saintant

Quite interesting but couldn't see the point of talking about a cable-tie and the clutch on the radio car.

Read that Genk are after Zeqiri from Brighton.

I think it's more the case that Mowbray had us sussed out and set Sunderland up to get at us every time they had the ball while we tip-tapped around and got nowhere. We found ourselves completely over run very quickly and never looked like recovering. Not sure how we prevent other sides doing the same sort of number on us because you can bet coaches will be studying videos of the game.

You clearly don't watch Brighton much. Yes Dunk and Webster are no nonsense strong centre backs but they can play or De Zerbi wouldn't be picking them. A lot of Brighton's attacks start with either centre back pinging low, hard and accurate passes into their midfielders who then get on the turn and fore into opposition territory.

We've been having these arguments for over a year now and nothing changes. Therefore those defending Baz must believe zero is being done to bolster the defence in front of him. If and when that happens then presumably the goals against will reduce and errors attributable to Baz will reduce considerably. Currently he is paying the price of playing behind such a crap defence. It's a theory but I'm not convinced.

Whichever way you cut it City saw us coming and mugged us off. Not sure who were the ones involved from our club but it was one horrendous piece of business. We should never have paid anything over 5 million at most and that's being generous.

Imagine that. He might even let in 9 on his debut on a Friday night against one of his former clubs 🙂

We think player for player we are better but how much do most of us really know about any of the teams in the Championship? Sunderland outplayed us all over the pitch and their players looked the equal or, in many cases, better than ours. The danger is we have been sucked into thinking we are actually better than we are.

Every time Sunderland got hold of the ball their first though was to get at us rather than pussy foot around allowing us to regroup. A simple strategy but it worked a treat. Might be a lesson there.

Can't say we weren't warned.

Amen to that. When is the penny going to drop?

If Baz continues to make errors (I get that he's not the only one) and we find ourselves losing ground in the promotion race because of the goalkeeping weakness I think JW will have no choice but to look for another keeper in January.

I think people are disrespecting many of the sides in the Championship and assuming us Leicester and Leeds are a cut above. We learned the hard way on Saturday that we underestimate teams at our peril. Preston have been under the radar, not mentioned by anyone and sit top of the pile. Will they stay there? - who knows but I think we should discard thoughts that we are somehow guaranteed at least a play-off spot because this is going to be a tough season.

Agree on the distribution point. Highly over-rated from what I've seen so far. Like you say, he is fine at the the simple stuff but, other than that, he tends to just lump it aimlessly. Compare that to the long passes of many other keepers and he's pretty average at best.

I take your point fully on board regarding keepers not maturing until much later than other players. Which begs the question why are we relying on a guy who is 21 years old in a vital season when we are targeting promotion? Not only that, if we know he is not ready, why are we putting him through this tough ordeal and hanging him out to dry as he faces understandable criticism for making too many errors? The excuse that he's all we've got doesn't wash because he's been our first choice through a number of transfer windows now. It feels more like we have adopted the attitude that we paid a lot of money for him so he has to play. I feel sorry for the guy because he's just being treated as cannon fodder and should not be playing because he's nowhere near ready. From where I stand this is still a huge cock-up by the club.

I'm not sure anyone is making Baz a scapegoat. Many of us had concerns last season and he continues to make the same basic errors - he's not the only one and other players get called out too. Far too many shots/headers beat him that a competent keeper should be saving. People are welcome to say otherwise and come to his defence but what I see is a very weak goalkeeper. I'd love him to suddenly start making brilliant saves and cutting out the mistakes but I can't see any evidence that it will happen. Time for RM to take him out of the firing line for his own good because he isn't ready to play at this level.

Can't disagree with much of that. I'd maybe give Lumley a try in goal because, what is there to lose and perhaps switch KWP to left back and see how Bree does at right back. I get that Bree is not popular with most but he had a good season at Luton in this division. Again it's just to try something different because Manning looks a defensive liability to me which we were warned about.

I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions or, of course, you may think all 11 are fine.

The ref is in a better position than most of our players 🙂

Two of those aren't close to being good enough from what I've seen so far. That's almost 20% of the team.

When JW speaks he always fills me with confidence that the club is in safe hands. I do wonder what he made of yesterday's performance because we were way off what he alludes to.

Like most of us I like the guy and really want him and his methods to succeed not least because it'll mean we have a team that plays good football. The issue I have is that I'm not 100% sold on the effectiveness of possession based football at the expense of all else because few teams make it work. RM is very young for a manager so it's no surprise that he has no real track record to prove he knows what he's doing. I think we are looking one dimensional and teams know what they are going to face. Sunderland proved yesterday that, the way we operate at the moment, it's very easy to score against us. I get that we are very much a work-in-progress but I'm just not convinced. Would love nothing more than for RM to prove me wrong. We'll see, particularly over the next batch of games against some strong looking sides.

A lot went horribly wrong yesterday to state the bleeding obvious. One thing which rang alarm bells loud and clear to me was the way we allowed Sunderland to break on us from our own corner kicks. The first time it happened I thought to myself that it was naive in the extreme but not long after we did it again. Surely it is not beyond the wit of RM and our coaching staff to make certain we have enough defensive cover to stop that happening.

Their problem is that they are still paying Ralph and Jones. Will they really countenance paying 4 managers at once? I have my doubts.

The one in 9th won 5-0 and it should have been more. The one in 9th may soon overtake the one in 7th unless we learn from our mistakes very quickly.