S-Clarke

I'm still blaming Eric Black personally.

I agree with your assessment, a lot of focus is put on the goals we concede simply because we don't score any ourselves from open play. If we'd have won that game 2-1 I doubt we'd see any focus on the goal we let in, similarly I don't remember any focus on the goal we conceded up at Everton as we won the game. You are right in what you say - our defeats have been fine margins, 1 goal here, 1 go there. I'd argue that illustrates the problem is more with our attacking application rather than defensively, which I actually thought we were pretty good at yesterday in terms of shape and positioning. Teams will always concede goals, every team in the world, and there will always be inquests if they lose the game, but the better teams don't lose sleep as they are capable of scoring at the other end. When we had Danny Ings we were still letting in goals, some pretty shit goals I'll add. But he could score goals, he could pull something out of nowhere and change the course of a game, so those goals we let in during 2020 didn't really get much focus as Ings was scoring at the other end. The home game against Burnley a few years ago will always stick in my mind for that reason, we were 0-2 down and out of absolutely nowhere a moment of individuality from Ings won the ball from Mee and he scored for 2-2. Then the game turned. It's those sorts of moments we don't have anymore, we haven't had players who can score out of nothing from open play since we sold Ings and that's why we are where we are. All of our issues as we sit here today can be traced back to August 2021 when our board got excited by the £30m bid from Villa for Ings, and then patted themselves on the back for the forthcoming weeks for getting as much as they did. All well and good, but the failure to adequately replace him with a long-term option was careless - but how much of that was down to the ownership of Gao is unknown. Football is simple, goals win games. Failure to score goals unearth your other weaknesses and put them in the spotlight, so what we did in the summer was backwards. Addressed our other weaknesses (defence) but still failed to add goals to the side. Catastrophic mistake, you simply cannot skimp or make do in that area.

I want to believe and it's important to have hope, but there is absolutely nothing in the makeup of this team to suggest we are capable of what would be European qualification form. It's just not going to happen. We've got way too much to do, with everyone above us. It might only be '5' points (6 if you count GD), but you've also got 5/6 teams above us who all need to be dropping points at the same time as well. Control the controllables they say, but we've got to the stage where we've tossed away all our controllables and it's all on those above us - which is why we're done. Insurmountable at this stage I'd suggest. All my hope is that we don't finish bottom, which would at least mean we've got a tiny bit of momentum to take into next season. The last thing we want to do is go down with a whimper in a similar vein to Sunderland, Huddersfield, Sheff U etc with a gap to the rest. That would be hard to shake for next year, as many teams have shown.

The mentality of this team is shot imo. I always thought we'd melt away in a relegation battle, in recent years we've started/had good enough mid seasons to not really be in the mix, but we have continually shown a lack of backbone in the sense of throwing away leads, heads dropping when things go bad etc. So now this group is in a full on battle, well not really a battle anymore, you can see the paralysing fear take over everyone. A huge flaw in the makeup of all of our players imo, they might be good lads but they have absolutely no backbone when the going gets tough. Incapable of pulling something out of the bag when playing badly, we are always reliant on every single inch of a game going our way to get anything. At least next season will hopefully allow us an opportunity to build a team with some backbone again, I hope. Championship is a tough league, we need Morgans/Fontes/Lamberts at that level to do anything of note. I don't think we have any of those types personality wise these days.

Who is Bazuna?

They don't have any money, that vanished down the hole Usmanov fell down. They are as skint as they come, totally screwed on FFP and with a huge stadium hanging over their head. They will be ruined financially.

At least we've found some consistency at long last.

Yes, thankfully. Apparently we have a contract on the table for him to sign (why the fuck, no idea), but decisions will be made in the summer now. Hopefully that decision is to rip that contract offer up and go our separate ways, as he'd be just as useless, probably even worse, in the Championship.

I didn't see a huge issue with the team from the outset, in fact I expected it. One of my criticisms from this season has been the constant chopping and changing, never a chance for relationships or partnerships to develop - so I somewhat expected us to keep it simple and go with the 'don't change a winning team' formula. Sadly we just didn't turn up, we couldn't keep the ball and the gap between the front and the midfield was too big. Sullamana too close to Big Paul, Armstrong and Elyounoussi the other attackers who were truly inept. We had nothing in that final third.

You have to make that 5 points given the GD gap, so 2 wins needed. We've blown games against Wolves, Forest, Leeds - those key ones against teams around us, so I don't see how it can't be seen as insurmountable when we are constantly giving our opposition more points to move away. No one is saying that we won't win a game again this season, I'm sure we will and maybe a couple, but given where we are today and what is needed I can't see those wins/points accounting for much more than 30 points tops to be honest.

This will always be the frustrating thing for me, we have clearly bought some talented young players but we have overestimated the quality of the established players that would be in and around them. Theo Walcott and Elyounoussi ffs.

He was dire for sure, lots of headless running. Too central, not pulling out wide. Seems to be playing as a two alongside Big Paul, likely in the assumption that flick ons will be won and he'll run onto it. Probably about as good chance of creating a chance as we have anywhere else tbf, but I'd like to see him deployed wide and running at players, because centrally he cannot use his pace.

