S-Clarke

The common sense approach was to stick Charles in midfield, and use one of our actual natural CB's - who are on the bench - to play at CB. But no, play Aribo and Smallbone. We simply have no central midfield today, this is going to be a case of hoping we score more than them. Again. Football isn't complicated, our last 3 managers have made it so complicated. Just play players in their natural positions and you'll be surprised at how well it works.

Lucky to only ship 3 v Gillingham as well tbf.

That argument would have flown if we hadn't shed who we did in the summer. This is a totally new team really, in many cases a lot of these guys have no real connection with the last few years so they shouldn't be hindered by that. Burnley changed up so much last season, both playing side and the way they played (and theirs was an extreme change from long ball, to football). We're not going from Dyche to Martin, these guys know how to play football already. The whole needing time is just an excuse really. Good players are good players at the end of the day. We've got enough good players, and we don't have time to 'build' if we want to get promoted. If we're not careful we'll be building ourselves to a playoff fight on the last day, which will be totally unacceptable in my opinion.

Let's hope we start to see things changing in that case. I'm still of the belief that good players win you games, not systems. In fact systems and philosophy's can actually hinder good players - so if we can play our good players, who are better than 90% of this league, in their natural positions then I'm sure we'll win many more. I find it hard to totally get behind the 'need to build' and 'gelling' arguments - Leicester haven't had that problem using them as an example. Burnley didn't have that issue last year and they totally transformed themselves. It's all about good players. We've got good enough players who shouldn't' need to gel, just let them do what they're good at.

I dunno, I think it's fair to have the same expectations as Leicester. By all accounts we were in a much stronger position financially than Leicester, who relied on loans and such because of FFP. I'm not of the mindset to sit back and say ''Oh well, we can never be expected to compete with Leicester, write that game off!'' They've managed to keep the likes of KDH, Ndid, Pereira, Vardy sure - but like us they lost a hell of a lot of first team players - Castange, Maddison, Barnes, Soumoure, Kristiansen, Tielemans, Perez, Evans, Armarty, Thomas, Mendy, Tete. We've done well to get the fee's we have for our guys, they lost a lot on free. We have also been able to retain KWP, Adams, Alcaraz, Sulemana. Sure, it was never a foregone conclusion that we'd beat Leicester - totally possible we'd lose - but to go down 4-1 to someone I expected to be close to isn't great.

There was quite a vociferous 'manager out' chant where I was in the Kingsland, only one person mind, but the funny thing is that the chant was ''Martins out, Martins out'' - no one bothered to correct him, leave him to his own little world. Quite funny if you're that passionate against someone, you should at least know what they're called.

Sorry to read that Whitey - thoughts are with you.

We do. Let's not start that debate. ''Oh poor Martin, he has such a poor squad with no money!!'' - absolute bollocks. We've got one of the top 3 teams in this league. We had a bench of Sulemana, Charly Alcaraz, Scottish international Armstrong and PL loanee holgate for petes sake. This is a squad full of quality that should be competing for 2 top all season, if managed right.

What I'm trying to say is that good players, in positions and roles they are comfortable in, don't need teething periods or bedding in. They just do their jobs and the quality will rise to the top, dependant on the league they are in. In it's most basic form football isn't complicated, it really isn't. It becomes complicated when people start being clever with it.

It is. They have gone mini-pep as well, their fans were all frustrated with the suicidal playing from the back against Coventry in their opening game. They did it a lot yesterday as well. They never really played long ball in the PL, but neither did we - there is a specific style they are following though.

I think the argument that we're having 'teething problems' and that 'we were always going to hit these problems whilst we transitioned' is pretty weak tbh. Letting 3 guys run clear through on your goal, on 65 mins, isn't teething problems - it's basic, schoolboy shambles. Leicester have done exactly the same us as, they reinvited the way they played and are focused on a very similar pass and move style. I don't notice teething problems there. The biggest difference is that they have decent quality playing in the right positions doing jobs they're comfortable doing, yep they keep the ball but nothing more clever than that. I appreciate that in the PL we have to look for ways to be 'different' to compete against the heavy hitters, but at this league we are one of the heavy hitters so we don't really need to be clever.

Yeah, I'm seeing this creeping into arguments now ''We don't have the quality'' - ummm, we do. We have stacks of quality at this level and it should be enough if the structure is right. Not sure how David can say we didn't have enough options on the bench - Sulemana, Aribo, Stuart Armstrong, Alcaraz, Holgate etc - there are very few, if any, who can have that level of experience and quality on a bench at this level. There are no excuses to failing to win games with these players, the failing will be on the coaching if it does fail.

