S-Clarke

Overall, it’s the same old bore-bag of a story really. Start well, pressure them, should score more than 1 goal, don’t score more than 1 goal. Come out second half, slowly drift back, team come into it, equalise. And rinse repeat every.single.week.for.ever. That was against a depleted, unconfident 9-man Brighton by the way. Absolutley pathetic from everyone on the field not being able to close that one out. We make such hard work of scoring goals, it’s beyond painful to watch. But we all saw it, everyone. Sell Ings and gamble on his replacement (which we did) and this team will need an incredible amount of luck to stay up as there are no goals anywhere else. I genuinely think a half decent winger/number 10 may mask our lack of goals, but we don’t even have that. Our attack, bar a young unproven loanne, is just marooned in averageness and shit. What do we do in January? Well, we buy an actual player who is a decent attacker for a start. But we won’t as we have no money. Will we limp through this season? I don’t know, it’s hard to say. We make such a meal out of scoring goals and that’s just not sustainable. There’s a lot of positives in certain areas of this team, and how we play, but there is a significant lack of quality in certain areas which is looking like it’s going to kill us.

I think you'd be surprised.

Could be an amazing Christmas present for us all, who knows!

Yep, I think that's absolutely fair. Exactly how I see it. It's nice to have some stability around the management of the team for a change. We clearly have an identity but are lacking genuine quality to be consistent with it.

He did ok last season as well to be fair. Bit too lightweight for this league, but he was always the sort who'd do a lot better in a league like La Liga.

I bloody well hope not. He shouldn't be anywhere near a PL squad, same as Long. I reckon we'll see Lynaco alongside Salisu. Makes me a tiny bit nervous as they're both a little rash in how they step out of defence, Lyanco in particular. Trossard will as usual pull them all over the place, so they need to be sensible in and out of possession. Would expect to see Moussa come in for Tella, maybe Broja for Armstrong.

Yeah, exactly. Thankfully that one has gone now by the sounds of it. It's kinda why I've always been a bit sceptical of the Newcastle lot as well, lots of talk but then they appoint Howe. Will be interesting to see how they play January.

He's always been fairly average tbh. Throw him in a team with lots of good players and he'd do a job, but he's not good enough to carry a midfield as the 'lead' player in my opinion. Struggled here with a load of average, bit better at Spurs when they have their best players in the side, but struggles when he's part of their 'second string'.

If I'm honest I feel 'not knowing' who the parties are is much better than having their names all over the media. When prospective owners start chatting to the press that usually rings alarm bells. If they are keeping themselves to themselves and studying the club in the background and not announcing themselves to the world then it feels more genuine to me. Hopefully KL makes a much better choice on the next one.

Yep, that was a cracking save. And equally a save I couldn't imagine Forster getting down quick enough to make. The first goal was the most disappointing though, very weak.

That's pretty much it really. Two very average goalkeepers, both have lots of shit points to their game, both are capable of making the odd save. Changing one for the other makes zero difference. We just need a new goalkeeper, pretty common knowledge. The club know it, we've just got to limp through this season as best we can and see what we can come up with in the summer.

Good results for us all round really. Can't see Benitez hanging around for long, although it's not really his fault. They splurged a lot of money and are now stuck. Kinda similar to us really, but in a more extreme way.

As I said the other day, He's like a young Shane Long. Sadly that equates to him not being very good. He will get you tons of goals in the Champ, but probably never more than a handful at this level. Lots of running, no real purpose to his running though. Very hectic, not very accomplished with his touch or technique, very much a hit and run type style to his game and that's not going to get you far at this level. Time will tell obviously and I hope I eat my words, but the signs aren't good from what I'm seeing.

Fair and decent result from what I saw. As per usual we came out of the blocks the sharpest, the quickest and we got onto them very quickly and got an early goal for our early pressure. Their equaliser was totally against the run of play at the time, and it was truly dreadful goalkeeping really. But that's pretty much what you get with average players. A few good saves (as we saw late on) and some pretty poor/average attempts at saving goals for good measure. Our reaction impressed me though, last year and the year before our heads dropped at any sign of adversity but this year we seem to have a bit more about us and we responded really well - and actually got a goal again through Adams. Dreadful defending by Leicester though, shocking really, but he was in the right place to get the flick. Second half pretty much went the way we all knew it would go. Leicester improved, as they had to, they were diabolical in the first half. We then inevitably dipped and we lost some of our energy. We didn't protect the lead long enough though, giving Leicester the goal so early on was frustrating. Livramento should look back at that, he was done a few times on that side in this game and generally his level has dropped massively. Rest of the second half was a bit huff and puff, they probably should have won it with the Barnes chance (great save) and the Vardy miss, so I'd take a point from that as a positive and the performance generally was a positive. My biggest concern to take out from this game is Armstrong. He looks so far off a PL player it's scary. You can usually see attributes in players that are suggestive that they can make an impact, but I'm still not seeing anything. I see someone who runs a lot, isn't particularly quick, mistimes his touches and scuffs shots and passes. Very much a championship player out of his comfort zone. Broja, even at his tender age, looks far more accomplished as a centre forward. Onto the weekend - get 3 points at the weekend and 4 from these 2 is positive. So that's what we have to focus on now, the results around us have gone right in our favour. Also I hope the fan is ok - to have two of those events in one night is incredibly strange. By all accounts he was conscious when he was taken out, so fingers crossed.

