stevegrant

Absolutely no doubt that Ankersen deserves a whole heap of the blame for recommending and then making the appointment, and of course Jones was always going to take it when offered, it was a massive step up in his career both in terms of status and salary. However, that doesn't mean to say that the way he has conducted himself is what anyone would have reasonably expected (although his time at Stoke may have offered a few pointers in the right direction if it didn't start well), and the results and performances have been largely pathetic. At least Ralph had a track record in the Bundesliga and, while there are certainly arguments that it had gone stale at the end of last season, also a history of arresting really poor runs of form with really good runs of form. It was baffling how we could flip-flop from so good to so bad, often in the same week. I'd absolutely bite your fucking arm off for that level of inconsistency right now.

DCC watching that game today wondering how Jones is going to blame the defeat on him.

A battery has a positive side.

Believe it or not, there is actually a Premier League rule that insists that at least one block of the away supporters' section of the stadium must be pitch-side. I don't know how Newcastle (and Sunderland previously, as the rule was in place when they were still in the PL) get away with it.

One of many. Even those of us who don't think he's remotely up to the job would have more (the greatest, perhaps) respect for him if he fronted up. But no, he has hidden, or the club has hidden him, away from any potential scrutiny.

Must admit I just assumed that it was in conjunction with Solent, because all previous ones have been. Absolute waste of time if there's not somebody from outside the club hosting/moderating the event.

It would also be interesting to know who is doing the vetting - is it Adam Blackmore at the BBC or is it someone at the club? Or perhaps a bit of both. From Radio Solent's perspective, they've got to ensure that it's vaguely interesting for people to listen to (and to clip up and broadcast afterwards too), so they'll want some interesting questions that pose a range of queries to each of the panel. The club would probably prefer all the questions are as "underarm" as possible right now...

I think there's a big difference between fans getting annoyed because the manager isn't picking who they want to be picked, and fans getting annoyed because the manager doesn't seem to have any discernible selection criteria. Ultimately we don't have the benefit of seeing what goes on at Staplewood during the week, so it might be that the XI that gets picked every week is the group of players who have performed best in training, but there doesn't appear to be any meritocracy in terms of rewarding good performances with retained places in the starting lineup. Much harder to drop everyone who has a bad game considering results this season, obviously

Yeah, just an out-and-out lie FACT CHECK: All of our games and goals since Nathan Jones' appointment Liverpool (A) - Adams. WITH A BACK 5 But Jones claims that this game doesn't count towards his win ratio, so do we credit him with a goal while we're playing a back 5? 🤔 Lincoln (H) - Adams x2. ONE GOAL WITH A BACK 5. Substitutions made at half-time to switch to a back 4. Brighton (H) - JWP. Back 4. Which surprised me looking back, as I could have sworn we'd gone with 5 in that one. Fulham (A) - JWP. Back 4. Started with a back 5, changed to a 4 at half-time. Nottingham Forest (H) - no goals. Back 5. Palace (A) - JWP, A Armstrong. Back 4 Man City (H) - Mara, Djenepo. Back 4 Everton (A) - JWP x2. Back 4. Switched to a back 5 very late on to hang on. Aston Villa (H) - no goals. Back 4. Newcastle (H) - no goals. Back 4. Blackpool (H) - Perraud x2. Back 4. Newcastle (A) - Adams. Back 4. Started with a 5 with dreadful consequences, switched to a back 4 during a prolonged injury break to Joelinton, goal came a minute later. So we've scored 14 goals in 12 games, of which two have been scored while we have had a back 5 in operation.

I think there are occasions where you want the desire to be proactive like Lyanco does, he's largely pretty good at stepping out and intercepting those balls in the channels that cause us so many problems. However, he has absolutely no "chill" mode at all, which must rub off on people around him and make everyone a bit skittish. DCC hasn't been perfect by any means since he's come into the team, but I think he looks like the guy who's got the most balanced defensive attributes. He's decent in the air, he's fairly calm under pressure (Lyanco absolutely would have - justifiably, obviously - lumped Jacob Murphy after the red card last week) and isn't completely terrifying when the ball is at his feet. He is also the most experienced and has the greatest pedigree, so feels like the most natural fit as the defensive leader we've lacked for ages.

