saintant

Good shout - he'll have a lot to choose from.

Not a bad idea 🙂

I don't like the 3 at the back but I am still seeing players who cannot seem to shake off the Russball way of playing - I guess old habits die hard. Also get that you are not the biggest Will Still fan 🙂

We have to move the ball much quicker and our passing needs to improve massively. This team is still far too slow in thought and action, a hangover from Russball for some of them who still instinctively pass square and back rather than forward. Will has his work cut out to rid them of the curse of Russ.

Where did I say it was easy to do? 🙂

What do you suggest as an alternative way to reset a squad that is clearly weak and disfunctional?

Sell Fernandes. Sell or loan out Edozie, BBD, Aribo, Smallbone, Archer, Stewart, AA. Buy or loan two big, strong, quick forwards, a fast winger who can beat his man plus two creative midfielders who can break at pace, beat a man, play between the lines and pick a pass to set up attacks and goal scoring opportunities. That's the bare minimum to get this poorly assembled squad reset and ready to function. With this in place I think the defence can just about do its job in a 433 or 4231 formation. It's a hell of a lot to do in one week and I'm not sure Spors and his team have the nous to wheel and deal correctly but it is what it is so let's see what he comes up with.

Quick, start the car!

Especially with his name incorrectly spelled.

Agree with this.

Because they are much cheaper.

Unfortunately, SR is not blessed with rocket scientist 🙂

Keep hearing other positions mentioned but surely a decent centre forward is a must - we'll get nowhere with what we have up front because none of them are good enough.

Yeah, Archer central would have made a real difference - he'd have given those Stoke centre backs the run around.

Ditch it now and stop the fucking excuses about it being the only system we can utilise with the players we have because that is just a cop out.

When did he say this?

Yeah and then a week spent talking a good game about trying to get some players in but not quite getting them over the line before the window closes.

Not one good enough to give us the power, drive, ability to unsettle defenders, focal point, strong tip of the spine and goals this season. Our recruitment team continue to pussyfoot around this and do absolutely nothing to resolve it.

It's no excuse. We could all pick a side playing 4 at the back from the players available and I'm sure it would perform better than this 5 at the back rubbish..

We'll score very few goals then.

This is what I don't get. What are we afraid of? Buy some decent creative midfielders and a winger plus a centre forward - ditch the dross clogging up the pitch and stop playing 5 at the back.

Stephens, Downes, Charles (not convinced), Wellington, Armstrong - we need better players than these guys as first picks or we're kidding ourselves that we gave a good squad.

Been banging on that we still haven't resolved the centre forward position and all I get is we won't be buying one. Well, today again showed that we need one as a priority and. if we don't fix that then goals are going to be very hard to come by. Will Still needs to immediately drop the 5 at the back rubbish because every man and his dog can see it doesn't work for us and leaves us with an extra centre half on the pitch that we don't need at the expense of an extra body in midfield or up front that we do need. Spors and the recruitment team will need to have some magic up their sleeves this week or we are in for a long and disappointing season. This team ruined plenty of weekends last season but I was hoping things would improve but we are a long way off the squad we need. Too much dead wood is still getting picked and it's going to make it hard to win football matches which is Will Still's mantra. Weak as the squad is he needs to explain what he's trying to achieve with this 5 at the back and I don't buy the excuse that we can't play a 4 with the players we have - that's just a cop out.

You're not wrong 🙂

Long way to go but Will is going to seriously piss off the fan base if he doesn't drop the 5 at the back nonsense.