S-Clarke

That's it in a nutshell really, whilst Downes is a huge miss, we've made it worse because we've tried to tweak everyone else to accommodate for it. We were without Downes for a few games over Christmas if I remember right, we just stuck Charles in there and carried on the same way. Why has his latest absence triggered the coaches to redesigning the entire system? Today was a mess, no matter what Martin says about it. There was no structure and no continuity because our team has been tweaked and pissed around with to accommodate the loss of 1 player.

I think that's what disappointed me the most, not the goals we let in, but the genuine lack of drive, effort, energy in those final parts of the game. We just seemed to accept defeat and I've not seen us do that before. Against Huddersfield we just kept going, even in games which were somewhat tight at the end (Blackburn at home springs to mind) we kept going until the death and hit another 2 or 3 goals. We've got late winners at Hull and Millwall etc because we've kept going until the end. But today felt like the first time we didn't do that, there was no drive from us. Just aimless passing with no idea of where to put it. A really, really concerning 2nd half for me - if we'd peppered them and their GK had a worldie I'd probably feel a bit different, but it wasn't like that at all - yet we've got Martin coming out saying we played really well.

The goalkeeper is the very least of our problems. There's not much wrong with him, unless your expectations are that of Ederson or prime De Gea.

Not sure where the re-writing of history is coming from re: Charly. I was frustrated to see him go as I liked him, but you cannot sit there and honestly say he contributed to us this season. He was bit-part at best, certainly not one of our key players. Whether he should have been is up for debate, but he wasn't important for us because he wasn't playing.

There's one thing you can always guarantee with Stephens, and it's goals. Just not for us.

We'll probably win this, just because it's what we do. Then get beaten in the quarters by Maidstone or something.

To be fair KWP at left back, THB as right wing back and Stephens playing a roaming DC, DM, CM and AMC role today was a surprise. I didn't predict that!

The clubs coming down aren't of the level of Leeds and Leicester, but we'd still need to be pretty prepared early on to be in the conversation. We will have a bigger rebuild than last year, pretty much an entire new team will be required and we'd have to start from scratch, with a base of Smallbone, Stephens, Bree, Charles, Edozie, Manning. In some ways a new manager and new DoF (if Wilcox goes) coming in at that stage could provide a nice clean slate to mould a new side in new ideas, but let's see what happens this year first.

He's just a skate troll. Surprised this thread has got so many bites.

Left the ground on crutches, could be a bad one apparently. As if today couldn't get any worse.

Rosenior is pretty much a carbon copy of Russell in every aspect. Playing style, buzz-words, philosphy etc. Might as well keep Martin if Rosenior is the replacement.

He'll be the pin-up boy for our future Championship seasons! The spine of Stephens, Smallbone, Manning and Mara is enough to give you nightmares.

Tbf I'm sure he played there today, he played every fucking where else.

The striker situation at this club has been incompetent. Look at the options Leeds have - Bamford, Gelherdt, Piroe, Rutter. We've got Adams and Mara as 9's. Not enough. Even Ipswich went and recruited Keifer Moore as they saw a gap (they'd lost Hirst for the season). Not sure why we think we're so different. We'll probably start playing with false 9's soon.

That's a good way of putting it! They did just stand there, they didn't really do anything spectacular - but we were so, so predictable in that second half. 90% of the passes were telegraphed before they left the players foot. That's what's made today's game even worse. Credit to Hull who were very good on the night, and so were Huddersfield when they came to St Mary's, but Millwall were atrocious and we didn't have enough imagination or drive to move them around.

I don't think you can put this on Charly leaving, he wasn't a key part of the 11 that went unbeaten in 25. In and out at best, but never a regular (that's why he went). I didn't think our style really suited Charly which is a shame as he could have thrived at this level, so I do somewhat agree with what you say in terms of the reasons he's not here. But I don't think you can say we're missing Charly as he wasn't really the regular we all thought he'd be.

I think he's a good player, he certainly was at Blackburn and Bournemouth fans loved him in the occasional opportunities he got in the PL. You don't score a goal like he did if you don't have ability in the locker, we just need to find a structure for him to thrive in.

He has a knack of over complicating things and trying to be too clever when things go 'slightly wrong', which happened during September (inverted full backs and all that nonsense) Our spell of 25 games came from a pretty stable 11 that didn't change much, nor did the structure or player positions as it was pretty standard - players knew where they played, their team mates knew where they would be. Things then click into place. But at the moment he seems to have reverted to flapping around in thin air to find a structure again. Yes, we've lost Downes, but it shouldn't have meant the return of tinkering to this level. He is also struggling to integrate our January signings into the team at the moment.

