S-Clarke

That's another club we can't compete with financially anymore then. I think it's only Burnley and Norwich we can compete with now? But even Burnley were able to spend £18m this summer without selling, so that may not even be the case anymore This club feels like it's stuck in treacle and can't get out.

Don't agree with you there at all. He did a sterling job in the middle alongside Rice in many of the games. Didn't look out of place against the likes of Germany or Italy really. I guess if you looked at his stats his forward passes would be low, but you can't just focus on the stats - what's in front of you, combined with the stats, will provide the clear picture.

Who are we supposed to bring in outside of a transfer window exactly?

It's pretty obvious Phillips is the better player, especially after his Euro's. I was a little sceptical, but the summer proved what a complete player Philips actually is and he's a level above JWP, certainly in a physical sense. JWP is a different type of midfielder and can do a different job for England than he does for us. If we're all honest we'd have Philips in our midfield in a heartbeat.

Very much so, and to be sat with a couple of points with our head above water is probably the tiny positive you can take. The next 5, for me, are the defining ones. If we are sat here after 13 games still without a win, then we won't have a manager and we will probably be pretty much toast too. Big couple of months.

I wouldn't pay attention to anything Watford do. They are a bat shit crazy club. Don't compare to them, they are ridiculous.

Bertrand was totally different to Vestergaard in the sense that we had some great times together, he was part of some of our best ever PL sides and gave us plenty back over numerous years. He was on the downturn though and we needed to evolve that spot, which we have done. Don't hold any grudges to Bertrand and I hope he does ok at Leicester, although he will prob be as quad player in the main. Vestergaard was always limited tbh. It's interesting reading some of the posts on the Leicester forums, they're calling him their worst ever signing, the worst CB they've seen play for them etc. Granted, some of that is probably a bit OTT...but I didn't get the upset some had when he was sold. We were never going to miss Vestergaard really and it was a very good sale we could make to generate some funds without really weakening the side. I'd have liked to have used the funds to get a more established CB in to replace him, but it won't take much for Lyanco to be better to be honest.

Not sure why Stuart has to fight for his place back, no one is keeping him out of the side as they are inept. They're just playing by default. If he's fit and ready, out goes one of Ely, Redmond or Moussa and we'd automatically be a better side.

No denying that the 10's are the issue. In an ideal world they'd step up and pop up with goals and provide a source of the missing goals, but none are good enough. The club have put way too much trust in Redmond, Moussa, Elyonoussi and Theo. None of those players are good enough to make any difference for us and are probably out of their depth at this level. We need to bench all of them, put Tino right side ahead of KWP and Tella left side as the two 10's. Very inexperienced, but I'd prefer that than having to be put through the pain of watching Moussa or Redmond try to play football.

He's improved, but he's still not good enough. Not strong enough, not quick enough. He'll never make any noticeable impact at this level. We'll sell him for buttons in the summer or for free the next year.

I think most sane fans could see that if we didn't replace Ings goals then we are pretty much dead with nowhere to turn. Jury is still out for me on Armstrong as it's too early to come to any conclusions, but I feel for him as he's automatically got the burden on his shoulders and has no time to adapt because no one else has stepped up. He is our top scorer with 1 goals. That shines such a poor light on everyone else in this side. In an ideal world you'd lose Ings and replace his goals throughout a number of players, Mousa, Ely, Redmond, Adams, Armstrong etc all hitting decent figures would negate the issue - but our main problem is that those existing players are incredibly limited and cannot be counted on. That should have been obvious to all in the summer, but I feel the club have put too much trust in the existing 10's (not including Stu Armstrong in that) when they needed to be replaced in the summer. Every single one of them. Financial limitations have dictated where we are with that though.

I reckon they'd have passed it backwards.

All you've really highlighted there is the glaring lack of quality right throughout the team. We shouldn't have to be relying on Redmond or Moussa anymore, their time would have been up at any normal football club at least a year ago. Bednarek is Bednarek. My hope from the summer was that we'd use the sale of Vestergaard to buy someone to replace or upgrade on Bednarek, but we clearly didn't even have the money for that. So we're stuck there too. In a nutshell we have some decent young players in Tino, Tella, Salisu, Diallo etc but they're surrounded by a load of absolute shit that we're struggling to evolve on from.

In a small-microchasm of a single game at the start of a single season, yes, that's what you saw. But spread that over an entire year and you'll see that is the description of us most of the time. The odd defensive showing against a good side, but bottling it against the teams at home we should be beating. The quality of the attack won't really be called to the fore against City as we won't really be attacking, but when we need to win a game or score against an 'even' side, we fail. Every.single.time. Results like that against Newcastle and Wolves make the great efforts against City pretty pointless really, as it counts for nothing.

