S-Clarke

I think it was up to £22m. Elyounoussi was £18m. The couple of signings that turned out decent from that piss up was Stu Armstrong and Danny Ings, and I bet you they were instigated by the managers recommendations more so than Reed and co.

Passing out from the back is all well and good if you've got players in the defensive third/pivot who are good enough to carry and move quickly. The only player I see who has been good enough on the turn to move forward is Lallana, and he's an OAP. When you don't have players good enough to do said things you end up going backwards, backwards, backwards and getting in a knot. I don't know how many times we need to witness that before the club realise that we don't have the quality to play this way at this level. We'd have a much better shot if we had a much more pragmatic and sensible approach (that doesn't mean long ball). The main thing I notice with our ball retention is that we panic when we get pressed, rather than move it quickly we panic further and move it backwards, whilst the opposition use this as their alert to aggressively counter press. The centre backs play too narrow, and the full backs come inside too much - so in some occasions you have the back 4 on top of each other, the opposition pressing us and we're still trying to play it between each other in tight angles. It is just stupid. This isn't anything new either, we did exactly the same last season and it's why we gave up shit goals to Huddersfield and Plymouth to name a couple.

You could certainly make a more competitive team out of this lot, it's still bereft of real quality in certain areas, but I don't believe that we are worse than Luton were and they made a much bigger fist of it than we have.

They don't really give a shit, they know they'll get a PL gig next year and a tasty signing on bonus and loyalty fee from us, whilst we're left with the carcass of the club.

Scary. Reed and Wilson were running the show at that point. Wasn't Gao our owner at that point? I can't imagine him giving a comprehensive scouting report on Vestergaard or had even heard of him. What a mess this club has been post Koeman. We just lurch from disaster to disaster.

I think there is a part to that, he's a player who would be suited to a Dyche-Burnley style team. The way we play, which is wrong anyway, does not suite a player of his profile. It makes him look like an utter cart horse as he cannot get involved in any of those quick passing triangles, and when he tries it's embarrassing. We also never move the ball quick enough into the final third, he's not quick or mobile enough to make the space himself, so it's painful to watch. He needs to be in a team who get it forward quicker and create space for him to operate in, he cannot be relied on to create the space himself in this system. Very similar to Adam Armstrong in that sense. The completely wrong player at the completely wrong team.

I don't agree with that at all, we have spent a fortune under SR. It'll probably be around £250m come the end of January. That is enough money to have built a very competitive PL side. Bournemouth's key players are Senesi - £10m signing, Kerkez was £13m, Kluivert was under £10m, Semenyo was under £10m. You've just looked at their striker Evanlison at £40m, but that's not really half of the picture. It all boils down to using the resources you have well. We didn't. That's allowed Bournemouth to overtake us which shouldn't ever happen.

Just caught up on some of Martin's comments, and even James Bree. This is where they start to lose the fanbase, they are seeing an entirely different game to the people who pay to watch it. How can Bree honestly come out and say 5-1 flattered them? In what universe is he living in? They scored 5, hit the post 4 times and Lumley smothered another 4 poor on-target efforts. We were lucky it wasn't 10.

Our execs should look at what Bournemouth are doing, shut themselves in a dark room and have a long hard talk to themselves about how the fuck they've messed it up here so bad. There is no way Bournemouth should be light years ahead of us given the respective sizes/structure, but that's been allowed to happen because of the biggest load of incompetence I've ever seen. Bournemouth were similar to us in that they bounced back from the Champ, they didn't' run away with it, Parker was questioned a bit etc. They acted quickly when Parker started to flop at this level and the rest was history. They also acted quickly and decisively when they ditched O'Neil, who by all accounts was doing a decent job, but they identified the need to do better. It was similar to when we ditched Adkins. We just sit on our hands for way too long, so indecisive due to them not wanting to be seen as getting it wrong (but they're making it worse). Stubborn execs and a stubborn manager is an absolute recipe for disaster. In a way they're all suited to each other, but not for the benefit of the club they're working for. That's how it feels to me anyway.

I kinda feel sorry for him, as he does care for the club and he's a decent lad for sure. Well respected at the club. But his quality level/ability level is so below what we need, and it feels sad that we continue to put someone so limited in the spotlight. It's not like we're just asking him to defend either, we're now trying to reinvent him into some sort of modern day Frank Beckenbauer. I've always found Jack to be a decent last ditch defender, but that is often because he's initially in the wrong position or gets done by a clever player. We have and will always concede stacks of goals with Stephens in the side. He can be a decent leader, a decent guy, but he is not of the required quality as a central defender, and certainly not as a ball playing central defender. The fluff Martin puts up his arse is not helping things either.

