S-Clarke

His direct running gives us another dimension, he was pulling their (non-centre halves, let's be fair) all over the place. But I expect no less tbh given how poor they were. But he took his chance, unlucky not to get at least a goal IMO. He's certainly played himself into the squad reckoning this year.

But look at Fulham FFS. They are winning every week! Oh, wait.

Take that, move on. blue line etc. Hard to read too much into it due to the absolute dreadful opposition. Worst PL team in a very, very long time. I think that Derby team had a little bit more about them? This lot are proper shithole cloggers. They'll struggle big style next year IMO. Long way back. Not really much to say, should have been more than 2-0, but I'd have accepted no more than a win today given the quality of the opposition. Confidence wise and rhythm wise we struggled, but once we got our noses in front and then a 2nd we had more confidence about us. It's amazing what confidence can do to an individual and a collective, as a team and individually we absolutely thrive on it. No-hit in the next game, let's see what happens next weekend.

Fulham have blown a great chance in their last two games. Played quite well I thought, unlucky if anything.

Struggling in relevance to their previous form, they've clearly dipped in my eyes because of the players they've lost. But not as much as us because they have that tiny bit more depth, so they can absorb it a little bit better. But they still miss Grealish and Cash.

What Barnsley are doing is insane, they're on course to make it 6 league wins in a row. Into the play off places now. They are this years 'came from nowhere into playoffs' side IMO.

Really positive! (Diallo and KWP particularly!!!) I hope we don't rush them back.....

Another team struggling with a couple of key players out. Leicester ditto.

What's their big incentive, exactly? I hope our fans don't start creating this all conquering Sheff U juggernaut which is clearly never going to drop a point again, just like Fulham.

I dunno, Villa reminded me of us really. Lots of huff and puff, but no real clear cut opportunities once they were against 10. Sheff U threw two banks of 4 in front of their goal and Villa didn't really know how to break them down. Villa brought on their new guy, Sanson, and he seemed to make them worse and they just couldn't sustain anything. Targett in particular was dire.

Blackstock and McGoldrick, those were the days. We had to remove the log jam of strikers to finally allow McGoldrick in particular his chance. If only we'd have kept both of them. Blackstock and McGoldrick front line, Jake Thompson on the right. Ollie Lancashire and Craine at the back. Leon Best on the bench. We'd have been heading for the title In league 2.

I agree, I think they'll appeal that and I'd expect it to be overturned. Bryan would have got there.

It stayed 1-0.

If he wants to play International football it's probably his best chance tbh. Cant see him getting back into the England reckoning. Not sure if/how you can change alliance when you've already featured at senior level for England though.

He's a massive confidence player is Adams. Not sure what you expected from him really, but he's always been pretty average. Nothing extraordinary about him technically, but he works well in a pair with a mobile striker alongside him. When we were clicking, it was often him using his movement to open space for Ings to get into. Or he'd use his movement to get the by-line and pass back to Ings to score etc. He's a decent support player for a more mobile player, that's how I'd describe him. We would hit massive, massive trouble if the club decided he was our Ings replacement though. He's a support striker, needs a better quality partner, in form, in order to be truly effective on a consistent basis.

I think we're in danger of overanalysing and reading way too much into things, in my opinion. I still see him encouraging and communicating from the touchline, as much as we can see from TV anyway. Key mistakes he's made, in my eyes - letting Valery and Vokins leave without adequate depth (but we don't know for sure how much of that was his call). Persevering with Bednarek at right back, when he isn't a right back. I know people keep saying it's excuses, but look at the injuries. We lost KWP, decided not to keep Valery...Ralph seemed to consider Diallo an option at RB due to his speed and agility. What's up with Diallo? Injured. Another option we have to put at right back (right wing back) is JWP. Can we do that? No, because Romeu is now injured so he has to continue in midfield. It really is a bit of a perfect storm at the moment. Compound that with Ings out of form and we are really in a pickle. That's why I think we're close to over analysing things. It really is quite simple in my eyes, we have no squad, no depth, no experience. When we have a mini injury crisis we will struggle. When we have an injury crisis like this (which ahs run over 3 months) we are in big, big trouble. As soon as we get players back, they're out again as we've had to rush them back. We've also run the core 11 into the ground truth be told. I still think JWP is some sort of cyborg though. Biggest lesson everyone needs to take from this season is that our squad isn't strong enough. There is no depth. Beyond the first 11 there is nothing and that is not sustainable at this level, so that needs to be addressed. How we can do that is the question. Ideally you'd replace Redmond in the starting 11 with a new player, Redmond drops to the bench. Replace Adams in the first 11, he drops to the bench. It's about evolving the squad now I think, and I hope Ralph is afforded the opportunity to do that.

Can you show me where he's highly rated, as I'm yet to see anything of the sort. That just strikes of re-writing something to make your point stand out more. Lots of very vague points there, truth be told. He's had injuries, we have no squad, the form has dipped as a result and the players are struggling to rediscover form. It hardly requires a complete redesign of the club.

Mathematically impossible tbf.

Fairly sure he's a CB by trade, who can operate as a RB if required. Certainly not the RWB role though from what i've seen. Not entirley sure why we offered him a contract, the coaches see more of him than us I guess, so they must know more than we do.

I think it's harsh to criticise Bednarek just because he wasn't providing a good game as a wing back. That's not his game, never will be. He shouldn't have been there and I hope he's not there again. It totally broke us with him playing there, fish out of water springs to mind. He's a decent CB when in the middle, but that's all. He shouldn't ever play anywhere else.

You could argue that those injuries have hit them at the wrong time. These are the games they needed their best players available for, but they're going to be proper depleted instead. Their run after that is pretty dreadful.

Very little I think. Thought we had something in 2018/2019, but he's got worse again. Maybe that season was just a purple patch. Although he wasn't great every game that year (we were still pretty shit), he was our most threatening player. He's always been risk adverse for me, slows the game down to make a safe pass backwards or sideways. He seems to prefer that than taking a risk and attacking a defender. I'm not sure if that's confidence or his complete technical limitations as a modern winger. Maybe a bit of both. What's happening now is that even his risk adverse approach (backwards/sideways) has gone tits up, as he keeps putting us in shit situations with a pass back. He needs to be out of the team for a period of time. We're better without him in it.

I wouldn't describe him as a quality player, he's pretty average and truth be told playing at his level towards the bottom third of this league. We will have to do better than Redmond if we want to go any higher. In a way, I think he sums up this team over the last 5 years. He seems to get affected by confidence really badly and shrinks so much when the going is tough (which it has been most of his time here, tbh). He seems very much a confidence player and a lot of our players are like that, which is why they all seem to struggle when the chips are down. They look great when the going is good though. My gripe with Redmond is that he's never made the right decisions. It's all well and good making the right runs, but if you can't do anything with the ball when you get it, what's the point? His decision making and his insistence on stopping our attacks and passing it backwards are infuriating, bordering on anti football. Bar a spell in 2018/2019 that's all he's done, and it's probably confidence related more than ability as he probably has that in his locker - as we saw for a short spell in 2018. I imagine he would be a decent squad player in a team doing well, I wouldn't want to be in the trenches with someone like Redmond though.

Yeah that was my only concern as well. I wasn't expecting our midfield to compete as well tonight, but he did great in there. Just need another influence in the final third to take his place if he stays in the middle (which I think he will).

I'm going to put a bet on us winning that one, you just know that will happen. Their winning run stops against the worst team in the league.