S-Clarke

I never expected the thrashing most predicted, as these games never go like that. Lower league side to PL side - lots of huff and puff, good moments, but ultimate defeat. It's pretty much the nailed script, so no surprise. It played exactly as I thought it would in that sense. Did we play OK? Yes, I thought we saw more today than we have seen in previous, especially the first half with the intent to press and press quickly. We moved the ball quicker on the transition which is what made us look dangerous, but ultimately it's the quality in both boxes which will make or break it. Their first goal was everything really. Poor up top, should have scored. Poor at the back by arseing with the ball, almost immediately after the miss. The second half, in my eyes, wasn't as 'good' from an intent point of view. I thought Liverpool had more of that 2nd half, especially once Downs came on and Jander went off - I thought Jander was really key to the press in the first half, and him and Downes worked really well together. I'm still not convinced that Downes and Charles can play together, it just doesn't look right to me. Charles scored a good goal, but when those two play together it just feels like the midfield has no control. Still early days for Downs obviously, but we lost all attacking control when he was on the pitch. Nothing stuck. His touch was out of this world, in a bad way. You have to hope and assume it will get better, but it was a risk (as was said) to buy a gamble striker when we didn't really have reliable ones as it was. The pluses for me though were Jander, I hope it's just a tweak. I like Jelert, happy to get up and down and was defensively sound I thought. The centre backs were good, Wood especially for me. McCarthy, bar the thing he really shouldn't do (play Russball) did a good job. The goal kind of summed up why I think a lot of our players are thick as fuck, because he did exactly the same play at Newcastle at the start of the PL season last year - same result. Weird stuff. Overall it means nothing if we don't take this into the league. There were things to take away, but also stuff not to get carried away with as it was a really shoddy Liverpool setup in the main, but we gave a better account than we did under Martin in the FA Cup for sure. Boro will be a tougher test at the weekend.

The VVD was the genuine turning point for me, it had gone slightly downhill before that, but to piss £85m or whatever it was up the wall on utter trash killed us stone dead. And that was the end. To think most of the VVD 'fortune' was spent on the likes of Carillo, Elyounoussi, Vestergaard - criminal. 85m for a club like us should have set us up as a PL club for many years to come, but we fucked it.

Sessay just looks like one of those normal academy kids who gets some games in pre-season, everyone assumes he's going to be part of it, but the likelihood is that he's never really quite good enough at this point - so he floats back to his level for now. That's how I see the Sesay situation. I've seen it before with Jamie White, Hesketh, Simms, Josh Dutton-Black if we go way back.

We ruined any potential he may have had by putting him into the firing line in the PL that season. He may look shot, but that's all he's going to look like these days. We ruined him by pinning everything on him too soon.

This is exactly how I've always read him, he doesn't have a proactive bone in his body and his game is literally built on reactiveness. His best games come in the backs to walls efforts, where he's reacting and blocking all the time - but if he needs to read a situation prior to it evolving (i.e if we're on top, and they try to break on us) - he struggles. It's not a new thing, this has simply been his game for however long I've had to watch him. THB frustrates me too, I look at him sometimes and he seems to mirror Jack in a lot of ways these days - is there a possibility that Jack brings the rest down to his level? He's a frustrating player because he clearly cares and you have to appreciate him for that, but he just doesn't have the ability to contribute to a successful team - and that's all it boils down to really. I want good players in my team, not 'good lads who care' as harsh as that sounds.

You can't truly waste a season at this level when you have the 'finanaces' we currently have to our name, and we have spent a fair bit to ensure we need to be in the conversation right up until the end. Failure this season would mean another turnover next summer, you'll see more of our 'better' players go and more proven lower league players arrive for less money. I know you can somewhat compare it to Leeds when they stayed down after we beat them, but they had such a ridiculous squad for this level anyway - and even after losing Rutter/Summerville and those sorts, they were still able to field a team full of PL quality. (they had returning loans such as Aaaronson, Wober and the such which helped maintain their level). Staying down this year increases our likelihood of us just becoming also-rans, because we don't have the buffer of quality that Leeds had.

I guess as long as we continue with Stephens and Bazunu as part of that back 4, nothing will change no matter who changes around them.

I think it's hard to say right now. It looks non-cohesive and disjointed because we have a load of new players at once, so nothing quite looks joined up at the moment. It's never as simple as buying the best players from everywhere and making a team, it takes time. They've got to understand each others strengths, weaknesses and all of that. Because of the turnover I think it's been hard to pin point a style or approach at the moment, I'd even say that during pre-season it was hard as we were working with players who were probably not going to be here in a few weeks. The next month or two is where the action needs to backup the talk, this is the period of time where I think we will start to see the fruits and why I think ditching a manager at this point is an incredibly short sighted move. If we get to the end of November and into December and we are 20th/21st, then I'll start joining the queue of people asking WTF is going on.

He was heavily linked in the summer, so safe to assume he's on some sort of Rasmus 'list'.

I saw that, but he just doesn't look massive in goal to me. Not sure what it is. I mean Casillas was under 6ft I think, and he did alright. The problem with Bazunu is once you add every other limitation of his game together, it just doesn't look good. He's not 'excelling' at anything, physically or technically. It's a poor mix.

It's a really poor situation to be in, comparing AM to Bazunu, but you are right.

It will probably be that young guy out in the MLS - Eric Ramsay I think? That's who we'd switch to if we got rid of Still, which is another reason why I think dumping him wouldn't actually achieve anything. I just don't trust SR, it feels safer to give Still a chance to mould a side here.

