S-Clarke

It's clearly a club policy, not just from this season but it started from last year. I don't know if it's an instruction of sort, but the model seems to be...buy young, talented players for smaller fees, feed them up, get them to reach their potential and then double the money when we sell them. If we get it right it could be great, if we don't then we're only going one way. There is still room for more experience though, and I'm not talking 30 somethings. I want to see some players in the region of 23/24/25/26 who have a couple of league seasons behind them and I'm sure the club will sanction that should the right players become available. (As we did with Aribo)

Shifting the shit is the hardest part of it really, as we have found in recent years with Lemina, Boufal, Hoedt, Carillo etc. We'll probably have to give away Theo, Moussa, Redmond at the end of their contracts. Or do an early settlement or something.

I can see the reason why they didn't feel it was right to start ABK away at spurs, given that we had a young kid in DM, a young kid in goal. They probably didn't want to go all in with inexperience through the spine, that is the logic I can put and understand in regard to that. I'd have probably gone with Lyanco or Stephens instead of Valery though, but his pace in a 3 probably edged it.

I think I saw links to Boro more heavily than Watford, it was a loan but we wanted a fee. I think Boro went and got Forss from Brentford instead.

I'd say Valery was out of position, he's first and foremost a full back and a poor one at that. He can look reasonable at centre back if he's recovering/making last ditch tackles due to his turn of pace, but in the main his positioning and sloppiness on the ball isn't best suited when the oppo are on top of you like Spurs were. He's prone to panicking and giving it away. I'd argue that we should have started with Perraud, if he's only good for an hour then sub him at that point. I'm bored with the Moussa experiment, anywhere on the pitch. It's also a tiny failing of our transfer window that we've managed to go into the start of the season with players out of position. We should have sorted full back out before now imo.

Poch in? Do people really think he's realistic? He's just been coaching Messi, Neymar, Mbappe. Before that Kane, Son. I'm sure he can't wait to get stuck into it with Adam flaming Armstrong and Nathan Tella, with Moussa supporting them.

I think we need to bring some calmness into our game, not sure Lyanco brings that.

Massive game. Last season it took us too long to get a win, so if we can get that 3 points on the board 'early doors' then we won't have as much pressure going into Man Utd and Chelsea. I think with our current personal your line up is the best bet, but if we get a 'leading' striker in before this game then we can go two up top and drop Romeu. He looked leggy today I felt, which worryingly was how he looked most of the 2nd half of last season. Does make you wonder if he's starting to struggle a bit with the pace of the game nowadays. Ralph needs to keep it simple, all of this overthinking bollocks he's clearly doing isn't helping anyone.

It does feel a bit like that, never smoke without fire and there have been some persistent rumours in the last week or two. He played quite sparingly in pre-season and didn't even get on today when we had no strikers on the pitch. If it's not an injury, something is brewing. If we do sell him then it looks like we'll be signing two more forwards, otherwise we'd still be short and relying too much on Adam Armstrong, which we need to move on from.

I think the two 9-0's are haunting us as an entire club, some players seem to be mentally screwed. Bednarek has never been the same, he could kind of pass as a 'decent' CB but after that Utd 9-0 he is just a mess every single week. I think the chance to twist with Ralph was in the summer, but we stuck and decided to give him more tools in the shape of coaches and players (the player side isn't finished yet either). Time will tell if that was the right call or not, but I don't think we serve any benefit by reacting on the back of 1 game when we've made so many changes in the summer. We need a few weeks to see if there are any notable improvements which come out of these initial changes. If not, and we head into the world cup as a shambles, then SR have their next opportunity to twist and I think they'll do it if they need to at that point. Not before.

I do think our best 4 is KWP - ABK - Salisu - Perruad. Stick Lavia and JWP in front of them, Aribo and Armstrong in the 10's and then a toss up of who partners Adams. I think Ralph is onto a hiding to nothing if he keeps trying to persist with the same old failures. Moussa, Valery, Bednarek, Armstrong, Redmond etc. We've done a lot this summer but looking at the team we still have to put out, we do still have some significant work to do. But Ralph needs to stop making it harder for himself than it already is. Some of his decisions in game are baffling and they're getting worse. Sometimes the best rule is to keep it simple, especially when some of the players at your disposal are so incredibly limited.

Yep, agreed. I don't think we have the right players for it anywhere on the pitch. You need all defenders to be mobile really, Bednarek let's that '5' at the back down every time. And then we're having to shoehorn players into their unnatural positions to make it fit as well. You need an outstanding attacker playing that way as well, arguably a couple - then you have a way to break out of that back 5 and make it a 3, but we don't really have that. We keep trying and toying with 3 at the back and I just don't think it will ever work against the best teams with the personal we have. It probably looks good on paper, but like you said not with our players in the cold light of day.