I'm totally with you on the goals out of nothing argument. And we don't have anyone in our squad who seems capable, they all need 2 or 3 attempts and that's not sustainable and it becomes incredibly frustrating to watch. Ings was an example of someone who could get you a goal out of nothing. We were under the cosh against Burnley, 2-0 down at home, and he does Ben Mee on the turn and puts it away into the bottom corner - no one created it for him, he made that. Similar against Spurs back in 2018, flick around Toby and into the corner. I do often look at our forward line and wonder how a premier league team, with the money we've received, have managed to get ourselves into such a pickle of a mish mash of abilities in the final third. They all seem nice enough lads but there's no star quality to any of them. Not sure how we fix that really, we need to be lucky scouting wise and we also have to spend some $$. Raphinia and St Maximin weren't cheap, those sorts of players never will be.

If you look at his overall game it's just way too hectic. I hope it'll settle down, but there's no real refinement in his game re: touch or technique. It's all hit and run. Very much reminds me of a younger shane Long.

Nope, not at all - but we had key players at the top of their game in those two games. If we play a decent side full of form and we have even 1 key player off of it (Romeu), then it's a bit messy. We need to be perfect whenever we play this sides and hope they have a dip too.

I guess a saving grace is that we have a day extra, and hopefully they play both Vestergaard and Bertrand as they may need to rotate their squad. They're a good side, just having a bit of an iffy season thus far. Would take a point.

Terrible first half really. But at the end of the day they're better than us, universes above us really and sometimes there's not a lot you can do, especially if your key men have poor games. Romeu was dross today, absolute dross. Back 3 pulled all over the place, I thought the front 3 were wasteful and Armstrong in particular sadly looks utterly out of his depth at the moment. Not sure when it's going to settle down for him, his game looks too hectic for this level. Two home games next though, get ourselves at least 4 points in those and this result will be irrelevant really. To be honest we're playing like a bottom half/mid-table fodder team, that is bang on what we are. We'll get a couple of wins here and there, get absolutely pounded by the slightest quality, and throw in some shockers against teams we should beat. Seems like this is our default place at this level. All a bit boring really.

Definitely not pretty good. He's been between a non-event and a partial-event. He doesn't really exist in any game, although he's not as disastrous as he was. But as has been mentioned he needs to go to a league that suits him, this league is too quick/too high quality.

They did actually spend some big $$ in their time in the PL. Sander Berge, I think he was £30m, and then £25 on Brewster, £20m on Ollie McBurnie, £20m on Ramsdale etc. It's fair to say they had an absolute nightmare with those, but they did have a go.

That's usually a tell-tale sign of a player not quite good enough for the level he's in. In the SPL he looked better as he had more time, his lack of pace wasn't exposed. At this level he won't get the time he needs and his lack of pace is exposed by even a slightly quick opposing player. Exactly the same could be said for Redmond as well (in respect of needing more time on the ball), I'm sure if he was thrown into the SPL he'd absolutely rip it up I'm not denying he's improved, he has a tiny bit, but fundamentally he will never cut it at this level as his game is not suited. Another Wilson fail. We need a flush of all our 'number 10's' and to start again.

First half we should have created more opportunities, given the dominance we had over the ball. Not enough clear cut created really for all the possession we had. It kinda felt inventible that the second half would go that way. But a really shit second half, as bad as we have played for a long, long time. No idea, no shape, no plan. Zilch. The subs and shape changes confused things even more, I had no idea what we were trying to do come the end. Broja did not get into the game at all, I can't even remember him having a touch. Theo is just done as a pro, we all know that - and have for ages. Nothing to really debate there. McCarthy shocking for the first goal, but defensively very weak on both - second one I had no idea who should have been marking who there, Lyanco just seemed to walk away from the ball. All very bizarre. All in all, we've had a decent run. We were due a clusterfuck of a result and here it is. This is what mid-table teams do, no point getting too down about it.

Appreciate your posts Minsk. The head to head comparison improvement is good to see really, given the teams we've faced so far. That shows we're on the right course I think.

I know it's an incredibly simple thing to say, but maybe not having Vestergaard turning like an oil tanker and a disinterested/legs gone Bertrand actually improved us defensively? I'm sure Leicester are enjoying our loss. The recovery pace Salisu has provided has made so much difference and provides a lot more security to the rest of the team. I want a defender to be able to defend, not ping a cross field ball.