S-Clarke

Yep - that summed up the first half for me. It's like our players are half asleep, they're not with it - are they stoned? They play like it half the time. It's like we've gone out and bought another load of idiots who have no brain cell between them. As 11 on the pitch they've got to be able to work shit like that out, it's the constant ''pass the responsibility' card all the fucking time. No one wants to take ownership or take the lead, they let their mate do it - then when their mate doesn't, all shit breaks loose. That stinks of player make up to me and I don't think that changes.

It's a good point, I've kind of forgot what it's like to win games at home. It hasn't happened, like you said. They shouldn't charge us to go to games, they should be paying us. What we've had to put up with for so many years, the worst team out of 92 last season at one stage, is enough to warrant freebies for all. The club still feels totally broken and smashed to pieces, yet it's all changed and 'refreshed' - yet it doesn't work any better. Losing the will with it all.

When the window ''slammed shut'' I was nervous about our midfield options and felt we were weak in there. I think tonight proved that and then some. Smallbone and Downes are physically weak and just get walked over, the alternatives are Armstrong who doesn't track and Alcaraz who is an attacking midfielder with zero discipline. We are relying on a 19 year old kid being fit all season to anchor our midfield, otherwise we will be played through every single week by anyone. Gillingham did it, QPR did it, Norwich did it, Sunderland did it and Leicester did it. It's like groundhog day, do the same and expect a different result. Doesn't happen in life nor football. Our off the ball shape is simply atrocious, time and time again tonight Leicester had players over and players in space - they just had to play a straight pass, through our midfield and they were running at us. This is why I find it hard to put the blame solely on our 'defence'' or the GK, it's the entire team set up and how exposed we allow them to be. Leicester's shape off the ball was much better, we had the ball in front of them and tried to open them up - but they closed down the avenues, the blocked the channels, they got tight. The total opposite of what we did, we left gaping holes everywhere, channels wide enough for the QE2 to travel through and absolutely zero tackling in midfield. It was a painful watch no matter how anyone tries to dress it up. I got pissed off shipping goals for fun in the PL, to ship the same level of goals in this league is nothing short of shambolic. The players we have are good enough, but we cannot expose them the way we are with the out of possession setup. We are begging to be countered time, and time and time again. Teams know it, they just need a bit of pace and we're done for. It won't take much. A good start to the season has the risk of morphing into a disastrous start if we're not careful. I think we can safely rule out any 'trophy' again this year, we're not winning the league - that's Leicester's and probably by March. We'll make up the pack, but if it continues like this we'll be playing for 6th and no more and with our squad that isn't good enough by any stretch. Comparing our midfield with our last Championship midfield is chalk and cheese, and that's what worries me. We're not fixing that now, we've got to run with that.

Scotland look so much more fluid without Adams.

Holy christ he's so bad.

It's going to get very tiring if we have to hear this all season. It's plainly obvious that the club and the manager have put all their eggs in the Bazunu basket, they are behind him and they will play him as our number 1. If that's the right call or not remains to be seen, but there's nothing any of us can do about it other than get behind the 11 on the pitch and stop the micro-analysing of every goal that is conceded.

No, not brainwashed what so ever. The loan in it's most basic sense worked, because the player was able to play games, he progressed, he improved, his value increased etc. As said above, the cockup was getting relegated. We'd have kept him if we'd still been in the PL and we'd have benefited from a successful loan. We still benefited from a successful loan in a financial sense though, so you cannot say that the decision to send him out to play and improve was a cockup - it had the desired result.

How did we cock up the Tella situation exactly? We made a £22m profit on someone we added to our academy for a nominal fee (or free, can't remember). He did well enough to be scouted by a European team in a top division, it was a great opportunity for him and a great unexpected profit for us - which may have helped us break even and enabled us to keep hold of Adams and KWP, we'll never know - but I think it's disingenuous to say we cocked up the Tella situation, I'd say we got a pretty good result out of it.

Not entirely sure why he's being hung out on that, he was 1 on 1 and fouled the player as 9 keepers out of 10 would have done. No mention of the save he made against Donyel Malen I notice.

He had two clean sheets back to back in March - the home win against Leicester, and the 0-0 at Old Trafford.

Yeah the 2011-2012 midfield was bang on it, don't forget Cork as well - he was a hard worker. Arguably the likes of Charly, Smallbone, Downes may be better 'technically' than some of the 2012 lot, but they need to work a hell of a lot harder to be as influential. I'm not sure if it's in their makeup though and it's the midfield which is giving me nightmares at the mo.

I dunno, they spent £18m on Onuachu and they're not exactly sticking with him. I don't think it's to do with how much we spent on him, there's something else at play behind the scenes. They may believe he has absolutely incredible potential, and that these are just growing pains, but it will be pretty much typical that we have to endure all the growing pains and as soon as he becomes any good we will cash in.

Is this interview available to listen to anywhere? I'm not even sure where it was, talksport possibly?

I don't think you can ever doubt his commitment, I appreciated that as a fan - but he very rarely achieved anything, and when he tried...he'd fall over his feet or something. He was an incredibly frustrating player in one of our most blunt PL attacks, ever. I hope he settles down again at Standard and enjoys the rest of his career, but I doubt he'll play at a high league level again.

If that's the case, then that is probably why it went south very quickly.

I think this is the period where we were fixated on that £15-20m market. We had that golden period where we grabbed Tadic, Mane, Wanyama, VVD etc within that bracket - but we didn't seem to realise football had moved on, and with that so does the finances. We needed to get to those £30m figures to get similar ilk 2018-2019, but we never did - and then wondered why we were lumbered with Lemina, Hoedt, Moussa, Ely, Vestergaard etc.

Yep, absolutely. The performance at the weekend was 'Dozy', that's how I'd describe it. Not sure if it's because players minds weren't totally on it, or it's because we've got a load of players with nothing in between their ears, as listening to Martin they totally forgot everything they'd spoken about.

They were able to do that as we offered no protection off the ball, stood off everyone for 90mins. We were played through like a knife through butter. Time and time again. The lack of organisation on our first corner was something you'd be disappointed at from a non-league team, it was horrific. There are times when the players need to take the lead in situations, but for so many years we seem to stand around and wait for someone else to do it. Guilty party's continue to be Bednarek, Stu Armstrong etc. Hopefully THB shakes up the back 4 a bit and we can add a bit more organisation back there, but it's the midfield which worries me.

At last, such a naff player.

I don't buy that, at Championship level our squad is a top team. The depth on the bench yesterday was ridiculous. So because of that I don't think we can afford to 'bed in over half a season' - it simply has to be bearing fruits before Christmas, otherwise as sad as it will be Martin will be for the chop. This team needs to aim for the top 2, and you don't get Top 2 by bedding in for the first half of the season.

I would assume guys like Onuachu, Moussa and maybe there is still a slight chance Sulemana could be tempted by £$£ to another league.

Someone reminded me of the Norwich 1 - 7 Colchester L1 game from all those years back, they won the league that year. So there are reasons to believe it's just a blip, but the goals we have conceded generally in all games suggest it is a more ingrained issue.

Could still be some movement out...

It is a strange one. To me 9 times out of 10 it's the teams with the best players who get the success, it doesn't matter what their philosophy is, they just have the best players (as they have the money to do that). In the PL I understand why clubs look for alternatives to try and compete and get the extra via alternative means as they can't get the 'best' players, but when you're in a league you're expected to dominate - with the players for it - I think it's dangerous to over complicate something you don't really need to.

That's a good point actually, forgot about that result. They did sack Gunn shortly after that though and brought in Paul Lambert - who was in charge of Colchester that game I think.