S-Clarke

It's a shame what has happened to him, much in the same way as Downes. When you have seasons like we did in the PL, you will always have casualties around the club and players who will never, ever return to any semblance of decent level. Mentally/psychologically, whatever it is, but some of these guys are scared for the rest of their careers. THB WAS a player with high potential and was seen as a coup this time last year, but as with Downes, last season has destroyed them.

I think you do have to take into consideration the amount of change though, we did change up a lot and lost a lot - most in the last few weeks of the window as well. And the guys we've been left with, Downes, THB, Stephens, Manning etc are seemingly carrying some horrendous hangovers from last year. Downes and THB in particular look totally shot. Boro/Bristol City are somewhat stable squad wise, they know what they've got and the manager has been able to go in and work with that. And their managers haven't come into a club on the back of such an abomination of a season. To be fair to Still, he spent most of the summer with no real idea of what his squad would look like and it's been chop and change since. He now has a squad that's somewhat stable, but it's only been here 3 or so weeks really (and an international break bolted in the middle). Let's see where we are come end of October/start of Nov for a much fairer view IMO. That's where I'm sitting right now.

It shouldn't come as any surprise that we give away stacks of shit goals with Jack Stephens in the team, but somewhat it catches coaches by surprise every time. Take him out of the side and you'll see an improvement. He's the worst Captain we've ever had, it's embarrassing that we've got someone of his level captaining us when we aspire to be a PL side. He may well be a good lad and give his all, but he is utter, utter turd and drags the entire defence down with him.

He was our attack most of the time, he drove the team up the pitch from right back. Now we have Manning standing on the ball, and a slower Mads on the other side. We are generally quite a slow side when you add Azaz, Downes, Charles etc in and around it. I think for pace and nippyness, you've got to include Armstrong in this side right now. We need some threat.

I don't know why he doesn't get a chance here. it's not like maldini is keeping him out of the side. He deserves a shot.

He has a very languid style, which doesn't help fans perception of him. But the chance he had, was such a shit finish. pub level stuff. He scuffed it. He's had a very, very slow start but he doesn't make it easy for himself as he looks lazy. He's got a Mara vibe about him which I don't like.

Let's just see what they've done to us. When they came in, we were a 'solid' yet unspectacular Premier League side, we were crying out for some clever investment to lift our level a bit and push for top 10. It would have just taken a few tweaks and some clever investment up front and an improvement through the spine. But all they've given us are 2 relegations (one being the worst ever PL team in modern times), shit manager after shit manager, truly abhorrent transfer windows all whilst spending approx. £300m in transfer windows (and god knows how much in manager compo). I think it's fair at this point to say that they've been the worst ownership we've ever, ever, ever had - and we've had some bad people. It's at the point now where hoping it gets better looks a bit niave. I don't think they have a scooby do of how to run a professional football club. There's no future for us with them at the helm, I think somethings got to budge - but how can you shift ownership? Near on impossible I'd say. I think we've pretty much landed on where we'll be, floating around Champ mid-table and some relegation battles to L1.

I guess if we give it another 6 or so years, we could end up having a Stoke style start. But it does look to me as if we're morphing quite rapidly into a Stoke or Swansea. This all started from our prem transfer window - we actively downgraded our entire side from the one which got promoted, which takes some serious going. And from that moment on, we've not recovered. We didn't have as such a strong base to bounce back with this time and it shows. This entire mess is on Sports Republic and the voices against them should really be much louder than they are right now. It all still feels quite passive against arguably the worst owners in the country.

But what people are ignoring is that this is SR - we wouldn't go and appoint a common sense person like Carrick or Rohl, we'd pivot to someone else who'd make us even worse. It's better for us and the club if we give Still a chance to form a side, we can't go pissing more manager compo up the wall only for SR to go and pick a worse guy.

I just don't see the answer in swapping out a manager after 6 games, and especially when it's SR who would appoint the next one. He may well be a yes man, but as long as SR are in charge, all we'll appoint are yes men - so getting rid of him doesn't really change anything, we'd just pivot to someone worse. We've got to give him a chance to try to reset what went before. But the core problem at this club isn't necessarily Bazunu, Stephens or Will Still - it's Sports Republic and what their muddy hands have done to us.

Mads isn't a terrible player, but when comparing him to what we had a RB in our last Champ season, it couldn't be further away in terms of quality. The drop off from KWP to Mads is scary, but expected really.

