saintant

Agree with this and time we reverted to a traditional back four. If you have 3 centre backs all you are doing is encouraging them to continually pass the ball sideways and backwards between them and this is what is happening. It clearly leaves us one light in midfield and once Brizzle City worked that out they over ran us in the middle of the park because Charles and Jander had far too much work to do. Having said that we really did gift them 3 goals tonight to hand them the game, they were 3 of the poorest goals to concede. I don't think you can pin those 3 cock ups on the bloke stood on the touchline. However, after tonight's capitulation he is going to come under increasing pressure and he needs a big result at the weekend. Got to ditch playing with 3 centre backs and try something different.

No thanks to JWP. It's big strong quick athletes we need not a small, immobile ball recycler.

Unfortunately for us Spors failed to spot that huge flaw in his performance level. How he missed it is one of life's mysteries.

Did they fuck - we gifted them 3 goals and that's the only reason they won this game.

To be fair they were 3 ginormous mistakes - schoolboy errors would be an insult to schoolboys.

They were 3 free gifts.

Yeah, there were too many remnants of Russball - pointless passing between defenders with no urgency to get up through the thirds, walking football which I just don't get unless you're 65 years old, no directness. It was all far too pedestrian at times. Back to the drawing board but we've gone backwards with this performance tonight because we failed to capitalise on our chances and presented them with 3 gift goals which may as well have come wrapped with bows on.

Let's look at their three goals because we absolutely gifted them all 3. Goal one, we set up a poor line and Wood misses the through ball when he should have cut it out easily. Goal 2, a lucky ricochet onto the post but McCarthy decides to jump over the ball and leave it to Twine. Goal 3, we decide to pass it straight to Twine who has a free run on goal. When do we get gifted goals? Very rarely. We should have been 3-1 up at half time and somehow contrived to lose that 3-1. Oh and the big black lad came on and bullied the life out of our defenders.

Fucks sake - is that what's meant by a no look pass. Not sure why we bother travelling to Bristol City - might as well just give them the points and save the journey.

The fuck is McCarthy doing - instead of smacking the ball away he jumps over it. Bonkers!!!!

Missed chances continue to plague us - this should be 3-1. AA scores a good goal but he takes a shot when a simple pass to Archer is the better option. Then Archer should score when clean through. Horrible feeling they are going to score again from another direct run through the middle. Fellows on for Wee Man for me.

Did Russell Martin take training for this game?

It's mad isn't it - we sign a tricky winger who can cross the ball but...he can't get in the side because we've given him nobody to cross the ball to. You couldn't make it up!

Isn't he another who signed for us with dubious fitness history?

Indeed and the sad thing is it's hardly rocket science. Every good side is packed with power, pace and strength.

They were unable to compete with the physicality of the Brentford team.

Brentford showed tonight what good recruitment can do. They've sold so many quality players yet still keep unearthing gems. Clearly they go for big, strong, powerful players. No surprise that Walker Peters and Fernandes were withdrawn at half time by West Ham - two of our better ex players simply could not cope with the physicality of Brentford. One day our recruitment team will wake up and realise you need some muscle, pace and power in a squad these days if you want to compete.

So we could have signed Tolaj from Port Vale for peanuts but our clever recruitment team decided Downs for much more money was the better option. Clearly no idea what they're doing.

No I'm not. I'm giving my views on this game. I haven't stated we've played well all season.

Maybe take a look at the highlights.

I didn't say that.

Time the recruitment team at SR sorted out the centre forward issue which has been a major problem since Danny Ings left. The signing of Damion Downs is looking increasingly laughable. Plymouth signed 23 year old Swiss striker Lorent Tolaj from Port Vale for peanuts - even in their poor side he is looking a good signing and we could do worse than trying to prise him away from them in January. He's big, strong and powerful, reasonably quick, knows where the goal is and works his nuts off. He'd have been far more use to us than Downs.

Your going overboard about the fact we didn't beat Swansea is embarrassing. Did you watch the game? If so you must have missed all the good stuff we played leading to chance creation. The fact that we failed to convert any of those chances is the problem. We have no centre forward which is down to poor recruitment. Get a good striker and this side will start banging in the goals.

Is there a vacancy?

Lots of common sense and realistic views from the four podcasters who highlighted the good football we played and could see progress on the pitch. We all get the fact that we didn't convert even one of our numerous decent chances and they pointed this out as a frustration. We just need a little more composure and the goals should come because we are creating opportunities whilst looking fairly secure in defence.