It's instincts and also physical profile. He looks tiny in goal, it dwarfs him. I saw a squad picture of us this season, and he was a midget compared to George Long and McCarthy. He also started off as an outfield player, he was only converted to a goalkeeper in the later years of his development - which probably says everything you need to know.

I'm exactly with you, I think they've been given a lot of rope and I don't think they should have been given as much as they have. I also have zero confidence in them. Every major decision they screw up, every single one. Hoping it changes at this point is just hope casting, the reality is that what has gone before will continue to occur. They have simply destroyed our football club at every level and we have no future under them.

Fraser has been our best player so far this season IMO. But that's probably why we're where we are in the table, as harsh as that sounds.

I still don't buy this. We're way weaker than we were last time out in the Champ. Stu Armstrong, Che Adams, Bednarek, KWP, Charly, Sulemana (yes, he was crap for us but better than anything we have now sadly) They were levels above anyone we can field now. And add in an undamaged Downes and THB, and Brooks etc after January we're in a different ballpark quality wise. We've bought in Fellows, Azaz etc who are good players at this level - but they're not proven PL players like the core of our team had last time at this level. We now genuinely look like a Championship side full of Championship players in my eyes. We also had the benefit of being able to start the season with JWP, Tella. Tella in particular contributed to a couple of our early wins against Sheff U and Plymouth.

The same common theme is following him into yet another season then, this would be the 4th consecutive season the above would be true. For a club which prides its' self in data collection and stats, we must be ignoring these on purpose for some reason. I'm yet to understand what that reason is, apart from self sabotage. But as we've always said, even taking stats out of it, my own eyes tells me he's shit. I didn't need stats to tell me that the first goal against Hull was another clear error.

But after 6 games you can't say that, in my opinion. I think when you look at the number of managers we've switched around in the last 3-4 years, you have to seriously look deeper at this point. 1) who is making the picks, and 2) are there any core players who over-hang all managers? Those two points are where the problem is, and as long as they don't change, changing the manager will make absolutely zero difference other than spinning us into more and more and more financial debt.

This was sadly always going to be the problem. We were ruthless in certain areas, and we did evolve quite a few parts of the team - but it was never a single window fix-all style situation, as we've got our squad into such a mess. We did do some self-sabotage in the summer by signing George Long and renewing Stephens though, that was just daft and continues to bog the squad down with rubbish, rather than improving in some key areas.

I'm not even putting a number on it, it seems daft to even be considering it at the moment in my eyes. We got rid of Ralph and replaced him with Jones, again it was a new manager and scratched an itch people had. It made us worse though and we also wanted him out after a month or two. We got rid of Jones and appointed Selles, again it scratched an itch we all had and it needed to be done - but it made no difference. We got rid of Puel, something I was happy to happen and it scratched an itch I had at the time, but we appointed Pellegrino and it made us worse. Calling for the manager to go every time things don't go to plan is incredibly short sighted in my eyes, and we've proven that it doesn't work - especially when it's SR making the picks. Success occurs when you stick and allow someone to build something, if you chop and change after a handful of games every time then no one can ever build anything, squads will erode and nothing will change. It's the shore fire way to accelerate our journey to become a Blackburn or Swansea or Stoke style Champ side. I will look at the situation in November and see where we're at before even contemplating any thoughts around this one. I want him to be a success. I don't want us to be a club who just change the manager all the time like Watford just to scratch an itch because people want instant success. It will make no difference as the problems are deeper than a single person at this point.

But Pards had already been in charge of us for a season prior to that? We needed to start that season on fire as NC wouldn't have accepted anything less, but we didn't and that was that. The overall feeling was disappointment that we didn't get at least playoffs in his first season. You can't compare though - Pards was on what, 50 odd games for us when he was sacked - spanning 2 seasons. Still is on 6 or 7. Not comparable situations.

I think you'd be surprised. People underestimated how much damage last season could do to the club and also individuals. THB came into the Prem and got an England call up fairly early doors, he had a good season in the Championship. He started a bit iffy but just got worse as the season went on. We lost 30 games out of 38, we let in 86 goals. We lost almost every week and he watched the ball go into the back of the net every week. It's the sort of phycological damage which doesn't go over night and may never leave him. I think both have their limitations, but in relation to THB he was still developing - last season has put a pin in that.

He sums up everything that is wrong with us. Rewarding failure and accepting mediocrity. It's no wonder we are 20th in the second tier. For a captain and someone who is 'good around the place', he seems to have a pretty crap ability to 'galvanize' the group in game or out of game. He's worthless as a player and even less influential as a Captain. Up with Bazunu, these two inclusions are club decisions and they stink.

Anyone is a better option than Gavin Bazunu, but the fact is the the club have somehow managed to fill our GK ranks up with 3 truly horrific players. Not one of them should be anywhere near a Championship side, let alone one who aspires for promotion. That George Long signing was everything that is wrong with us wrapped up in a single transfer. This is why so many people called it out at the time, a truly disgusting decision by the club. This wasn't personal against George Long, it's because the club had the opportunity right there to get better than Bazunu - the opportunity was right in front of them, but they flinched. Shameful.

I'd have had no problems with Downs in isolation had we also bought another, more 'seasoned' striker. But we didn't, so we're here once again hoping for a young unproven kid to come good and that the relics of Archer and Stewart resemble footballers again. It's a bit harsh on Downs as we we don't allow these 'kids' a chance to grow, the expectations are on them right away - exactly the same happened in the PL window when we bought Bazunu/Edozie/Laros etc. I feared we'd do this whilst also putting too much reliance on Stewart and count him as a squad player. Any decent ambitious club would have planned around Stewart and bought someone else in as well.