I'd have thought he'd have been delighted that DCC sacrificed himself for the good of the team by taking that booking. It was either "foul Saint-Maximin and take a second booking" or "Saint-Maximin is clean through on goal to make it 2-0 and effectively kill the tie". An absolute no-brainer of a decision.

Highly rated as a coach, certainly, but failed miserably in his one actual managerial gig. That would probably imply that he's good at the technical side of things, perhaps less so at the collective tactical angle and/or man-management.

If you want to see how far you can push your "just asking questions" garbage, you won't last long.

Feel free

4-3-3 is probably the most flexible of all the "base" formations. You've got the flat 4-3-3, or a 4-1-4-1 where the two wide attackers are wide midfielders and have one sitting behind two 8/10 hybrids, or a 4-2-3-1 where there's two sitting and one 10, or 4-2-1-3 where the wide men are more wide forwards than midfielders. You can even then go for something wild like 2-2-3-3 where the full backs are pushed up so high that they're basically wide midfielders, but you still have wide attackers in front of them.

I think you'll find it isn't. It should neither be Fan's, i.e. belonging to one Fan, nor Fans', i.e. Fanses.

Christ, the merge function on this forum software is back to front

Not sure the heat of a relegation battle is really the place to be trying to get players to learn a new system that - if rumours are to be believed - the players hate and even felt strongly enough about it that they raised it with Jones so early in his tenure. Of course we should have flexibility, that seems fairly obvious, but switching so wildly from one system to another every 20 minutes can't do anybody any good.

And so much of it was completely unnecessary. Almost as soon as he's walked through the door his attitude in interviews and press conferences has been all about covering his own arse. Nothing's his fault or his responsibility, and that was after his first game, seeing as he has already disassociated himself from his actual first game at Liverpool. "They weren't winning many games before I arrived" - note the "they" there. Let's be honest, most managers arrive at clubs after the previous manager had been sacked, usually for results that were below expectation. And as a result, most new managers attempt to get a fairly unhappy fanbase on-side, even if it's with empty platitudes. Get the fans behind you from the start and you'll get a fair bit of rope. Jones has torn up the playbook and decided that being defensive, narky and downright delusional right from the off is the way that he's going to go about it, and then seems surprised that his attitude, coupled with abject performances and results and no sign of learning from the many selection and tactical mistakes, has led a significant portion of the fanbase to decide that he's not up to it. As mentioned in an earlier post by someone else, as a fanbase we do generally give new managers a warm welcome and a bit of time to get their feet under the table. For the patience to have lasted so little is on Jones, not the fanbase. Would be interesting to know whose decision it was to not have him on the panel at the Fans Forum. Either it's the club's decision and therefore they know that the fanbase is unhappy and will give him a tough time on live radio, or it's his decision and he doesn't want to have to look paying fans in the eyes and answer some tough questions. Either way, it doesn't reflect especially well. I'm not sure I'd necessarily put the spending this month in the "backing the manager" basket - it's entirely plausible that those players (James Bree excepted) would have been on our radar this month anyway given the makeup of the squad and its very obvious deficiencies. Modern clubs don't tend to pander to the manager, it's a bit more flexible so that if the manager leaves for whatever reason, the next guy isn't ripping everything up and wanting to get rid of everyone and make 20 new signings.

I mean, you're making out like we've lucked out and got a manager who is so clearly head and shoulders above anybody else and is doing a fantastic job that nobody else could do, when that is objectively obviously not the case

Absolutely, and if we could have got Alcaraz (who admittedly was pretty poor tonight, but we were left outnumbered in midfield for some reason ) in August then we'd have been able to free up JWP from his "6" purgatory to the extent where he might not have looked quite so out of sorts for months.

Excellent player badly utilised by previous managers, absolutely NOT a holding midfielder