tajjuk

He needs a goal, you can see his confidence is not there, the runs are, the bustling style and work rate is, but he's just taking a little bit to long with his touch, get it out of his feet etc. and that is confidence. We saw at Brum a lot of his goals were about first time shots, hitting it early, etc. and at the moment aside that very unlucky strike vs Sheff Utd he hasn't been doing that much. One good thing is he has not been hiding from the ball, he's still been showing for it, still making those runs, so I think it will come. We have to remember the guy is 22 in his first season in the PL, these things don't happen over night and you always need a bit of luck as well, just look at Tammy Abrahams, scored some good goals but also had a bit of fortune to get him going with balls just dropping at his feet etc. Also he is doing well now but in his season for Swansea first season in the PL he managed 5 goals in 31 games. As others have mentioned Beattie managed 5 goals in 53 games in his first two seasons with us before he hit a double figures season. Ings probably deserves to start now and hopefully will have his confidence back after that game, he looks sharp and fit for once, but lets not right Adams off please.

Same back 4 or maybe Danso in there for one of the centre-backs. Hopefully Djenepo might be fit and we can go with a forward line of Ings, Redmond and Djenepo. I think Adams needs taking out of the firing line for a bit, maybe bring him on against tired legs or get him an under-23 game where he hopefully gets some goals, because at the moment his confidence looks shot. As others have said they are ok at home, but generally are in poor form so we have a decent chance, especially as we seem to be decent away from home. See if we can keep it tight and frustrate them, get the crowd on their back, Villa almost did it for over an hour and Newcastle did it to them, with our pace going forward we could then hit them on the break.

Yeh its confidence, heard Merson and a few of the Soccer saturday guys talking about it a few weeks ago, not specifically about Adams, but saying how fans just didn't really get how important it can be to a player.

Had to weather an expected strong start, especially in blustery conditions with the win behind them but rode it pretty well and then just dominated the game. Thought aside from Ings obviously, that Cedric, Yoshida and Romeu were all very good, experienced showed there. Adams desperately needs a goal, you can see how hard he is trying, almost too much at times but the touch and movement is not quite there because he needs the confidence. Ings has to start next week surely, looks like the dropping gave him the kick up the behind that he needed, excellent work rate and movement. Also good to see Redmond get a goal as well which will help his confidence after coming back from injury. Overall an almost perfect night, would have loved Adams to get one as well to be the cherry but it was overall excellent and gives bragging rights for a while.

Wilson, the striker not the Liverpool loanee would, but the rest meh, Fraser on top form but he seems out of favour at the moment so maybe not as his best. I also like King but he doesn't score that many. But their defence and midfield, nah, not at all. We just made it too easy for them first half and weren't quick enough with the final ball/shot in the 2nd half. We should all remember that sadly our forwards in Ings and Adams are out of form so are not looking confident, our two most confident goal threats, one was injured, the other had just come back from injury. We need one of the strikers to get a goal so we have a confident striker and Djenpo back in the team.

Spurs, Chelsea, Arsenal are the three top 6 sides easily there for the taking this season. Everton are meh, some good players on paper but no real fight in them. Wolves are struggling as well. Leicester will play out from the back so if our pressing game is on point we could hurt them. Last year that would have been a very difficult run of games, this year not so much IMO. Also if we are out of the relegation zone after that run then not too bad as we would have played 13, and would have played all the top 9 from last year in those fixtures.

Start the game with the 2nd half team we win that comfortably, a back 4 of Cedric, Danso/Yoshidea, Bednerak and Bertrand, what ever Bertrand has done or Ralf thinks he has done needs sorting. We are just giving teams a head start basically and inviting pressure. Also we won the ball back so often up the pitch with the pressing but then the final pass was poor or too slow, like they never expected to win it back. Have to say though that even with a lot of poor moments, poor first half, result still flattered Bournemouth IMO, they were clinical and got their blocks in but that is about it, they lost the ball so much all over the pitch and the final stats show it, we just didn't take chances, even being disappointed in our play we deserve to at least draw that IMO. The media will fawn over them but if their forwards start missing a few chances they will drop like a stone like they did last year IMO. But Ralph seriously play the players in their correct positions poor Danso I don't think has had a minute yet in his position, we got in a guy who was getting rave reviews as a young centre back in the Bundesliga and he's being shoved all over the place.

Considering all out centre-backs are a probably similar ish levels, as in there is no stand out one, I don't see why we can't be a bit more 'horses for courses' in selection, especially if they work at it in training. Against Bournemouth with the pace of Wilson, King, and Fraser I think we would want the fastest defenders we have.

Well yeh that too, looking back at top goalscorers (in PL) over the years (going backwards) it goes - 7 Ings 7 Austin 7 Redmond 11 Mane/Pelle 12 Pelle 15 Jay Rod 15 Lambert 12 Crouch 14 Beattie 23 Beattie 14 Pahars 11 Beattie 13 Pahars 7 Ostenstad 11 Le Tiss/Ostenstad 13 Le Tiss 7 Le Tiss/Shipperley 19 Le Tiss 25 Le Tiss 15 Le Tiss So it's only happened 5 times in 20 seasons, and 3 of those were Le Tiss right at the start. We are just as likely to have a top scorer with 7 than 15+