He must have a contract which means we have to pay out if he doesn't play. In all seriousness he provides shape when we're off the ball, that's it. On the ball we're 10 men, I always sigh when he's turned up in space to receive the ball as it's a pointless situation. In an attacking sense, as an attacking midfielder, one of the worst players we have ever had at any level.

We've got about £100m+ to make from player sales, so I'm not too worried in that sense. Weirdly a much more valuable squad than we went down with last time, but will end up with less points. Bit weird.

We will almost certainly struggle to shift the Diallos, Bednareks and Armstrong etc. But there will be takers in Moussa (for some reason) and probably Adams. Then you've got the inevitable sales of JWP, Lavia, ABK, Salisu, KWP. We're certainly going to have a huge turnover in the summer, lots of money to reinvest as well. Let's hope the people in charge make the right calls this time, although history suggests they won't.

I just want us to go down with some momentum, see if we can finish high 20's, maybe sniffing 30 points. That'll mean we've at least won a few more games and may be able to take some momentum into next season.

Stick a fork in it methinks.

It really wasn't, it was bad, but we've played much worse than that this year.

Yeah we may well win, we'll win again this season for sure - but we've got way, way, way, too much to do now. It was already a tall order and it's now just not even worth calculating. Battle to finish 19th I guess, between us and Bournemouth.

Thrust into this situation because we were obsessed with finding the next 'Tino', should never have gambled on a keeper as we have. You can do well with young players, but not in the critical area's such as GK, CB and ST. We've just sold these kids up the river and they're drowning sadly. He may be a good keeper in time, but as of now he doesn't seem capable of making any saves. Any shot on target and it's in.

A really poor display after the hope from last week, we've certainly played worse than that this season, but this wasn't great at all. It was a very scrappy game with minimal quality on show from either side, Leeds have more about them in the final third and looked the most dangerous, but often panicked when they got into that final area. We just didn't look capable of creating a chance let alone scoring, which has been the problem all season (and probably since we sold Ings to be fair). Maybe we gave a spark a little flicker last week, but that's been entirely eliminated today and that's it for us. All nails in the coffin and we're done, just need to go down with as much momentum as we can muster and see if we can see anything from Selles that can suggest he can lead us on a promotion push. Not officially relegated today, but unofficially it's done and dusted from that result. You can't lose games against teams next to you in the position we are in and we've lost 99% of games we've played against teams next to us, bar Everton. Only one outcome sadly.

Never really classed Wolves as being a team in any danger tbh, they will pull well clear and probably end up on mid 40's without much fuss. Teams we need to pay attention to are Leeds, Everton and Bournemouth - it's 3 from 4 as far as I can see. Outside chance of Palace and Forest being pulled back in, but unlikely to be in much danger towards the end.

If this is how it goes now then we'll never see a Bale, Shaw, Theo, Chamberlain etc in the first team ever again, which kind of makes having an academy pointless. I agree though, clubs like Chelsea are really aggressive on youth recruitment right now, before players get to any first team, so if they flash the cash to a 15 year old then there's only ever one outcome. That's going to kill academy football as those kids will lose years and years and years of their career and most will never make it, just because they've been blinded by dosh at a young age.

Bit of a no brainer really. When we first brought in Selles he was incredibly highly rated through all you could find, previous club appraisals etc. So I always had a suspicion in the back of my mind that this guy was earmarked as Ralph's potential successor and in the mould of Thomas Frank. But the timing of Ralph going ended up being a little too soon, but in hindsight he'd have been better than bloody Nathan Jones so maybe they should have made that call then if they couldn't find anyone better than Jones. But in relation to now, I don't see what else they can do. There aren't any high quality managers who will want to come to a club like ourselves in the position we are in, we'd only be bringing in a manager for a short-term situation (like we did with Hughes). Marsch was the only who made any logical long-term sense, but again even he didn't fancy the challenge. With Selles you have the best of both worlds - you have someone already integrated in the club and someone who has earned the respect of the players, the coaches, and he knows everyone inside out. He's not going to be turned off by the opportunity to become a manager, even if it's for 4 months, so if it works out and he somehow keeps us up then give him the keys to the city and a 10year contract! But if the worst happens then we re-evaluate in the summer and decide where we go, maybe with him returning as coach. We've got a lot of wiggle room here and this is someone who in the short space of time has managed to bring everyone together, and given where we were that is an achievement in it's self. Still, it's only Chelsea so far - bigger tests to come, no bigger than tomorrow really. I just hope last week wasn't a false dawn and he really can get a tune out of this bunch, and I do believe we have a telented group of young players - they've just lacked guidance throughout the season (and goals).

I don't really think it's Klopp, the team's course has just run. Players like Fabinho, Henderson, Matip and dare I say it - VVD, just not quite at it at the top, top level anymore. Klopp will go soon for sure, but they'll then go through a cycle of changing managers for fun as anyone will struggle to revert them to where they were in 2018/19/20 etc.