S-Clarke

That Damion Downs rumour is nonsense, he's not leaving. Never heard such a daft rumour in my life! THB - too late. The rest, yep maybe. I think Aribo will still be here, but will end up in Turkey sometime in Sept.

I don't speak Turkish FFS

Out of interest, what's his thought on Jelert?

We needed it, the squad was bloated with trash. Let's hope we don't fall foul to the 'gel' process now!

A good read up if anyone is interested - this is from before he moved to Galatasaray. Elias Jelert Scout Report At FC Copenhagen 2023/2024

He can play left, right (he can make messi look shite) and also CM. He's played lots of games at left back though, so for me he's now our starting LB without question. He's got a better level than most of our squad.

When you look at his pedigree, Champions league last season, Europa league with Copenhagen, U21's in the summer and Danish senior prior to that - he has no right being in the Championship. Based on that alone, it's a ridiculous addition. Sounds like he's a right back or left back, but also offers the versatility to slot into CM - so maybe we have our CM too?

Fairly sure it's Jelert, as Blackmore said he was doing his medical/was at the club y/day.

Why is he being written off after 4 games?

Why?

Thanks for nothing!

It's not going to happen, I mean how can that be true. It's like saying we're about to loan out Fellows to someone with an option to buy.

Not a a chance. Likely a weird made up post based on his FM game or something. Livakovic is a Croatian international goalie, who is way above us.

Derby fans are buzzing over this, for some reason. Worst player I've ever seen play for us, and we've had some shit.

Bit like the old school England debate of Lampard & Gerrard.

Completely different scenarios. Moore fits Wrexham, they're new to the division from the other way and need a seasoned pro with Champ experience to fit their direct play, they use width and whip crosses into the box constantly. We are a team with ambition to go back up, we have a lot of slight/nimble attackers in and around the box and we currently don't whip huge amounts of balls into the box - so the chances are is that he'd have been really ineffective for us, he'd have looked like a pub player and fans would have been throwing Spors under the bus for signing him. It's also 4 games. He's not scored double figures at this level since 2019. He really isn't as good as is being made out here, he's a bog average bottom half Champ player.

If we go to a flat 4, with proper wingers, the full backs/wing backs won't need to be so advanced - so the protection on transition will be greater. Charles and Downes 'should' be enough to anchor this level, but in my eyes they're too samey and it makes us a bit slow in there - but we'll see. At the end of the day we need to stop conceding as much ground as we do in the wide areas, as teams break on us too quickly at the moment.

A lot of clamouring for a player who hasn't scored double figures at this level since 2019, and is now 33, and cost Wrexham £3.5m. Not really the sort as a club we'd go for, let's be honest. He's scored a couple of goals to start the season but generally, these days, he's a bog average journey man striker and I'd hope the club target better than him.

Yes, exactly. In isolation a couple of points away and a win at home is a good start - but it was that Stoke game, like you say, which paints a different picture. Still a lot to do, but it isn't a 'horrific start' as I've seen some proclaiming on social media, it's an average start. No more, no less.

Norwich want between £20-25m, even Wolfsburg baulked at that. We're not spending that on a player at this level and we never will.

We're still playing Bazunu, Manning and Stephens, so it's no surprise really. That trio means goals, goals, goals. If we take yesterday in isolation, we had no midfield. It was Charles and no one. There was too much space on transition and we were just run at, which lead to us conceding free kicks. I don't think we gave up too many chances in open play generally, it was just a couple of brain farts really which came on the back of us not having any transition cover. I still think some of our players are thick as shit though, which is why they often have those brain farts. A little bit of higher IQ in our group wouldn't go a miss.

How I'd argue that is Sargent, who we are all clamouring for right now, was signed from a 2.Bundesliga club with a similar rep to that of Downs and was actually quite a joke figure for Norwich in their PL season, their fans hated him. It took him time to settle, but he has at this level - not sure if he'll ever be a PL player though. We aren't in a position to buy Sargent now, we don't have the money to splurge £20m+ on a player, so we went and looked at Downs as someone who could become that level. It's a risk but it's how we operate and that isn't ever going to change due to our lack of financial power. We need to find the Sargent before he goes to Norwich, or the Mbeumo, Wisa, Tony etc before they go to Brentford - that's the market we're operating in.

It is harder to compete, 100%, but getting just 12 points shouldn't ever happen for any professional team. Certainly not in England where the prize money for promotion and TV revenue is huge, even the clubs at the bottom should be competitive if they have someone resembling a manager - which the 3 do this year, well - jury out on Burnley, I think Parker is a bit of a fraud tbh. If I were Wolves, Brentford or WHU I'd be a little bit nervous right now.

Agreed, hope he has a good career. The injury hit him at a really unfortunate time. I'll be interested to see how he does at Leyton Orient.

The midfield was a bit of a kicker today, definitely. But Sessay was involved in the u21's last night, so he couldn't be with us as well. If anything, when Downes is not available and obviously Smallbone is offski, we could do with maybe 1 extra in there. (even though we got Jander)