S-Clarke

It's hard to keep a dressing room when you lose every week, heavily. I could very much imagine that there are unhappy players which can sometimes create divides. It's down to the captain to help sort that though, but I look at Lallana and I don't see a captain. I would imagine the likes of Dickson and SDR are rightly ****ed off, seeing as that they're not allowed to go on loan.

I can assure you TDD that there is a remit all through the club to play 4-3-3, attacking football. It goes all the way through the youth teams. I'm sure NA has the say in who plays and who doesn't, I don't believe NC is picking the team what so ever, but I do believe he has been told to blend the team into the formation which the club wants to progress.

Don't think we had many on target all game. I summed up the first half y/day... Defense - aggressive and positive in their marking and ball winning Midfield - tidy, excellent ball retention Attack - Very little quality Unfortunately the quality in the final third didn't really improve, and when you add that to the fact that we started being morons at the back again, then it's no surprise we lost. The real worrying thing for me is that the WHU team weren't too much different from the team we faced last year and we drew 1-1 with (Same players through the spine, and at the back). We looked so much more competitive back then. We played a flat 4-4-2 that day, with Lambert and Sharp up top with Guly and Lallana flanking the proceedings. We look to have gone backwards in the summer with too many changes to areas which weren't broken, and too little changes to area's which were broken. Bit odd really. I felt we needed another CB, but I didn't see Jos and Fonte having the disaster they have had. They have let me down massively as I believed they're better than what they're showing, and the management probably believed the same. We could have done with 1 more CB and a LB though, as a minimum. In many ways though, you could look back to last season and say the problems were becoming evident. I didn't take much notice then because I just wanted us over the line, but if we're honest we threw away the final part of last season - that title should have been ours, but we started conceding awful goals, losing games heavily and Fonte decided to have a brain transplant. In hindsight, which is a wonderful thing, we have put a little too much faith into players who were probably playing above their level last year, as the closing stages of last year started to show.

It didn't work, it hasn't worked, it won't work.

I really want to see him succeed more than anything. I don't know why he's making these random calls this year, our success has come from keeping it simple and keeping everything consistent. The only thing we've been consistent on this year is conceding and losing heavily. To be honest, I don't think we have the players to really play the formation he wants. With Ramirez back, it will inject a bit of balance into proceedings but until then we should just go back to basics. It's very concerning when you start with your 3rd GK of the season, successful and consistent teams don't chop and change the GK. Gazzaniga did nothing wrong against Fulham, and he didn't deserve to be wiped out of the equation. So, I'm frustrated because I just feel he's so much better than this but you get the sense that he is beginning to become blinded by sheer panic.

They wouldn't even need to overstretch themselves to breach our defense.

err, no. Not out of the window

Well that ain't going to happen seeing as PL clubs can't sign loan players, for the 1 millionth time.

We will score, but we will also concede lots of goals. Lennon, Bale, Defoe, Dembele will have an absolute field day. Let's be honest. They will all need to be off their game, and we will need to learn how to defend in 8 days to have even the slightest chance. They are in a different universe to us.

Club decision.

There is a remit through all levels of the football club to play a specific way, with a specific formation. This goes round down to the U-14 level teams. The change in the tactics was a club-wide change, not a first team change.

Is that what we need though? If we do decide to go down the route of making a change, I think it would be rather foolish if that change didn't have premier league experience. Seeing as half of our squad doesn't, we need a management setup with a bit more nous.

I thought he sounded lost. Like a dead man walking into an abyss.

Doesn't he still live in England as well? Got a feeling he'll want too much $$$, and probably a higher profile outfit.

But we won't stay 17th if we carry on like that. We'll be relegated by Feburary. I think we've all got some fair balls as a fan base, but when you see the same mistakes, every.single.week, it gets to a point where you can't be arsed to reason it anymore.

As hard as it is for me to say this, I think he's lost. He's not sure where he's going at the moment.

What more can we learn? We're not learning anything, because we're doing the same things every, single, week. We've had enough blue lines drawn to create a bloody tower block. Something is wrong, whether it's the coaching or the ability of the players, but we don't learn.

Yeah, Norwich fans aren't taken by Hughton and a fair few want him gone already. Quite a few QPR fans have had it with Hughes as well, but that's pretty obvious. Reading fans have big question marks over Brian, but Villa fans are quite content with Lambert..at the moment. So predictably, the clubs who are struggling are debating the same.

weird thread.

Better defensively.

The one positive has to be that we're not in the bottom 3, and quite frankly how we're not is unbelievable. We're easily the worst team in the league as it currently stands.

what an embarrassing 2nd half, against what is a pretty bog standard team.

Very well put!

I don't think he'll be in charge on Monday if I'm honest.

Torn a new one.