I wasn't sure where he was supposed to be playing when he came on. He popped up in CM, DM and in the wide areas. The problem is we currently have fuck all structure to our team, just a load of players running around (well, jogging) aimlessly and it's hard to get any momentum. He's a good player, but we're not creating him a structure to thrive in at the moment - same can be said of Brooks, another player of genuine quality that we're struggling to integrate somehow.

This guy must be the most obvious skate troll there is. You only have to take a look at his post history. Can't you just ban him?

Wages though. Charles will be on something like 10k a week, Winks is supposedly on upwards of 60k. We would have never spent that much on wages.

I'm absolutely devastated after that one. I didn't expect that, I thought we'd react as I believed we had the mentality right this season - looks like I was wrong. Taking it back to the start, the line up confused me a little - but the players positions when we started the game just baffled me. I'm not entirely sure what we were trying to do and it didn't feel as if the players were too sure either. It feels as if we're trying to overcomplicate it and be too clever to over-compensate for other deficiencies. For me, we should have started with Charles and Smallbone with Stephens at LB - keep KWP at RB. Football is a simple game, when you start to get too clever it will more than often go tits up. I'm very confused as to why we switched KWP to the left, it made us very unbalanced and slowed us down as he was continuously having to cut back onto his right foot - but Stephens role was confusing as hell. In defence when we didn't have the ball, but playing as a DM, CM, AMC when we had it. It was stupid and confusing and the team had no structure because of it. Saying all that though, when we went 1-1 we had them on the ropes I felt - needed to get them there and then, but we didn't play with enough purpose. Now, where the fucking fuck do you start with that second half? That is as bad as we have played all season. Inept, toothless, slow, no movement, no bravery, no running - it was absolutely diabolical and the players heads have collectively dropped, you could tell through their body language. Why are they still so fragile mentally? I thought Edozie for the time he was on the pitch was bad, S.Armstrong got tired very quickly (which is a common theme) and Brooks was popping up everywhere but with no real purpose at the end of it (it feels like his inclusion has unsettled us a little bit). It does take some going to have someone like Brooks make the team look worse though. The subs in the second half made no impact at all - Adam Armstrong was unlucky with the header, but we had no real structure and couldn't get the ball to him. Rothwell struggled to control the ball and didn't seem to have a set position to play either. And Sulemana does not suit this team, much in the same way as Charly - although as a sub he does need to do a hell of a lot more. I'm not sure where we go from here. 6 points behind now, it's a tall order - we have to pretty much win every single week now. I called us mentality monsters a few weeks ago when we came back against Huddersfield, but that seems to have been a fluke. A criticism labelled at us during our PL years was that the heads drop when the going gets tough. I thought we'd got over that, but seemingly not. The going has got really tough now and they've collectively wilted. The demeanour of the players is all wrong. The unbeaten run was terrific, you can't take that away from them at all. But having that sort of run (once in a lifetime thing) and achieving nothing at the end of it is a very saints thing to do. We had very fine margins of error because of our September and we did well to bring ourselves back into the conversation - but we should have had enough to say there, not just wilt away before Spring. We'll go on another run before the end of the season for sure, but we've left ourselves with far too much to do now. Playoffs it is and for a team that has collectively wilted like they have, you worry about how they'll cope with the pressure of those 3 games. As it stands I can't see how they will.

Maybe you should go and support them then?

I've seen enough from this side over this season to have confidence in them. We've had a couple of iffy results in the last two weeks, but we've been pretty faultless up to then really. I remember the spell Leeds had during December, they didn't win in a few - shows how quickly things can change tbh. It'll flip back again, and as long as we do our job tomorrow 2 points is nothing really - no one has any margin for error, it's not just us. We all have to be perfect. (unless we all become shit at once, that would be a laugh)

''Gap down to 6 points. This side will fold under pressure now. Playoffs beckon.'' ''Whoever gets us in the playoffs will be licking their lips. We're in this division for a few years yet.'' ''ANOTHER WEEKEND RUINED!! '' ''Bottle jobs. Thats all that they are. Can cry about the decisions all you want but when the pressures on they cant handle it. Bottling the league 100 percent'' ''Get that idiot manager out. He’s got the best championship squad in history and he’s making it look difficult. There’s not a decent team in this division and he’s completely in capable of beating anyone in the top 6. Just embarrassing. It’s like watching us last season, players clearly too confident, thinking they’re better than they are. Just fed up now. ''You cannot defend Maresca now '' Just a few highlights from the Leicester fans. Some football fans cannot deal with an inch of disappointment at all, they talk about the players being bottle jobs but the fans are bottling it.