StrangelyBrown

Brian Clough built his sides around a strong spine - decent keeper, decent defender to lead the defence, someone in midfield to control the game and a striker who could score. You can see where this is going....

I'm wondering whether this isn't as simple as Will Still being the problem... We have 2 coaches (Lallana and Martin) who have been present throughout our recent problems. We've brought in Paul Trollope to help Will Still. Someone who has basically followed Chris Hughton around and that's about it. Perhaps we've got a bang average (at best) team supporting a young manager who is finding his way. Perhaps we needed to surround him with better coaches? Something that could be fixed quite cheaply... This isn't a let off for Still. I think he was the wrong appointment for us to bounce back, but given our best shot now is scraping the playoffs maybe we need to fix other problems first?

Mass clear out of our deadbeat coaches required. They've instilled this losing mentality. To be honest, Spors can go too.

Enough is enough. Fuck off still

Can we have some proper coaches please? Fuck off Nivea Fuck off Carl Martin Fuck off Paul Trollope Basics just not being done. Close down the man with the ball FFS

Combs his hair, coats his face with moisturiser and practices his best rat impression?

At least 2: jander's horror miss and Scienza chipping the keeper.

We should have used the downs money for a striker...

Wow. Some staggering over-reaction on here. We absolutely battered Swansea, but are without any confidence and consequently nothing went in for us today. 20 odd shots - a lot on target and hitting the post twice (arguably 3 times). Some real positives: Scienza was fantastic, fellows was very lively when he came on, jelert and welington looked really good at wing back and the charles/Jander pairing is getting better. I also thought Archer looked lively enough, THB played some brilliant passes despite being a little off the pace and we kept a clean sheet. On the downside 3 CBs simply doesn't work because our players aren't good enough to recognise when we are being overrun in midfield and step up to help - whether that's one of the CBs or one of the wingbacks. Still needs to recognise this and do something about it. The other problem is confidence in front of goal - just a goal or two would fix this, but also St Mary's getting so edgy so easily can't help. The second half support really wasnt helping today.

On that basis you'd think that they'd recognise that putting the "assets" into the best environment to thrive would help maximise value... The vision (growth through selling talent) is ok but the strategy and execution is massively flawed.

Maybe it comes from the staff rather than the players? For example, I'm not sure Lallana and Carl Martin should still here after last year.

Agreed with this and also we don't have a leader - we need someone that looks after all the young players and lifts them when things don't go our way. Still alluded to the problem in the presser yesterday.

Agreed. You could see he had something, just didn't click right away. There us literally nothing about Downs. Is he related to George Weah by any chance?

That starting 11 really wasn't much better than what we have now. KWP, Stuey and maybe Bednarek would make us better, but otherwise we're stronger in other positions. I.e. Jander better than Aribo, Fellows better than Edozie, McCarthy better than crisp packet hands. Obviously we could do with someone like Che but he was on the bench. Says a lot about how well we've been managed so far.

I must remember to post a "they look shite but could have potential" for every new signing to give myself Gio's permission to slag them off or praise them later on.

I'll remember to save my opinions on SR until we next win. Another poster with bizarre "forum rules" that everyone has to follow. Are you related to Gio by any chance?

So let me get this right so I understand your position? If we sign a player who isn't good enough no one is allowed to call that out unless they called it before he was signed? And if anyone does it is "expert hindsight" and not just someone making judgement based on a player being utterly dreadful? Another very bizarre post.

Because Spors is a talent spotting genius and not at all a massive fraud?

16 points after 10 games was the minimum standard as far as I'm concerned. He now can't get there and it doesn't look like a major turnaround is coming. Not sure who we could attract though that will do any better with some major gaps in the squad. Very disappointing, but frankly Spors needs to front up and explain what is going wrong as this is wider than just the manager.

We spent £8m on potential. For that I'd expect to see just a little bit of potential. Just one little glimmer. However he can't press, has no touch, no composure, is lazy, misses absolute sitters, is easily pushed off the ball ... What is it you think hindsight has got to do with anything?? Very bizarre post.

VAR isn't the answer. Holding referees to account for poor officiating and actually doing something about it is.

Maybe we could loan Ramsdale back

JWP looked like he was shoulders and head above everyone else in the few games he played for us in the championship. However, we ought to just move on from players past...

I've watched Stephens play off the ball all season and he's consistently been out of position, ball watching and has avoided taking responsibility. Admittedly THB has been even worse, but that is a pretty low bar. On the ball Stephens consistently slows us down. What he's good at is making recovery tackles which pleases the fans but you have to ask the question why is he making last ditch tackles in the first place. In my opinion it's because he's shite

Spot on. He frustrates the hell out of me; given time to think he invariably makes a poor choice, but when he's playing on instinct he demonstrates time and again what excellent technique he has. He could be a really excellent player but either he doesn't think quickly enough or massively over thinks what he's doing.