour of an out of position midfielder up front is so obtuse, it's genuinely farcical. That was an absolute tactical shambles today. He's had ages and still doesn't have a clue what his best formation or first XI is. Confused thinking and square pegs in round holes all over the place. What was even more concerning was how quickly the heads went down. In the past, even when we were really shit, we had really limited players who put in some fighting back-to-the-walls performances to rescue something from games, or just to avoid a hiding. Didn't see any of that today. As soon as the third one went in we just meekly accepted getting tonked, and on day one of the season, that is worrying. Unless we improve drastically in terms of tactics, organisation and mentality, we are bang in trouble. And I hate to say it as I've always liked Ralph as a bloke, but I'm just not sure he's got it in him to do it. He just looks lost to me. Need to beat Leeds, and convincingly. If we can manage that then maybe we can build from there. But he's had time, and he's been backed - there are no excuses left now.

Strong bench