goodymatt

I see that Chorley used to play for the skates, captained them for a season too.

I think the key questions re Armstrong are: 1. Does he fit into Still’s style? I think he presses well and works hard off the ball and has reasonable pace to support the expected more direct style. We have seen he’s not a CF or a true winger but if there is an outside forward role or we play a pair up top, then there should be a role that he can be effective in. 2. Does he want to be here? Wages wise, most likely. However, we have shown we don’t trust him at PL level by loaning him out last January. If he’s now decided he wants a new challenge or even agrees with us that he’s not going to be a PL starter, then there is concern over motivation should we keep him. I personally think he will be determined to get back there and prove people wrong, so I don’t see motivation as an issue. We need not worry about his PL ability until we are back there and then we can look to replace. 3. Is there room for Armstrong and Archer in the same team? Archer favours left inside forward and Armstrong right, but I don’t see us playing with 2 of them and if we did go for a pair up top, then we can only have 1 of those being this profile. Archer has a higher ceiling for me but Armstrong is better at pressing and work rate. I think Archer is the better finisher, Armstrong needing more chances to score. Not sure it’s the best use of our budget to have one on the bench every week but it would be impressive depth for the championship really. It’s a bit of a predicament as both players have proven to be very effective at Championship level. I do think Archer will thrive in more direct counters, see his Arsenal goal away last season. Can Still get him to press better? 4. Can we sell him for enough? I think we wouldn’t get our money back due to PL clubs knowing he won’t perform at that level, leaving a very small number of Championship clubs that could afford his wages. Sell to any of them and we are strengthening a rival. In summary, he’s been a goal machine at this level and is hard to shift without either losing money or strengthening a rival. I can’t see him not being here next season for those reasons plus his wages, unless he really wants out and/or is willing to go abroad. It’s a nice problem to have at championship level, provided Still’s system can get the most out or Armstrong and/or Archer.

If he wanted out, we might end up having to sell. Hopefully not the case, feels like we are the right level for him at this moment in time. Charles not really impacting the team after spending £10m on him seemed like an unnecessary risk but this time around he appears to be the player we hoped he would be. Get him straight into the starting 11 and let his asset value continue to grow.

Even with a points deduction for Leicester I can’t look past a top 5 of Ipswich, Saints, Sheffield United, Leicester and Birmingham. The 6th spot is harder to call but right now I would go for Coventry. I think Saints will finish 3rd and it will be the lottery of the playoffs again, but there’s a lot of transfer business to go that could change my prediction. Ask again in September!

I’d like to think we won’t consider a sale, his price will only go up with another good season and he will be a key player for us.

I agree at championship level he is decent. Aribo, Downes and Charles is quite a physically strong set of midfield options which you’d think would suit Still’s style. If we were to surprisingly keep Fernandes, then Aribo doesn’t get in. Smallbone I’m not sure is the right profile for Still but I’m sure we will find out in pre season.

Very difficult to do and most likely would be via a loan, which like Brooks might not be signed on promotion. Look at Downes and THB loans to perm, we thought they could step up but in reality they both struggled. Attracting the players that can step up is very difficult. We will need to get ourselves back up and then strengthen properly as a PL club with PL wages.

Looks like CF in a 4-2-3-1 example vs Watford:

Transfermarkt has him down as a CF for all but 2 of his appearances at Boro, 11 goals and 6 assists in 20 league apps for them.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DKZx9dBMzmO/?igsh=MTZvb2dmaG54ZHc4MQ==

Do we think Archer is going to be our main goal threat next season? Will he even stay? I think he would do well at Championship level as previous Boro loan suggests and also Will Still’s attacking at pace will give him much more opportunities to shoot. On the flip side he was largely invisible at PL level, but was that due to the quality of the rest of our players and the slow build up style?

The ideal is that Will Still does get us promoted at the first attempt and then builds with us. More likely to be poached if we go up and don’t survive again but let’s hope he is invested in the project for longer than a season or two, assuming he lives up to the hype. I’m still not buying Martin just got lucky. We made playoffs as expected and didn’t lose to a single side in those playoff places all season. It was a deserved promotion in the end, playoffs were managed very well. Beating Leeds 3 times that season was impressive. I do agree that when the style wasn’t working it was a bad watch, Blackburn in particular was a terrible performance (I was also there), but the results the previous game week did leave players and fans believing autos was gone and the performance on the pitch reflected that, as unprofessional as that is/was.