That's absolutley the case. The decisions made now and in January should not be tailored to 'keeping us up', that's gone - done, finished. We need to start putting in a plan for next season and how we exactly expect to pull together a competitive side at that level. That should be the priority from now on in. Sadly the rest of this season is just friendly matches.

It's an easy cop out when people counter it by assuming fans mean long ball, far from it. We can still pass the ball and use the ball, but it's the incessant passing back and around the backline which is killing us. Teams love us doing that because it enables them to push forward, pressure us and more often than not win the ball high up, which will lead to goals and shots. Being pragmatic means widening the passing angles of the CB's, providing angles in more advanced positions to pass to, and by not using players incredibly technically limited in positions of high stakes doing things like they're doing (Manning/Stephens etc). We can still pass the ball and play football, but maybe we should do that further up the pitch rather than at our own corner flag or across our own goal line. Just saying. I don't think anyone believes we've got this super team, we don't, it's utter shit - but there could be more of a fight being made of this season, but every game we are setting up in a way that will go into coaching manuals for years to come - ''How not to setup and play as a limited team''.

Fabrice and Gio. Maybe Lighthouse as well.

He's enjoying this season after all, he's said as much. He's enjoying every week, excited every week. Good for him. It's probably a huge ego stroke for him. These stats are probably plastered on his wall as all that matters - Passes7,176 Passes per match512.57 Pass accuracy %88% Crosses213 Cross accuracy %19%

The camera's in situ suggest that it's nothing major in my eyes, more PR bollocks I imagine. It was quite a bit before kick off as well. Rasmus releasing a new book doubling down about breaking what wasn't broken.

So why is the manger instructing them to play a way that highlights their inadequacies even more? We could be making a much better fist of this. We're not even close to having a hope in hells chance of competing for 19th.

Individual errors born out of playing in a way these guys shouldn't be playing. It's not just the goals, look at the shots we gift up as well. It's how they're being told to play. They're not good enough to do it and we provide the ultimate trigger press for opposition teams. We are a coaches dream to set up against.

I find it hard to zero in on a single game at this stage, you have to look at the patterns - we do the same thing every single week. We gift up goals and chances every week. It was even more foolish to do so tonight with the inferior players we had, but In a way I felt sorry for them as they were sold up the river. I don't think it's ever going to sink into Martin's skull - but I'll say it, we cannot continue this utter insanity with the technical level of players we have. We barely got away with it at Championship level. I've had enough of it. It's not football, it's self inflicted suicide every week.

They're all enjoying it, apparently. At least someone is. Shame about the actual hard-working fans who have to put up with this shitfest.

They have no idea what they're doing. I'm scared for the future of our club, especially with January coming up. If I was Dragon I'd pull up the draw bridge and not spend a single penny in January, it would be foolish to do so. This season is done, we need to save as much as we can for the Championship season.

I'm just bored shitliss with it all now, this isn't fun - hobbies/interests are supposed to be fun, this is a depression inducing shit fest - every week. That should have been 10-0, let's not kid ourselves. Very, very, very lucky to walk away with just 5 against us. I don't remember us ever being this uncompetitive at this level, we'd always have some moments/spells in a season where we give a good shot - but we're not even in the game in 90% of this season. I feel sorry for players like Manning, Wood, Lumley etc - so, so technically limited...yet sold up the river by being told to play that way against international players. They barely got away with it at Championship level, so why we think we're reinviting football is beyond me. There's nothing brave about any of this, the only thing it is would be sheer stupidity. We've got 5 or whatever months of gloried friendlies whilst we prep for whatever shitshow SR put in place for the Championship next season, hard to get excited about anything.

He doesn't seem to get much look in does he. Almost more mind boggling by the day is the Cornet situation, what a waste of a spot that was.

All the explanations I've read around it being the right call are based on assumptions and opinions, that's where it's wrong. It should be black and white. If you're offside and you touch the ball, which directly aids a goal, then yes - you can make that call. But when you start saying ''he didn't touch it, but he COULD have impacted the play with his movement'' then you're into really, really dodgy ground and it shouldn't really be up for debate. That's not a VAR thing to get involved in. Black and white offsides for sure, but going down to the detail of if a player who didn't touch the ball or score the goal, could have impacted the outcome just becomes daft. It will absolutely ruin football if they drill it down to that nuance, simply because it will never be consistent as there's no black and white criteria. It's all opinion based at the time and I don't think VAR should be opinion based.

He's technically horrific, shown up massively at a high level. He had a perfect opportunity in the 2nd half to layoff to Fraser on the left, but his touch went straight up in the air and that was that. The guy has no right being a PL player.

The poor lad isn't cut out for the rigours of high level football, simply doesn't have the body composition to cope with the demands. Needs to go back to Spain's lower leagues, he could still have a decent enough career at spanish lower levels in a slower paced environment.