Only 8 players scored 15+ PL goals last year - Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang Sadio Mané Mohamed Salah Sergio Agüero Jamie Vardy Harry Kane Raheem Sterling Eden Hazard The year before the list was pretty similar - Mohamed Salah Harry Kane Sergio Agüero Jamie Vardy Raheem Sterling Romelu Lukaku Roberto Firmino Pretty much every player there would cost you upwards of £80-90 million I reckon minimum, aside maybe Vardy as he's 32. And pretty much every player (aside Vardy again) there is playing for a top 6 club as well. Similar look to 16/17 as well, Josh King got 16 a few years ago, but followed that up with 8 and 12 the following seasons, Callum Wilson got 14 last year and already has 3 this year so might break 15 if he can stay fit. Benteke got 15 a few seasons ago, look at him since. You have to be pretty lucky to get a consistent 15+ goal a season PL striker without spending A LOT of money (i.e like unearthing a Vardy or Wilson from the lower leagues or getting someone like Kane through the youth system), and let's be honest if we found one from somewhere and they got 15 goals in a season, like say Che Adams hits his stride this year, got that first goal out of the way and got 15, we'd probably be struggling to keep him, especially if he got another say 15 next year. I mean I suppose that is what we have gone for in Adams and to a lesser extent Ings, going for someone who has scored reliably in the championship who can hopefully step up and become a gem.

His arm is like that because he is being bundled in the back by the Sheff Utd player, he couldn't see the ball probably at all or at least until the last moment and even if the ball had gone through to the Sheff Utd player it would have been stomach height and a near impossible finish, if he tried to bring it down then he would have got blocked or tackled easily. Would have been a massively harsh penalty as it was completely accidental and JWP knew nothing about it. If that had happened against us and hadn't been given I would not have been fuming. All these claims for handballs in the box are getting silly to be honest, people kicking it at defenders from like 5 yards or people being expected to somehow remove their arms from their body from balls that come at them from point blank.

What's hilarious about that is for our goal their player literally tried to wrestle Djenepo to the ground, a clear professional foul and Djenepo didn't go down and just embarrassed their centre-backs. Yet they complain about our players going down to easily, massive amounts of sour grapes there. Not really sure what Wilder was talking about either, aside McGoldricks 1v1 saved by Gunn, we had all the best chances in that game and pretty much every highlight package shows that. They had 17 shots, but only got 4 on target and they needed a wonder save and the post to stop us scoring more.

Win and we are 1/4 of the way to 40 points already, after 6 games and having played Liverpool and Utd. We need to sort out the fullback situation though, if Vokins is not deemed ready to cover Bertrand then why didn't we try to get another left back?

It's Portsmouth and no one else really IMO, at a stretch I'd say Pool have to be one of our more hated clubs rather than Bournemouth. I'd also list multiple clubs like West Ham, Burnley, Utd, Everton, Chelsea that I'd rather see lose than Bournemouth.

How many players in the same position do you expect us to have? The squad is already bloated as it is, and Boufal, Obafemi and Djenepo were already not in the team.

Think it sums it up well, the team have worked hard, defended well as a unit, pressed well and generally played alright. But we have made stupid defensive errors and not taken our chances, which basically undermines all of the above. You can also add the Fulham game to the mix, where there were no defensive errors but worryingly yet more chances squandered. Ings alone should have probably 4 goals this season and Adams at least 2, lets hope they find their shooting boots and get their confidence up.

This, some absolute tosh is written on here. People are apparently not fans if they don't support in the exact same way others do.

Didn't Ralph describe him as an F1 car, needs a lot of care and warming up to hit top speed and is liable to break at any moment. I am sure I read an article saying that its something to do with his body make up or something. Can;t find it right now, but I am not sure he is quite right.

This comment from Ralph worries me - We started ok but not great against Burnley, poorly against Brighton and now poorly against Fulham, against Liverpool we started well and seemed on it from minute one. Do the players believe they are better than these other teams and think they can just turn up and win half arsed?

It's a loss, but would have been a bigger lost last year, we have Djenepo and Boufal pushing for a start, its probably the area we have the best strength in depth.

Yeh but maybe they just dealt with it a bit better plus our gameplan seemed to be to try to sit in and break, so maybe with the heat our team just couldn't make those busting runs on the counter. Whereas Brighton were playing a more patient passing style so probably looked after the ball better, thus meaning less runs, with less pressing as well. At the end of the day though, they had a decent amount of the ball 11 v 11 but really did not create anything of note. The only times they threatened us really was the offside goal which Gunn would have save easily I think if the guy wasn't backing into him and then Locardia hitting the post, which was from a set piece, and Bednerak did enough to put him off I reckon, plus you'd fancy Gunn to save it at that angle as well. The BBC to be fair noted in the preview that Potter's Swansea team played good football and looked after the ball well, but didn't actually create that much. They seemed similar in this game.

I doubt we'll bring anyone in unless something has gone terribly wrong by then. Bowen btw should be reasonably cheap, IIRC he is in the last year of his contract so could be like £5-6 million in January.

This, early season form is really difficult to draw anything from, plenty of teams taking a while to get going and like us have new players that they are trying to get up to fitness/sharpness. Norwich have probably impressed me the most, but at the same time they have conceded 8 goals in 3 games, and were probably lucky they didn't concede more to Chelsea to he honest.

Should be noted that whilst people were commenting on the sluggishness of our play, pretty much every PL manager mentioned the heat today and said it had an impact on play.

Odd really, probably played at Burnley, definitely played better against Pool, but no points, then play poorly today but win. Football is like that I suppose, Palace beating Utd who had over 70% possession. At least the 'win' monkey is off the teams back, a clean sheet as well. But we need to build from that and make sure the performances are more like the Liverpool one than today. Complacency? Does the team just think Brighton were a bit crap and they could turn up and win anyway? Good to see Djenepo and Boufal make an impact though, just have to find a way to fit them into the team.