S-Clarke

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.

I can't help but gravitate back to the Koeman years, or the Adkins years etc - were we fixated on a specific footballing strategy at that point? Or did we just buy good players, play them in their natural positions and then rest is history? I'd say that was what we did tbh. There's a lot that is to be said for just playing the game to win, rather than playing the game to fit a specific strategy or philosophy. I'm not against a philosophy as such, but there seems to be way too much focus on that at the expense of other elements. The biggest concern I have, not just from today but from our previous games, is our midfield. I think it's weak. Without Charles in there (who is a kid himself), we have guys like Armstrong, Downes, Smallbone and Charly - they're not big units, they're technically good but in the blood a thunder of the NPC I can't help but feel they'll lose more battles than they win without help around them. I do think we're 1 CM too short.

That's what I mentioned in the match thread - we can't let this result define our season, we need to react against Leicester. They lost as well so they'll be saying the same I'm sure. This month is going to be brutal and if we continue to defend like we are then we will end it in the bottom half of this league.

I'd have expected my GK to save at least 2 of the goals today, at any level. The scary thing though is that he did actually make some good saves in that second half, but still let in 5! What is going on in front of him is a huge concern for me, the openness of our game is there for all to see. We will probably refine it, I think we'll have to as we don't seem capable of stopping opposition attacks.

Yeah, we got done at Brighton 3-0 - I remember that one. But that was it, bad days at the office - take it on the chin and get home. But to let it get to 5-0 is not a good look on a team who want to be 'winners', very weak. They've got a lot to learn. The midfield worries me if I'm honest. We have no steal in there other than a 19 year old Charles. When we came up last time we had Morgan, Hammond, Cork and Chaplow snapping in and adding that bite. We were just played through today, no one got near the opposition. I don't want to get carried away as it's just 1 game, but the nature of it has rung some really big alarm bells in my head. Hopefully they come to nothing.

Yeah that's my feel, teams who get automatically promoted (i.e 80-90+ points) do not get stuffed 5-0 in any game. It shows a lack of grit and you need grit in this league. We seem incapable of keeping the ball out of the net and if we don't sort that out, we're never going to be in the race for automatics.

There is a level of bad and then there was that. He's behind everyone, even Charles, for that CB spot now - in my opinion. He's got a lot of work to do to get into the side after that. Thank god we got THB in.