Are we really going to micro analyse every goal we concede to see if we can attribute it to a fault by McCarthy? That is going to get incredibly dull. In fact it already has.

I genuinely don't know what to do to be honest. He's operated on a shoe string here, heck even less than that really. One thing that is baffling me from this season is the lack of Tella - what's happened there? When Long is getting on ahead of you then something must be horribly wrong? That's my worry with Ralph, he gets these weird blind spots over players. Hope that's not the case here. Truth be told though I don't think any other manager would get much more out of our attack. Defensively we seem ok this year, we look to have tightened up to a degree, but our attack is just pointless right now.

Seems to lack the refinement in his game at this level - so far. He's still a decent age though so it may come, but the problem is we've got no one else to cover his arse whilst we're waiting for him to adapt.

That was a game bereft of any quality really. It was harem-scarem for large parts as both sides kept giving the ball away, no one had control of the game at any stage and it was just turn over after turn over with blanks being fired. Both sides got into decent positions, but we looked toothless when we did. Adams is Adams, a hard worker but incredibly limited in a technical sense. Armstrong looks like he's struggling a little with the pace of the game and the strength of the CB’s, he makes good movements but his touch and decision making isn't there at the moment. There are goals in him though, as long as the supporting players actually turn up… But the number 10's for me are the problem. Hopeless, absolutely hopeless, every single one of them. Moussa, Elyonoussi, Redmond, just regurgitated garbage and whilst they're our options then we will struggle to break anyone down. As has been the issue since every one of them have been at this club. Their decision making is beyond awful everytime they get the ball, it's baffling how they've made it to this level. Bednarek for the goal was disgusting, absolutely diabolical defending and he has to be stronger than that. I have no idea what's happened to him. He was never amazing, but he was reliable, these days he is just a walking error. Felt a bit lopsided with KWP left, with him having to cut in all the time. I still want us to find a way to get Tino and KWP on the same side. Overall, though, the inevitable has happened. We've sold our only source of goals; the sole reason we've stayed up for the last couple of years. We've replaced him with a young player from the championship who is going to take time. And thus we’re struggling to score goals because the rest of the attack is shit and aren’t stepping up, as we all expected really. A win today would have made this a decent start, but the defeat has turned this into an awful start. It's getting into the realms of a psychological block if we keep going on like this. If we get through Leeds, Burnley, and Watford still without a win then we are staring at the inevitable I hate to say. So, let’s see where we are after 10.

Norwich are one of those weird 'Too good for the Champ' and 'not good enough for the PL' sides. Just a yo-yo. But this is the first time I've looked at them and thought they're no where near, they don't even look competitive. They're just not good enough in any position. They're still relying on Pukki to get them their goals and I don't think he's got it at this level to be honest. What didn't help them this summer this time is that they sold their best player. A damaging season points wise and defeat wise, as it can spiral once you're in that zone, could set them back a long time.

I think his spell 'when we were good' is looking more and more like a purple patch to me and not his norm. Once he came back after his injury, which was a blow at the time, he reverted to old pretty much. Sloppy out of possession, weak, slow. Getting £15m for him should be lauded to be honest. Bar 6 purple months he was another Wilson horror show scouting wise.

We'll win some games at some point, I'm sure. Sounds like we should have won it in normal time, Che should be scoring that in the final min. Bit worried about him, he's on one of those horrible runs again which he seems to get a lot. Sadly we don't have Ings to bail him out anymore. Hopefully he can turn the tide on Saturday. Massive game, has to be a win.

Only one game to be fair. But my fear is that he did exactly what everyone has said he's done at all of his clubs, so it must be totally embedded in his game. Be a challenge to remove that 'showmanness' out of his game. Certainly won't fit in this country if that's how he plays.

Yeah, he's got that similar Bale/Shaw swagger to his game. You can tell those sorts of players pretty quickly, we've been lucky to see quite a few of them over the years.

I didn't actually think he was that good on Saturday? Seemed to struggle to get involved. He has been better in previous games than he was on Saturday. He's certainly looking better than he did when he first came here though, will be interesting to see how he does over a full season. For me he still has those glaring limitations with regards to pace and strength which is why I think he'll always struggle to impact this level on a consistent basis.

You don't progress through Barca's academy for being shit. He was a good signing back in the Koeman days, but he's matured and developed so much over those years. Gives us that presence that Wanyama used to provide, he's as good as he was in his pomp for us at the moment. Not sure what his contract situ is, but I'd look to be signing him up longer term.