S-Clarke

I thought he was going to go on and have a good year too, based on what he was showing in pre-season anyway. He's certainly gone backwards this year but then he hasn't played a great deal, long spells out. I'd be tempted to send him out on loan to the Champ next season, along with Will Smallbone - get them both toughed up for the rigors of regular football as they're of no use to us in their current states.

Dortmund have had a bit of a nightmare with the Haaland deal you'd have to say, player holding the power and not renewing the deal so a clause came into effect. They've lost one of the best strikers in the world for what I'd call a messily £50-60m quid. Barca paid £55m for Ferran Torres in Jan! Good bit of business for City though without question, although I'd be interested to see what all the agents fees added up to as that's probably doubled the transfer fee.

He signed a new contract a couple of months ago, he's not going anywhere. Certainly not to us!

Bednarek up against Haaland should be fun to watch next year.

That's always been a worry with Armstrong for me. He looks way too small and fragile to be a success at this level, he can't hold the ball up and he's food and drink for any half decent CB at the top level. He then gets frustrated and when he does get a chance, he often snatches at it - the offside finish was a rare composed finish from him, I still have nightmares of his 'finishing show' away at Watford. Adams is bog-average and it took him time to get used to the league for sure, but what helped him adapt a bit better was his physicality. He can hold it up better, he can back into defenders and play others in etc.

I guess it's all based around expectations isn't it. We flirted with the elite for a few years under MP and Koeman, and pre-dating that we had back to back promotions and were winning most weeks. It was quite a ride for 5 or 6 years of non-stop success, but the sad truth is that was not our norm - it was a golden period for us. Our norm is exactly what we're doing right now, a mid-table nothing much PL club which can occasionally flirt with the top 10 but always has a chance of going down. There's always a chance you can get a few good years pushing even higher, but we're not big enough or rich enough to have that as our norm and what we should expect. Leicester are another example, they've had a really strong golden period winning the league, getting into Europe 3 years in a row, winning the FA Cup etc. But ultimately they're not too dissimilar to ourselves, that wasn't their norm. Their norm is very similar to what we are, bottom half, pushing for top 10, can be a chance of relegation. It doesn't take much to deter clubs of our size from a positive trajectory, a bad transfer window can be enough. 3 or 4 bad transfer windows can be catastrophic, which is why it's impressive we are still a PL side.

The erosion of quality hasn't been down to a lack of spending though, it's just who we've bought. That's been the biggest reason of our decline, as that's left us in an impossible position to improve because we've spent huge money on players who didn't play for us, so we can't get any money back on them. Like you said, last summer was better in the sense of Broja, Tino, Small (potential). Still major question marks over us spending £15m on Armstrong and paying a big wage to Theo though.

In my opinion if we do change a manager, it needs to be a manager who doesn't play that way. We don't have the players to really play that way under Ralph, who is far more experienced that Kovac, so I'm not sure what Kovac would be expected to do. It would probably end pretty badly. The club either need to back Ralph with the right quality or go in a completely different direction tactically.

Poor show for me if they've buggered off. Might be telling in terms of if they feel they're hanging around next season. I know Romeu was talking along the lines of keeping his options open not so long ago.

Same questions every week really, the answers are probably these: 1 - We don't play that way, we're not the sort of team who will sit back for a game and keep it tight. I'm sure fans would have a right old moan if we tried to do that. You could argue if that's the right approach or not, but either way we'd still lose the game as we don't have the quality to snatch that 1-0. 2 - Romeu and Adams are horrific at the moment, really poor form. But they're the best of a bad bunch. I don't think the problem was Romeu not playing, it was more Diallo in his place. 3 - People have been calling for Armstrong to have a chance for weeks, he's given a chance and now that's wrong. To be fair I agree, I think he's incredibly limited but that's the dice we roll when we only buy from the Champ. He wasn't the worst player, he's just average. 4 - Who replaces Bednarek? It's a very, very poor show that someone as bad as Bednarek is 'the best' of a bad bunch for the 2nd CB. Lynaco is rash and not reliable, Jack Stephens is Jack Stephens. So in summary I'd say the answers to the questions are that we have average players who have dipped in form and the manager is flapping around trying to stop the rut, with more average players.

Who has pissed off on holiday out of interest?

Great post. This is exactly what it is Changing a manager is always the easy option, but without good players nothing will really change. You might get a bit of a bounce with a new manager as the average players want to show a new light, but as they're still shit they'll all return to norm within time. It's fair to say Ralph has been given the opportunity to sign players, but as you said these are players with a development slant often at the expense of the better experienced players (Ings etc). Not a great recipe. That's why the approach of filling a team up with Tino's, Broja's and Salisu's is exciting, but it is a completely flawed approach when they are given the likes of Theo, Long, Redmond and Bednarek to carry them through 'dips'. The club need to stop putting faith in these washed up players we've carried for so long, once we have better experienced players expect the younger players to flourish.

Bang on the money in every thing you've said.

I think that's a fair expectation, certainly needed. 8 new players is quite a lot though. I can see 5 or 6 maybe.

I think it's all Eric Blacks fault tbh.

I think all clubs should have that approach, but it needs to be balanced with some experienced players as well who will improve the starting 11 from day 1. The club need to stop singing the Tino trumpet because whilst he has been a huge success at his young age, it's not a common occurrence that young players without any first team football do what he's done in his first season. You can't build a successful PL team solely on the hope of buying 'more tinos', we need to worry more about the here and now and that costs more money.