He claimed in the press conference yesterday he has learned a lot from Saints PL season and will be more pragmatic when he needs to be going forward. Let’s see if that is just words because he didn’t change at all during 1 win in 16 PL games, so it’s hard to believe he will now.

Agree that it is very hard to assess. Will Still could in theory completely flop but I think that’s unlikely. Automatic promotion should be the target and that is going to be a big ask. Like Martin experienced there is going to be a lot of change and I’m sure there will be bumps in the road. Rohl has 18m experience managing in the championship but no experience of fighting for promotion (neither did Martin as a manager until us). Keeping Wednesday up was a fantastic achievement the year we got promoted but there’s a similar risk feeling around him for me. He’s been in a circus with that club but he has showed his real personality towards the end of last season. The other thing on Will Still is he doesn’t seem to hang around anywhere long, so building for medium to long term with him seems unlikely. The same would have been said about Rohl. Still has managed at a higher level and that is most encouraging. On whether Martin was lucky to get promoted, I think we finished 4th but we were expected to finish 3rd and got promoted anyway. I think you need over 90 most seasons for autos, that number is rising more due to yo-yo-ing of the same clubs. But finishing above Leicester and Leeds wasn’t really expected so it was always most likely going to be playoffs. He beat Leeds all 3 times we played them and got us up, I wouldn’t say that was all luck. He delivered on the target and in the main it was an entertaining ride. Sadly the same cannot be said for the PL experience that followed.

Agree on the philosophy and stubbornness, I did make a similar point on the Martin thread. That is the reason we ended up battling Derby’s record. The recruitment is why we had no chance of survival. At Championship level though, it did work most of the time. The question is would it have worked again. Perhaps not after the season we have had and how that affects the players and fans belief in it.

Martin failed miserably in the PL and showed an inability to change to give us the best chance of being competitive at that level. I do think he will do well at Rangers though, his style suits being a dominant team and his derby record in Wales was very good, first ever double double. I liked him and really wanted him to do well at Saints. Last championship season was great fun in the main, outside of the 2 bad runs. Playoffs were an experience to last a lifetime and I do wish him well at Rangers. He wasn’t ready to be a PL manager clearly but that doesn’t mean he won’t do well at Rangers.

I’m interested to hear people’s opinion on whether Will Still is seen as an upgrade on Russell Martin. I think possibly but can’t help but wonder if Russ would have been best placed for an instant return again had we stuck by him. 1 win in 16 PL games obviously made that impossible to do, he had to go. It appears Rohl is now favourite for the Leicester job, I wonder if Still stepping down from Lens meant that we decided to strike for a ‘better’ target that we didn’t think was initially available rather than actually being rejected by Rohl. This appears to be the view of the Second Tier Podcast, which I thought was an interesting take. We have all been discussing Rohl wanting to consider his options and taking his time and Saints not wanting to wait. I wonder if we would have rather had Rohl and if so, competing against him next season will be interesting. Maresca was our first choice last time according to the Athletic. Russ has now joined Rangers, Juric looks very likely to be the next Atalanta manager, both failed miserably in the PL but still have takers at a decent level. I don’t think either are as bad as people make out on here recently because the squad they had just wasn’t competitive at PL level. Admittedly Martin did have a big say in the recruitment last summer, so should shoulder some blame on the squad not being good enough, but primarily it’s on SR for not replacing Wilcox before the Pl season started and trying to rebuild a new squad with people who had no experience of doing it.

We were looking at Carrick when we appointed Martin, his stock does seem to have fallen over the last 2 seasons, not making the playoffs despite investment.

£60 full price last season.

It is clear that Bazunu has been bottom of the ‘conceding goals you shouldn’t be conceding’ tables for 2 straight seasons, despite dropping into a lower league. He was still only saving close to every other shot in Belgium before he got injured, his worst save percentage of his career to date (54.6%). The sample size is big enough to know he’s not ready to be our number 1, if we want to be challenging for the top 2. His excellent ball playing skills are less useful to us in a Will Still system than a Martin one, so it should be very clear to Will that a new GK is a high priority. He is used to setting up teams to concede fewer than expected, we will not achieve that with Bazunu as our first choice keeper. I know not all posters value data as it can be misleading but whether it is data or my own eyes, they are agreeing on this one. The lack of takers for his loan this season speaks volumes.