goodymatt

With Russ and Stu no longer in the building, we do need someone with great hair. Sign him up.

Does his smile say more than his words here? He also didn’t shut it down at all really, focussing on the short term rest of season’s goals. I’d say there’s a very good chance he’s our manager on 1/6. Juric has also changed his tune from ‘wanting to create something’ to ‘when you lose regularly you’re job is a risk, that’s football.’

That’s what I’d go with. I’d also pair Downes and Lesley in front and just defend for our lives, hitting sulemana, fernandes and Dibling for the counters when we can.

Looks like everyone is fit at least (excluding James Bree), plus Juric saying he needs to adapt more and it will be important to press well and low block. All of that combined ‘should’ make us a bit harder to score against. Liverpool with have one eye on PSG and League cup final too. We will lose comfortably but I’m hoping we can keep the score down. I’m going to this one, can’t say I’m looking forward to it!

Martin turned out to be a decent appointment for the championship and did achieve the target of promotion. Warning signs were there from the 4 consecutive defeats in September and the number/type of goals we were conceding at that level, but I bought into the idea of an up and coming manager learning on the job. Ultimately he either didn’t learn fast enough for our PL needs and/or wasn’t prepared to change his philosophy. The squad (he played a big part in recruiting) just wasn’t good enough too. He was let down by the club not hiring a director of footy to guide him, very much out of his depth. Juric has taken on an impossible job and looks to be positioned as the fall guy now taking the negativity on the chin so that any replacement can come in with a fresh start and a chance to build momentum. His track record suggests he can build hard to beat sides and I do think if he’d arrived instead of Jones he would have given it a better go. Hard to tell if his crazy team selections are his standard mindset or just trying anything and everything to prod us with a stick to actually do something. Man to man marking has been a disaster and our current players are not in any way suited to it. Another stubborn manager it seems. Rohl might have not achieved anything more in terms of league position than Martin but he’s kept a league one squad up under mental ownership and no money and now has them comfortably mid table and safe. He’s overachieving with resources, whereas Martin has worked to expectations. Experience of being an assistant manager at Leipzig, Saints, Bayern and Germany shouldn’t be ignored. His 4-2-3-1 is my preferred formation and he seems to be able to motivate a club in crisis. Having any sort of history with our club and our new director of football just makes this appointment seem logical. As others have mentioned, it’s always a good sign when the idea of a manager leaving a club is met with universal concern. Let’s see if it happens.

Mateus Fernandes is the obvious choice for me. Special mention to Ramsdale who’s been decent enough when fit. There are no other options to consider.

Levi Colwill saying his mates are all Saints fans so he will give them stick. I thought he was a Saints fan himself?

Was it even a free kick? Nkunku threw himself down a couple of steps after the contact. Our set piece defending and individual errors leading to goals are horrendous. New manager hasn’t really improved that at all.

We are playing much better than the weekend but the defending for both of their goals is tragic.

This guy has a decent CV, not sure what level you expect us to attract given our current position of yo-yo club? Multi club model experience makes him a good fit too.

Lesley had to start.

Aribo to CB, again?

Can I choose both depression and acceptance?

Agree he’s not great off the ball at all. Needs to be paired with a proper DM. Prowsey improved the off the ball aspect of his game, was close to leaving us until Ralph improved that weakness. Smallbone is young enough to improve defensively, just not his speed!

Don’t be silly. Smallbone is a solid championship level player. He’s looked fine in his 2 full seasons in that league. Not long ago he fired us to the playoff final and assisted the winner on our big day out.

Fernandes and Sulemana are the only players with any directness about their play, when they break through, nobody is there with them. Lack of belief throughout the squad, unsurprisingly at this point. We don’t have any clear attacking patterns and the man marking situation leaves the opponent space time and time again, they just need to win one duel against us and it’s open. Should be 3-0 down. Dango selfishly not squaring it to Brooks for a tap in. Only really one attack ,where they cut out the pull back, where we looked dangerous. Couple of times I thought Bree could have crossed for Onuachu, we need to just play that cross as early as possible and hope Paul can get on it. Concerned what the FT score is going to be. So depressing watching us atm.

We are going to be so overrun from minute 1 with that midfield.

No Kayi Sanda in the squad after all. Not playing Lesley for Smallbone seems crazy to me. Dibling should be starting too.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DGBoJ7ruP-H/?igsh=MWtxNXQzbng3ZG11aQ== New agent? Perhaps looking to find a move to stay in the PL when we drop.

Wasn’t the fee £15m rising to £18m, doubt we are meeting the criteria for the add ons? So we would break even if we sold him for £15m, you’d think at the price Ipswich might maintain interest going into the summer, whichever league they are in. Ideally we can resolve this issue with Flynn and get him back to being the star player but as I said in my previous post, should he not want to be here when all the dust settles, I’d rather he leaves and we look to someone else that will give 100% and might even have the ability to become a PL player at a time that is useful to us. Easily the biggest disappointment of the season for me, thought he would step up no problem. Shows how big the gap is with Downes, THB and Armstrong all struggling with the step up.

This is a sorry state of affairs. Downes was our most influential player last season (80% win rate when he played, 20% when he didn’t) now doesn’t want to be here. Armstrong, our top scorer and assister (last season) has already left on loan. Shea Charles didn’t want to come back in January. Aribo reportedly will join a Turkish side in the summer. KWP won’t be renewing. Ramsdale, Dibling and Fernandes will all have top flight suitors. We are going to have to rebuild an entire team this summer it will be even more change than last time we went down. On Downes specifically, I really thought he would step up but he has really struggled under both mangers. THB has struggled too. We are just nowhere near good enough. I don’t want players here that don’t want to be here, so laters Flynn.

Welington is very good 1 v 1

Some others - Gayle, Sharp, Beckford, Pukki, Lita, Piroe has all the hallmarks.