Smirking_Saint

Its not We sent a team last week

I mean… to move on you need people that want you, none of the managers have wanted to bring him with them away from Soton either And FWIW, he wasnt really getting any game time previous to Hasenhuttl who, also moved him out on loan to Bournemouth, who coincidentally didn’t take him on So yeah… bit of a moot point

I still don’t buy the leadership bollocks, @stevegrant summed it up better than I could on the latest pod (can’t remember exact statement but) - If he was the leader in what has been our most rudderless period its fairly damning on him Besides, ive both played and coached at a reasonable level… a leader in sport needs to have an aptitude at that level, as well as the qualities needed to lead, or else a rot sets in and ‘better’ players lose motivation If it was a year or two extension… fine… but 3 years puts the current DoF under the same scrutiny as his predecessors by burdening us with mediocrity

FM26 is gonna be a breeze

It was at Lens

Is he though ? Really didn’t show it last season, or so far in pre season Besides Still plays very much with classic type wingers, and not really any of the players listed are of that skillset, do he either adapts his tactics, or, we need quality out wide Fraser and BBD I doubt are reliable this season anyway

Ben Brereton Diaz is…. Quality out wide now is he ?

In fairness, Bednarek has been our best defender for the past two years (shows how bad our progression in recruitment has got), so I didn’t mind the extension at the time Do agree with you around rewarding mediocrity though… giving JS a 3 year deal is criminal

Just the backbone of the side then… more or less 😫

Bayern are insisting on a 50% sell on clause too

As fans we get absolutely hung up on the fact that we buy only youth, with no thoughts on experience, but thats not the case, in truth, its just that our recruitment has been awful, with the only real saving graces in some of our youth signings bearing fruit The reality is, that we simply have to adopt a more moneyball model, its how you break out of the lower league relegation battles, but unfortunately, the way the league is at the moment you need a lot of luck and likely the implosion of an established side Fact is, we have bought experienced players, but they’ve not been good enough, we’ve had FAR less success in that area then with the youth. We’re stuck with Fraser, Stewart, Taylor, Bree, Aribo… the list goes on So to clarify… our malaise has been overall recruiting, but they’ve youth players have been a net positive, the ‘experienced’ a failure

This argument falls down when you look at the ‘experienced’ signings have been absolutely woeful Our recruitment has been awful, but like the previous poster said, there are far less downsides with buying young talents

What the fuck does fizz mean ?

Not being MLG

I mean… its been absolutely awful all round but I do understand why we did what we did Overall when you weigh it all up, the ‘established’ signings.. and they’re Onuachu, Cornet, Stewart, Sugawara, Groenback, Fraser The list goes on have been horrific Atleast with the likes of Lavia, Fernandes even Alcaraz etc we’ve profited

Our younger buys have been our best one I keep reading we should be buying established players instead of youngsters, but we’ve been shafted harder on the older heads tbh

Its absolutely about money though Established prem clubs, even Bournemouth and Wolves have squad players worth 20m+ now SR obviously made terrible recruitment decisions which made competing even harder but the point still stands Promoted clubs cannot compete, and then are too strong for the Championship

To progress the theme here of how the game has moved over the years, and I expect we’ll see the promoted three also fail this season, the parachute payment scenario has further managed to destroy the pyramid, as well as the affluence in the prem Promoted teams just don’t have the funds available to compete with even the smallest budget prem clubs, and a lot is due to PSR restrictions, but this just compounds issues in the Championship, because realistically us, Ipswich and even a Leicester with a deduction should have more than enough to compete in the EFL because our budgets are 3-4x than the next EFL club Its an absolute mess and I have no idea how its unpicked One thing I do predict, and it could be Leeds or Birmingham, but we’ll start seeing clubs gambling with breaking PSR restrictions because Forest and Everton getting a 4 and 2 point deduction would be comfortably worth the gamble if you were able to then spend to compete with the next set of clubs

Wasn’t it just a relegation release clause ? Not a pure release clause I mean… Im guessing the gamble was to make them more competitive in the prem.. which it almost certainly did

I really couldn’t give a fuck what a 21 yr old says about a manager he formally liked tbh

Not sure why everyone is writing off THB, Id fully expect him to be one of the best CBs in the champ again, and surely we’re unlikely to replace him with someone much better, as well as nobody is going to pay the 20m+ we’d want Personally Id like to keep him, just play him in a 4 back.. ive noticed he struggles hardest in a 3 CB formation

Booted up FM again tonight, took me a while to sort the stats out as they’re a right mess BUT Jesus we have a lot of players, too many really, and thats going to be our issue. (there is some crossover here but fag packet maths…) 4 GKs Lumley, Ramsdale, McCarthy, Baz 7 CBs ABK, Edwards, THB, Stephens, Bednarek, Wood, Taylor 4 LBs Taylor, Manning, Larios, Wellington 2 RBs Sugawara, Bree 4 CMs Aribo, Downes, Charles, Smallbone 2 AM Fernandes, Lallana 3 RWs Arma, Edozie, Dibling 4 LWs Fraser, BBD, Sully, Robinson 3 STs Stewart, Archer, Onuachu We’ll almost certainly need to trim that significantly and it won’t be easy

The rumour was around a week before it broke on talksport

I mean… he’s worth double Which in billionaire terms is a fair amount mate

As much as he is a cock Crook is right more often then not these days