saintant

We could have saved the whole £7 million and signed McBurnie on a free - he's agricultural but would be doing a far better job than Downs.

A tad harsh on Robinson who came on fairly late in the game so didn't have long to get up to speed.

It's either clickbait or Will Still has seen enough clangers from his 2 goalkeepers in the last two matches and had a word with Spors. He did seem pretty pissed off after the game on Tuesday. Imagine having to choose between a goalkeeper who makes saves but can't pass the ball or one who can pass the ball but hardly ever saves anything and makes monumental errors. Must keep him awake at night.

Me too. I grew up believing that's a goalkeeper's most important skill but maybe being able to pass trumps that.

Yeah and Boro will put a stream of crosses into our box and score from free headers.

Bonkers

From what we've seen so far I think he's a better fit in the bracket of young and higher potential loss.

I thought Wood showed far more than a bit of confidence with the ball at his feet. His passing whether to wingback or midfield was always crisp and accurate and on one occasion he strolled quite a distance out of defence with the ball. He's better than Stephens or THB in this respect although the latter is capable of pinging some good long passes to the wings. I'm not sure why so many think we have to play Capt Jack as though he is vital to our back line - he is poor in the air, doesn't mark or follow opponents runs and his use of the ball slows everything down because he dawdles on the ball - we are better without him.

If they'd been monitoring him for some time why the fuck did they buy him?

How can you possibly criticise him for their first goal? - McCarthy decided to pass the ball straight to Cienza. Quarshie had nothing to do with it.

Quarshie may be a little raw but he's learning fast and has the useful assets of pace and power. It's not as though Stephens and THB have been any good so it's a low bar. Quarshie was excellent last night in a big game against good opponents and did little wrong so why not trust him.

Agree with this and Wood also carried the ball some distance out of defence. These 3 looked good together so no reason to break them up to accommodate Stephens or THB.

Pony is your middle name 🙂

You'd think they'd have a pretty good idea of the comparative merits of both players.

If they have maybe they could stick an E between the N and S. Not perfect but would give slightly more street cred.

Don't agree. If we miss out on promotion but look to be building a decent team which of our current players is going to attract other clubs because PL sides won't want them? So that leaves a move to another Championship side or to a foreign club - either option will be very unlikely to pay them more than they're getting here. So the idea of wholesale departures if we don't go up probably won't happen unless we have a disastrous season.

And getting beaten at home most weeks in the PL creates an amazing atmosphere doesn't it 🙂

So you could argue that if Scienza scores a simple header to a goal only guarded by a scrambling defender Liverpool would have been kicking off when Macca made his howler. We'd have been one up and people would have raved about Macca's goalkeeping performance and few would have been advocating a return for Bazunu. Thems the fine margins but I'd always put my trust in Macca ahead of Bazunu who continually rates bottom or near bottom for saves made and has for at least 3 seasons. With Baz in goal we go one down in the first 45 seconds because he doesn't stop the Isaac shot - even if he gets a hand to it his chocolate wrists don't keep it out.

Will Still alluded to this when asked about Downs after the game. He said something along the lines of Downs needing to make an impact and maybe he should try picking a fight with someone which I took to mean be more niggly and aggressive. He resembles a passive boxer who only gets riled when his opponent punches him hard in the face so maybe it's more that a defender needs to pick a fight with him and rough him up good and proper because he looks far too laid back and lethargic.

Think he's one of those who looks quite quick on a through ball where he builds up pace but he's very slow across a few yards or in bursts so cannot do the press or win many second balls. Also seems slow to react and is so ponderous. I don't think he's lacking effort but his style makes him appear to. He's not a hustling bustling centre forward which is probably what we needed. Doesn't appear to be capable of leaping for headers and lacks body strength and aggression. Not sure he'll make it other than at a much lower level as there just seems too much needed to work on. Think the recruitment team badly fucked up on this one considering what we paid for him. He'll probably start banging in goals for fun now 🙂

Think he was being a bit ironic/sarcastic to the fact that we again gift wrapped a goal to our opponents so did not learn anything.

So why not play well in every game? Surely that gives him more chance of attracting interest than playing well in the odd game of his choosing.

That makes me feel a lot better...not!

A Millwall fan said similar.

A good appraisal of the many weaknesses of Capt Jack and THB. Stephens is also very slow in thought and decision making when in possession which stops us from playing with any sort of fluidity, he just faffs about and dithers. On last night's showing Wood is our best centre back - he's strong in the air, has pace, can bring the ball out of defence as he showed last night and that block he made in the first half was superb. Ditch Stephens and THB who are holding the team back.