egg

Yep. Dreadful. Out of position, then drives in. Poor.

Yep. Broja for Armstrong for me. He's been poor.

Nice 👍

Looks that way. Terrible play from him too, Armstrong such an obvious ball.

Utter shite from McCarthy. Again.

Yep. I'm trying to figure out what's going on with the forward players, but I like it.

Tella is popping up in all sorts of positions so far. Very lively.

Looking a good choice so far!

No its still hanging around because it happened and it was an embarrassment. We'd be banging on about it if it was another club.

Ha!! I feel your pain.

Agreed. I like ten's who can come inside and help the midfield. Moi is half decent at that. I think we'll get overrun in there. Maddison could give us real problems.

I think it's as simple as a) they've learnt that faffing about doesn't help and b) that they have no other tools to use - lockdown won't happen and as Whitty says, problem wouldn't be respected anyway.

However you cut it, the only people in those boats who just want to be safe and secure are the kids. The adults all left war / genocide / persecution behind many countries ago, and are seeking to land on these shores for economic reasons. Sure, the French make life bloody uncomfortable for them, but they've been through numerous safe countries before arriving there.

Agreed. Lock stock in my top 10 of all time. Only 1 part of the film ages it...and did they get the bag?

That's a big claim. What's the basis of it?

Close, that was from Snatch. Great line, great movie.

Can't speak for others, but for me the fact that he left us set up to get battered, which we did.

Their 3 in midfield were able to do what they wanted both with the ball and movement off it. Another body in there reduces that. If, as you say, a back 5 gives more protection than a back 4, care to explain why we were better in the second half with less defenders? You've said above that someone can't possibly know the inner workings of Ralph's mind but here you are saying that you do, and also you are essentially saying that he lied when he admitted the that he got his tactics wrong. The mind boggles.

Let's see how he goes. He's no Dan N'lundulu, but he's a million miles away from the young Dan Ings that people suggest he is imo. For our budget he was worth a punt so I don't see him as a bad signing as such, but I'm not sure he's got much room for improvement.

It's as simple as this - if you concede the midfield, you're inviting one way traffic and leave the defence to deal with the floods of attacks, but if you can compete in midfield, those waves reduce. We'd never have won the midfield, but setting up as attack against defence was mental. Anyways, why are you still defending tactics that Ralph admits were the wrong ones? I know you're a fan of his, but this attempt is more than a bit odd.

Yep. He's not remotely cultured - hectic is a great description. He's got pace, movement, energy, but players need that plus touch, turn and technique to become a good top flight player.

That was ridiculous. The only surprise was that it took so long for them to go down to 6. There's a pic somewhere with Benfica lining up with 7 across the front. Farce.

Yep. There's not much to analyse about his admission other than he accepts he messed it up; and his tactics involved a line of defenders with no wide protection, two in midfield against 3, a forward dropping off and looking a bit lost, and two other forwards feeding off whatever scraps the others could feed them when we had the ball. Only on planet Ralph was that ever a good idea.

That formation never had any prospect of competing, mainly because it conceded midfield by being a man short. That's not hindsight, I and others said it in the build up thread as it was obvious what would happen. The hilarious part of you defending yesterdays tactics is that Ralph isn't even defending them. I expected to lose yesterday, but I didn't expect Ralph to hand them the midfield, thus the game, and that's exactly what he did.

Yep. I'm not sure how anyone can't see that today was a shocker tactically. 2 in midfield against their 3 was never going to end well.