I liked to show faith, I wanted to stick with him and let Sports Republic show their hand and see what he can do. I wasn't happy with last season, it was by far his worst with us. He's been backed this window more than he's ever been backed so time will tell if this improves things longer term. I don't want to read 'too' much into one game, but the concerning bit is that it's all very much groundhog day. I want to see who we get through the door in attack as that will make a huge difference. (and I still think we're in the market for another CB, just a hunch). He's got until November though, if we head into the world cup in the bottom 3 then he's got to go and we can use the world cup to prepare with a new manager. It's probably quite telling that as a PL club we'll only have 1 guaranteed player away, good for us but it does show up the lack of real proven quality.

Not in this league, and not with the attackers we have!

Can't disagree with anything you've said there, well summed up.

It does, but it's quite depressing that I'd still take McNeil, Doucore, Gordon, Tarkowski and Mina over what we've got. (and DCL when fit)

I still think Vergini's OG at St Mary's was the worst ever OG i've seen, but this one pushes it very close. It wasn't just the OG in it's self, it was the fact that he'd got himself in the wrong position to start with and then couldn't sort himself out. He's not been the same since he was tracked by Newcastle (assuming it was true).

What is Dean Hammond on? How can he stand there and say he was happy with what he saw, there were positives, lots to build on. Feels like he's been fed a club script to read. I'm all for having bias people on your own club social channels, but don't fluff it up like this. Fans want to hear the truth and honesty from former pro's who have been there and done it, not a load of wet propaganda.

Hmm this is all very miserable, there's no way to swing that one. For me at HT the changes were obvious - Romeu for Armstrong and Adam Armstrong off for Adams, but Ralph has tried to be clever again I think. First half was 'ok' when we got the ball to Aribo, the problem was the lack of movement or quality up front. So the logical thing would have been to keep Aribo where he was and bring on Adams up top (I'm assuming he hasn't got an injury). But what happened by putting Aribo up top is we lost any attacking out, we didn't have anything and Spurs were able to stretch us - Aribo was covering quite well in the first half on that right hand side. The 2nd half was a total tactical shambles sadly. Pulled all over the pitch, stretched in behind, no cover for the full backs. Then when you add in individual cluster fucks to it, it makes for a really difficult situation. Salisu's head has gone, it's been gone for months. He's got a brain fart in him every game at the moment, so his partnership with Bednarek has clearly matured. Onto the few positives....Lavia looked tidy in the middle, keeps the ball well, moves it well, seems strong. He can't do it all on his own though. Aribo in the 10 looks decent, coming in from the right. I see some positives in a partnership with him and KWP. Let's not kill him by trying to pretend he's a striker. Other than that I'm struggling to see anything. I wasn't expecting to get anything today, but you want to see some chink of light and some decent things to build upon. But this was all to similar as to the Brentford away game, the Leicester away game, Burnley away, Villa away. It's just like groundhog day. Another season of not watching MOTD.

So now we have no striker, fair enough. What has Adams done to Ralphs wife??

I'd say the biggest issue stems with the attack, as it did last season. We give the ball away as soon as we attempt to play it into Armstrong as he has the presence of a feather, although that's probably being harsh on a feather.

As predictable as night follows day, we give up a lead. Feels like we've given a decent enough account of ourselves, but the same old issues haunt us. Lack of presence or quality up front, so we have absolutely no out. And dozy in defence. That sort of mix is a bit of a disaster to be honest. I'd bring on ABK and Adams for the 2nd half, maybe Stu Armstrong for Romeu. Need to get more going on when we get the ball, as bar Aribo there is zilch in attack.

It's a big chance for AA, as long as Aribo plays close to him then it could work. But I equally wouldn't be surprised to see Adams come on 2nd half. If anything it just shows how desperate we are for a focal point top quality CF. We don't have that.

Probably the right call. I like ABK, but it would have been a bit of a baptism of fire for him. Ease him into the team. I'm not a massive Valery fan, but I don't think I'm alone in being impressed by how well he's adjusted to that third right sided CB role. Provides the pace and recovery, which someone like Lyanco or Stephens wouldn't

Why are people saying this is a horribly negative line-up? ''bizarre formation''? If you're basing it from the BBC Sport formation pic then just ignore that. We played all pre-season this way, all the media chat has been about 5-3-2. The talk is to make us more solid. Why has this come as a surprise to anyone? Do some of you want us to open up and go for the throat of Spurs and get absolutely destroyed on the break? And on the attack this isn't a particularly negative line-up, as the WB's will push up very high to provide the width. I Imagine Aribo will play very close to Armstrong to provide the support and physicality he needs.