We fucked up the spine really. We added quality in and around it on the flanks, 10's etc. But crucially for me, and lots of others - GK, CB, ST - piss poor. Fucked it right up. Those 3 misses will make the rest null and void which is a shame as we'll never get to see the best of them.

Is there really any point debating this fool anymore? He's an absolute abomination of a goalkeeper - this is from my eyes, not from stats. That first goal was a disgrace and I'd drop him for that. The club massively ballsed up on two things in the summer - thinking George Long is all we needed as GK competition, and giving Jack fricking Stephens, Captain Supremo, a 3 year contract. Those two decisions right there will make the new signings almost null and void.

I said something like that, yeah. You cannot underestimate the damage that happened last season, not just on the playing side either - the foundations of the entire club will have been rocked by last season. It was an humiliation on the global stage. In terms of the squad, we're stuck in this weird middle ground at the moment. Lots of new faces, but still lots of hangers on from one of the worst PL sides ever - and it shows. Is this going to stop us being competitive this year? Hard to say, but probably. Is this all Will Still's fault? Absolutely not. I don't think there's any logic in binning off yet another manager at this stage. Last season we went through 3 or 4 managers and it made no difference. We need to give someone a chance to rip the core out of this team and start it again, it will probably take a few windows, but there's no quick fix unfortunately. If we change the manager again we reset the process again. We've got to ride the pain.

If we're totally honest, we look like a bunch of strangers with no real idea of how to play yet. That's how I see it anyway. Still no excuse to be beaten by 3 at Hull though, who are a truly tinpot Champ level club if we're honest. We didn't really do anything, again. Players not playing to each others strengths and people making runs not seen. This team, in terms of personal and quality, is light years behind the side we last had at this level - the quality dragged us through many games. I just don't see the same level of quality now IMO. Championship players from back to front really, no prem level anywhere I can see. We look destined to become Norwich, Swansea and that lot and I don't see anyway we avoid that. Cheers Sports Republic for destroying my home town team.

Count me surprised if it ever happens. They won't see any deductions. It would have happened by now if it was going to.

Jelert could be a good shout there, he's a full back capable of playing both sides so is comfortable on both feet. We need to phase ourselves away from the Downes/Mannings, as they are literally conditioned to be slow and ponderous.

We're too slow when we're on the ball, so those pockets get filled quite quickly. That's our biggest problem, certainly in the first half. Half the time I have no idea WTF we're waiting for when we're on the ball. We have footballers who don't act quickly with the ball, they favour retaining it and standing on it for a bit, and thus the chance slides away. We've got to move it quicker and with zip to really make the most of players like Azaz/Fellows/Archer etc. It's not just CM which is the problem, our CB's and Manning in particular are particularly guilty of it. In terms of CM Charles is probably the more athletic and stronger of the 2 I'd say, so if we partner him with someone who is more capable of moving the ball quickly then we may start to get some positive outcomes.

A club without a plan. They always default back to him when they realise they should have kept him. If I was Wilder I'd say thanks, but no thanks. But he probably fancies the $$$.

Jander seemed quite willing to play between the lines when he came on, it's Downes and Charles who are pretty much robotic 6's and crab players. You only need 1 of those in a side.

The next block of games up until the International Break is where we need to see the impact of new additions. Today in many ways was a weird game to judge anything, as Derby's are always odd games which never really play to the strengths of the 'better side'. But we should have been better. If we're still 16th or wherever come the October International break then it's all gone catastrophically wrong and we're out of the race before it even started. But I don't think that will be the case. I think we've got good players for this level and the cream will rise once things settle down a bit. We could have done with the Derby a few months in tbh.

Thankfully we brought in Jander, otherwise we'd have been screwed for options. I think we're still 1 light in there if I'm totally honest.

What I noticed is that we bypassed him quite a lot in the first half, we didn't play into him at all. Like you, I always noticed him in between the lines in pockets of space but we never found him. Second half we did start to find him, and getting him in space between the lines is where he comes good. He's not going to chase back into CM, or tackle to win the ball back, we need to get the ball to him - preferably on the flaming ground. Maybe like you say he was a bit passive in the first half and was 'waiting' for it, rather than demanding it, but that will probably come with games and more familiarity with his team mates. But at the end of the day, if we keep lofting the ball into the strikers or out wide onto the flanks, he's never going to get into the game.

Yeah Kingsland South - I was block 30 or 29 i think, one of those two. For a block right 'next' to the aways, it felt pretty flat. Probably better Northam end, but I just grabbed whatever ticket I could!

The last 30 was about as good as it got, the rest was levels below that - if possible.