I honestly think a lot of it is down to the quality of the player we've got, maybe lacking a touch of experience as well at crucial times. We've got a couple of decent PL players in JWP and KWP who have progressed massively under the manager, but the rest are pretty average or young/inexperienced and when they fall into poor form we end up having to carry them, and the shoulder of that responsibility falls on the two real decent consistent players we have (KWP and JWP) Ralph doesn't help himself with daft decisions and late subs, but I think he's been searching around for answers from a bunch of players that just don't have the true quality required to sustain the style he wants. It must frustrate him as much as it frustrates us, as for times it looks like he has a tune out of them but then Armstrong/Romeu/Bednarek/Adams etc fall off a cliff and the rest is history. That's been a consistent theme over the last few years to be honest. If you bring someone in like Ralph, then you have to back him to bring the players in he needs. I look at his RB sides and the pace/power through that spine which was the fundamental building blocks of the press. When he wants more pace and a bigger press from our attack, we play Long and Redmond or maybe Elyounoussi. That says it all to me.

Maybe we're not, but I think we're closer than we have been given that a lot of that dross is no longer at the club (no more contracts etc). Maybe we just need to suck up one more big sale or two and start again? Salisu and JWP would command around £100m for both I'd say, use that to go and rebuild this squad with players in the ilk of Tadic/Mane/Pelle/VVD etc etc. Part of me thinks that's the only way we're going to see the radical changes we need to see in the playing squad, although I still hold out hope that that takeover is going to improve things.

I don't see a problem with him being third choice given that Harry Lewis is off, I just hope the club don't cheap out and keep him as the 'free' 2nd choice keeper with McCarthy returning as number 1.

I can only assume that Salisu has been sucked down to the Bednarek level after playing with him for so long, Salisu certainly isn't as bad as he's showing right now. It seems most of the time Bednarek and Salisu get in each others way, lack of communication maybe or Bednareks' shitness just expelling over those around him. VVD and Fonte, Fonte and Toby and Fonte Lovren were great partnerships. Strong defensive partnerships is where the success of the team starts. We've gone from that to Jack Stephens, Jan Bednarek, Vestergaard, Hoedt...just what the fuck. We didn't do that for free either! Is it any wonder we concede 60 a year when we've been playing with that absolute shit. Yoshida wasn't great, but I'd have him starting every week right now.

The sad thing is that we did re-invest that VVD money, almost £70m of it but on absolute crap. Just look at who we signed with his transfer fee... Carillo - £20m Elyounoussi - £17m Gunn - £11m Vestergaard £22.5m. So you can't say we went cheap on the replacements, we actually spent a decent amount on the replacements for a club of our size but the fact not one of those has been a success has been a disaster for us, there's not even any sell on profit on any of them. It goes back further than that as well, Boufal, Lemina, Hoedt...all signed for £15m and above fees and each one left on a free. So I don't think we were shipping in the bargain basement, we just overpaid for absolute dross because of some of the worst scouting ever seen at a PL club. That has now meant we've had to shop in the bargain basement in recent years and hope for rough diamonds we can polish, but that's a gamble of an approach and when you have to sell experience to even do that you get yourself into a crappy position. I think we're getting out of the other side of it now with the new ownership, but it just shows that consecutive awful transfer windows, where we spent a lot and got no results, can kill a club like us for a number of years no matter who is in charge. We haven't had the finance to mask the mistakes that larger clubs can do. Honestly, we're lucky we're still a PL club after those level of mistakes.

It would be pointless getting rid of him or doing anything at this moment. What would happen? We'd still lose to Liverpool whoever is in charge, then there's just one game left for any new person to shuffle around a very very poor outfit. Absolutley no reason to do anything now, not with 2 games to go. It would be a stupid way to run a club. There's now no excuses for this season though club-wide, last year you could have pointed at injuries but this year not at all. The club need to stop showing faith in players who have consistently failed over many years and be ruthless with the squad evolvement. That's the only way we get better, changing the manager is just shuffling around the same deckchairs and expecting a different result.

You'd hope so and think so, but he's had his hands tied behind his back most of the time. If you look at it he's still having to work with Armstrong, Bednarek, McCarthy/Forster, Romeu who have been the spine of the team ever since he's been here. Romeu and Armstrong, whilst decent, are not top quality and they will drop off as the season goes on. It's not a coincidence that our bad spells often happen when those players in the spine drop off the level or get injured. Best players/captains leaving every year before he can ever start to think about improving areas of the team, let alone replacing the players who have left. So whilst he's brought in players, that's been at the expense of established and experienced (our better players) leaving in order to generate the funds. It's a recipe to stand still and I'm not really sure what any other manager would achieve to be honest.

Deeper squad, yes. More options at full back for a start. Quality is right down though and we haven't upgraded the spine at all in many years.

Manchester United is another example of piss poor scouting and squad building, rather than the managers being fully at fault. They've tried Mourinho, Van Gaal, Ole and now Ragnick and nothing has ever changed. All that money pissed away on manager settlements and manager contracts etc. They need to back Ten Haag in the summer, provide proper scouting and absolutely rip that team apart and start again, right down that spine.