saintant

You're right but irrespective of where blame lies the manager, coaches and players need to be having a long debrief meeting to discuss what is going wrong and why so that they can do something constructive about it. I'm sure they are having such meetings and I hope some good will come out of them because the first three games have been poor other than brief periods in each.

In the club's defence I'm guessing they moved early to get Sugawara and the thinking behind it was they fully expected KWP to leave.

This squad has yet to be used in a competent way so I doubt anybody knows how good or bad they are right now or whether they are capable of scoring goals. My view is that a different manager would have them playing with less glaring mistakes, more cohesion and shape and ultimately, more goals and points on the board.

That's a great way of putting it 🙂

I read his comment differently to you. I accept that he is not telling them to pass back into trouble - however, they are doing so because they panic in the heat of a match which is a very different environment to the comfort of the Staplewood training pitches. So for me, the passing back at the wrong times is a bi-product of his methods which lead to panic. Unless we find a less stressful of playing these mistakes are going to continue.

I think we will comfortably beat Derby's total even under the current manager but it likely won't be enough to avoid relegation.

Nail on the head - it's more of a panic stricken heat of the moment thing but stems from the way RM insists the team play. He's not telling them to continually pass it back and put us in trouble but it's happening in the heat of the game because of his tactics. Yes, it'll look pretty and effective at Staplewood but not so much at places like the Etihad.

Agree, if you watched Brighton under De Zerbi they often played the ball from the goalkeeper to a centre back. He then played a fast hard pass into their central midfield who got on the half turn - meanwhile their two wide players hugged the touchline and were played in from midfield. It was a constant theme I noticed when watching them. It did of course require their midfield to be comfortable receiving the ball played at pace and getting on the half turn to set them moving into attack.

Which begs the question why isn't he either getting messages onto the field to players who are not complying with his instructions or substituting them earlier?

If you listen to any interviews with RM or read any articles on him they all tell the same story - he simply will not sacrifice his playbook even if his team is losing consistently. He believes that in the end they will learn and stop repeating mistakes and thinks his way of playing football is the best. It is simply delusional.

Well it's up to RM and his coaches to make sure this break is used to put some things right and work on other formations - not convinced he'll work to change much as we know he is welded to his own idea of how the game should be played. I'd like him to work on a double pivot in a 4231 formation as adopted by many of the better sides but I don't think he will.

Agree, unless there is more to it that we don't see in the clip Charley does nothing much at all other than try to hold back team mates.

Jason Wilcox looked pissed off sat in the stands watching his team get dismantled in an embarrassing fashion by Liverpool.

This is an international break that we certainly need. It allows RM the chance to reflect on our first three games and come up with a strategy and line-up to improve us. He then has a couple of weeks to work on that with the players who are not away on international break. I hope he uses the time wisely.

Yes, it's a joke which is why I posted a smiley face - obviously lost on you.

Not if we match the way they set up 🙂

Unlikely but we live in hope. It's what most good sides do.

Watching Liverpool they are set up how we should be 4 2 3 1 with Archer up top. The pivot would be Downes and Big Les with the 3 in front of them Dibbling, Cornet and Fernandes. Obviously I'm not suggesting we'd play anywhere as good as Liverpool but I reckon if we cut out the overplaying from the back and some of the sideways backwards stuff we'd look a reasonable team, give away less soft goals and create/score more.

Ok, I'd play a double pivot of Downes and Big Les with Fernandes in front of them and a 433 system. Up front I'd play Cornet and Dibbling either side of Archer. Back four KWP Sagawara Bednarek and THB (I know he's looked poor but I think he is better in a back 4 rather than 3 at the back with wing backs). I'd encourage us to play from the back only when reasonably safe to do so and not be afraid to hit longer balls over opposition press. I'd ask the midfield to play on the half turn and transition the ball far more quickly than we do. I'd give Adam Lallana as much playing time as he can manage off the bench. I'd ask the front 3 to press the opposition hard when they are playing out. May not all work or be sensible but just some of my own ideas as you asked for.

RA wasn't the brains behind Brentford. I think it was Phil Giles.

Not sure why you can't make any critical comments unless you can come up with an alternative system/coach.

Wow, this lad looks a prospect. Didn't know we'd signed him.

Agree with this. Downes and Big Les could be the two to play the double pivot and arguably we should have started them there yesterday.

Some brilliant points here.

You rarely, if ever, hear a player say anything remotely critical of his own manager and there's a fairly obvious reason for that.