S-Clarke

The players have never dealt with pressure very well, they always wilt. When the going is good (3-0, 5-0 etc etc) or the oppo are so poor they can't block space it's great, they can enjoy themselves. But whenever there is adversity or a tight game (which they will be lots of) we can never seem to handle that professionally. Players like Jack Stephens were kept around for this very reason supposedly - vocal on the pitch, good organiser, leads the defence - but we knew how that story was going to end when he re-contracted. It was a performance which closely mirrored QPR away, we just couldn't see this one over the line.

I go with the general feeling that we were lucky to even be in the game, we were fortunate to be at 2-2 in the 95th min. We weren't in it yesterday, we couldn't gain any control nor management of that game in any minute. It was a really piss poor effort when you look at what went on before, but it also raised the alarms as to how we revert back to type when opposition press us aggressively. We didn't have that against Leicester, Charlton, Wednesday etc - and we were fine. QPR pressed us hard, but we were lucky as shit to get out of thee with a win. So this performance was more in line with the QPR away one for me, still major, major question marks over the makeup of this squad and the inexperience in and around the coaching staff to see us over the line in these 'bog standard' Championship encounters.

Yeah I imagine they've done most of the legalities already, they just wanted a full week between fixtures before announcing it.

I think the club have decided Jelert is for the bin, he'll be gone in January.

He's on course to win the worst GK in the league stat again, and he hasn't even been first choice all season. He's consistent, you've got to give him that.

I wouldn't even have fancied Quarshie today, his legs would have been going all over the place. I think we need a better CB, as I don't really rate any of ours. I like Edwards, but seemingly the club want to cash in on him. I agree with Fellows, in the last couple of games he was excellent from wing back because he was attacking - he was against 10 men mid-week, and against Charlton they didn't even attack - so he could just play as a winger. That's where we bought him for, so I agree - play him as a winger once Mads is back.

Next Saturday will be a good test - see if he's able to lift the side. Birmingham will be another tough game. Nothing he did worked today, although the players need to take some serious responsibility in the later stages of games - it can't all be on the manager. (I'm looking at you, Captain Jack)

Aribo's style has always been like this, very 'lazy' looking in the way he plays - and I prefer him in a more advanced role, than arsing around in a central CM position - as it cost us. That sub was an incredibly bad call at the wrong time.

We were really, really poor today. As bad as we were at QPR in most aspects. We couldn't control the game, we couldn't manage the game. Millwall deserved to win that game 2 times over, we were no where near. Fortunate to even be in the conversation. In the games against Charlton, Wednesday etc we were given space - they stood off us, so we had time to quickly move and go. Teams aren't going to do that every week, so we need more to our repertoire than hoping THB can receive the ball in space and play infield - you'll get 1 or 2 games a season where we get the space we had against Charlton, but this league doesn't work like that. Millwall pressed/pushed/harried us as and it was similar to under Still really, we wilted. Stephens, for being a captain and all, couldn't marshal a back line if his life depended on it. THB went back to his awfulness. Tactically we didn't have any answer to Millwall today, I felt inexperience showed - much in the same way as it showed against the likes of Hull and Blackburn in earlier games too. We need an experienced manager.

Is it wrong to still feel a bit apprehensive? We've all lived through 'manager' bounces and caretakers getting the team going, Alan Sheehan at Swansea being a fine example last year - then they gave him the job, and it all went south. I want to see how he reacts to adversity. We will hit bumps during December and have some iffy results, I just want to see how we come out of the back of that. 4 games is a good start, but I need to see more - he's still incredibly inexperienced. I guess my uncertainty is also driven from the record we've had with Managers - so my mind is in a bit of an odd place. I think he's started well, but I just want to see a few more games.

He was always class, got bogged down a bit in the later days of Stills tenure - but even his short cameos right at the start, even against the Skates, you can see his has agility on the ball and a real knack of arriving in and around the box. He's an upgrade on Will Smallbone and Downes in one player, him and Romeu could strike up something pretty special. What a player to learn from.

What on earth is going on? The upturn in form is unexpected to say the least. We've come from a base of zero to where we are now, which is with a proper foundation behind us. I don't even remember us winning 3 consecutive games as comfortably as that under Martin. Fellows/Azaz/Armstrong/Leo are dangerous at this level, they always were. Will Still just couldn't seem to find a way to get all 4 on the pitch at once, and that was the problem. What you're seeing now is benefit of prolonged game time for Fellows and Azaz - they can now build relationships on the pitch, no more chopping and changing. Armstrong, whilst playing as the 9, is more intelligent with his game than he was. He drops deep and has runners beyond him, rather than him being the 'runner' in behind himself all alone. The difference is stark in that sense. The second goal was a case in point really - Armstrong was so deep, but he had runners behind him and flicked the ball around to Leo - and they were away. It was the same against Charlton for Janders goal, picking it up and having runners beyond. That's been a tweak in Armstrong's game that I've seen, which is really benefiting everyone else. I somewhat felt sorry for Still, but I don't think he ever really knew how to get the best out of the tools he had - there was too much chop and change through the spine, and nothing ever felt settled and there were no real patterns. Tonda has been surprising, I still think we need to bide our time though. I'd like to see how he deals with adversity when we have a couple of iffy games back to back, so I wouldn't jump to give him the job tonight. I just think we need a bigger sample. The signs are positive, somewhat unexpected, and we'll see where December takes us - this is the month which will make our season.

Bit like Messi though isn't it? Obviously different universes, but these sorts will always be targeted and hacked down. The thing with Messi, and hopefully Leo (as he's shown) is that they've got this resiliency to just bounce up/bounce through them and ignore those tackles/bites and carry on. Plus being 10x better than the opposition means you can often think a few seconds ahead of any potential hack as well.