This was a fair argument a few years ago when we persisted with starting players Moi, Moussa, Salisu, Perraud, McCarthy, Redmond, Stu Armstrong, Diallo etc etc. But over the last year we have pretty much evolved the entire starting 11 with new players. The only first team players who are still in the building that have been here more than a season is KWP, Bednarek, Adams and Armstrong (Stephens and Smallbone were never regulars for us before this year really). Everyone else is either new this year or new from the year before. I have no doubt's that the quality is available to us, I don't want to start seeing that creep into arguments ''we don't have the quality bla bla' - we do, we're one of the best teams at this level and you cannot deny that. We just need a better structure so we can get the most out of these players, otherwise it's going to be a waste of everyone's time. We'll then lose those ''good'' players and end up going down the vortex of Euell, Powell, Makin and Jermaine Wright levels again.

It is true that Leicester also gave the ball away many times, but the difference was their numbers behind the ball whenever that happened. They were always able to get back and block angles, we were then too slow to act and it was all over. So there are many issues with us, not just defensive shape, but also what we do when we have the ball as we need to be quicker - especially if we nick the ball off the team. We just give them time to re-group. Leicester didn't need to be amazing, they just needed to play on the break and use their pace to exploit the empty half of St Mary's. We gave the ball away a few times as well, but they were quicker and more incisive when that was presented to them - not slow and ponderous like we were. All in all there is a hell of a lot wrong right now.

Anyone can score against us, so I expect the same here. I find it hard to predict the score as our games are just too open.

That's a great illustration of how I saw our midfield last night, i'd expect Smallbones positions to be very similar - thus leaving a massive gaping vortex in the opposing half for them to run into every time they wanted to. Like you say, when you then have Manning and KWP inverted, the flanks are free game as well as the middle. It's suicidal and team swill be licking their lips, any team - pub teams, 5 a-side, non-league - they'd all love to play against us because we give them so much opportunity.

There was an accident on that junction, they shut Allbrook way all afternoon and night - so that prob added to the traffic as I was caught in that on the way back south earlier in the day.

I've mentioned this before, but our most recent successful teams under Koeman and Adkins weren't based on any sort of magical philosophy - it was a case of pick the best players, play them in their correct positions and have steal through the spine. That was it. We mixed it up if we needed to, but we played good football at times because we had good players in the side - no more than that. We didn't need to reinvent football, we just got good players and good leaders in the building. We now seem fixated on doing football our own way with kids, which is total nonsense.

KWP was absolutely inept last night tbf. Skinned so many times. For a player supposedly below his level, he looked out of his depth at times. He needs to sort his shit out or we stick Bree in there.

More of a progressive attacking midfielder, covering the ground, box to box, not having to worry too much about what's going on behind him as he has cover. The problem is that he wasn't worrying too much at times tonight, and there wasn't any cover so we were just picked off. It's like he's trying to default to the way he knows in a more advanced role, but forgets that he's vacated his central role. And no one else is there.

We're hanging him out to dry really, he has no protection around him. Our midfield scares the living shite out of me, he should be an 8 - not a CM. He gets walked all over in there and it's horrible to see. Stoke got the best out of him when they played him higher up, with two central players behind him. I think they had Ben Pearson and Josh Laurent who played deeper as the holders. We're not going to get the best from him by expecting him to be a 6 or a 'pivot', it's just not his game. We've fucked up the midfield big style.

Bazunu kept that to 4, would have been 6 or 7 otherwise. Got to feel sorry for him really, that 4th goal said it all - what hope does he have when a player is running clean through on goal, from the centre circle, and he has no one in front of him? It's truly horrendous for the lad, we're totally and utterly destroying him in front of our eyes. I don't think he'll ever recover from his Saints experience.

We're trying this sexy inverted full-back, pep-wannabe style. It's nonsense when you don't have the right players. Play to your strengths, it's the most basic thing in football that anyone should be able to instruct and organise. Whenever you try to be clever and overcomplicate things then it will go to the shit. The term 'back to basics' springs to mind tbh.

Leicester didn't do anything ground breaking though, they just tackled, blocked and closed off the space without going too high. They had the pace in attack so they didn't commit everyone forward. We had the pace in attack too, but we felt inclined, on every fucking attack, to send everyone bar Bazunu into the final third - mind boggling really. It's just begging for a counter.

The last two games are on him, because our out of possession shape has been inept in both of them. We cannot, we simply cannot, allow teams to have the freedom to break on us like we're giving. It's basic, it's kid playground stuff, 5-a-side stuff. I just don't understand why. Opposition managers will look at it and stick their quick players up, tackle us, and then they're away because we're so high with everyone all over the shop. I'm not on board with the ''EVERYONE OUT'' chatter, because it's ridiculous this early on, but we can certainly voice our concerns and hope he has it in him to fix it. This club has been on a slide for many, many, many years now - it's boring now, but at least we're consistent at something - losing games of football at home, it's a soul destroying experience going to St Mary's and has been since 2016. So I guess it's not going to change overnight, seemingly even with a new 11. What worried me is that we didn't learn anything from Sunderland. Ipswich have pace and attacking quality too, so if we do the same thing against them they will equally pick us off and it will be a similar score line. We need a midfield to start with, them we may have a basis to build from - but he needs to start sticking Charles in there and keeping him in there, he's our only hope.