He is to them looking at their forums, I think it's because he's had a couple of serious ACL injuries with them which have restricted his mobility hugely.

I wish they'd focus on un-breaking and stabilising the clubs they currently own, before launching onto others. Everything they do screams incompetence.

Agreed, and of all the struggles we have had in recent years with our scouting I look at Jander, Leo and think hang on.....have we actually got some successes from abroad here? Downs excepted, as we're all rightly frustrated by that one, but the other picks from Germany look like steals at this stage. Early days though, but with Leo he's happy to take the ball and go forward every time. He's not one of those irritating wide attackers who will receive the ball, stop, send it back, and run forward without the ball. He actually runs with the ball, under control, into the danger area. He's got the pace, agility and balance to do so - and I hope he keeps that, I don't want any pass back nonsense coached into him.

Throwing the arguments around that ''Well McCarthy is better' ''Well no Bazunu has actually been involved in more wins, he's better'' etc etc, is akin to asking if you'd like to eat dog shit, or human shit. They're both shit. We've got into a situation with 3 shit goalkeepers on the books, and that needs to be sorted before we before we do anything worthwhile over a consistent period.

I think most of us felt the same back in 2022/2023...patient, give them time etc. But we're now almost 2026, we've had two relegations and churned through 7 managers. There comes a point where you just realise that actually they haven't got a scooby and there's nothing left to be patient about. We'll see how it pans out for you in a year or so, I'd have suggested a bare minimum for you this year was promotion. I don't see how you can afford another season at the level you're at with your resources, you're the most valuable club at that level and are sitting 12th.

Maybe this is the new tactic - blow away teams in 20 mins, and then we can afford the 1 or 2 Baz drop ins without harming our game. Yesterdays goal was your typical Bazunu goal really, not a howler at all - but another one which you go away thinking could he have got to that. It's the constant theme throughout the 4 years.

It's funny to watch. £389m spent on Eketike, Isak & Wirtz to 'bolster' their attack. But after 12 games they're 11th with a negative GD. For £120m or whatever it was, I've never seen a player as bad as Wirtz - everything about his game is awful, touch, pace, strength. He's just a non-entity and will never acclimatise to this league. Looking at their summer, I didn't realise they lost so much in attack. Obviously they lost Jota which was awful, but they also moved on Diaz (who I think was excellent) and Nunez - whilst pretty annoying not not amazing quality, did ruffle up teams. You can also include Harvey Elliott as a loss, as he did contribute for them last year.

Their fans are in a similar boat to us, we've all had similar starts to the season (Ipswich included). Very stuttering/stop start, not convincing. Yesterday was our first convincing day of the season so far, Leicester are still stuttering along - but they are winning. The general vibe from their fanbase is that of a negative one. They want their manager out, and they were fortunate to have Begovic in goal yesterday to stop Stoke scoring more than 1 apparently. Could just be fan emotion talking, but I haven't seen the highlights. This isn't the same Leicester side from 2 years ago though, not anywhere near. They're more venerable through the middle without Ndidi and less potent without Vardy up top. Fatawu isn't the same after his ACL apparently in terms of mobility. In addition they'll be without LB Luke Thomas in this one who is suspended, so their thinking is the OAP Ricardo Pereira comes in at LB with Hamza Choudhary at RB. They're gettable, and if our movement is as sharp and quick as it was yesterday then we 110% have the legs on Faes, Vestergaard, Pereira and Hamza & Skipp. There is the potential there for Leo/Fellows/Armstrong to run that 4/5 ragged.

Still no need to rush into any decision, I hope the club still hold their cards. It's been a good 3 games, and it makes you really wonder what was going on before - but we really need a bigger sample size to come to a true conclusion. If this does work out, SR haven't masterminded it - they fell into by accident. So they still don't get any real credit from me, but we still need to bide our time in my eyes.

We haven't had enough of these games, not in many years. The game was over on 15 mins, it was done. Charlton were just shellshocked. The movement of the front three, Azaz, Armstrong & Leo created so much space in behind for runners - either the wing backs, Fellows/Manning, or late midfield runs as we saw from Jander. Charlton probably won't play as bad as that again tbf, not in that first 20 mins. The space they gave us was crazy, they stood off us and made it so easy - and they didn't track any runs. It was a really weird performance by them, they just weren't there. You can only beat what is in front though, and we put them to the sword - we didn't wait for them to wake up, we kept at them and finished it off. It's still early days though, and this win doesn't go away and fix all the issues we've had to deal with in the last year/18 months. But it's as good as we've played in 18 months, that 1st half spell was as good as Swansea away in our last Champ season - we just didn't kill them off like we did to Charlton. I thought this would be a tricky game, as they've had a solid home record - so credit to everyone for coming here and killing it off as quickly as they did. There is still fragility in the side, and had we gone into the 2nd half with just 2-0...it would have probably been very different, but we did what we needed to do in that 20 mins.

What the actual fuck was that? What is happening? 5-1 flatters them, easily a 7-8 goal score line had we finished all our chances. The fluidity of that front 3 is impressive - Azaz - Armstrong - Leo. Pulling them all over the place, which is creating an insane amount of space in behind for late runners - which we've timed perfectly. Fellows providing the width from the right back position is something they cannot handle either, he has been epic. I don't know what Charlton were drinking between min 10 to min 20, as they were literally not there - but we took every opportunity we had. One swallow doesn't make a summer and all that, but it's as well as we have played for 18 months.

Why does that matter? What are you trying to dig out here? It's clear that every aspect of this club is shit, stop trying to be so contrary about everything.