Smirking_Saint

The player infront of him ? So he’s marking Bednarek is he ? We’ll agree to disagree, theres an argument to be had that Manning should have, may have.. told Stephens about the danger, but either way its Stephens man and Manning should be covering You have 2 x CBs marking space and not particularly effectively, Manning needs to be aware of the man over his right shoulder whether you think its a danger or not, and at most shoukd cover Stephens if he fucks up.. which he did… they both did

The market this year is short of decent DMs and Strikers basically

If you don’t think Stephens should be picking up Fassnacht here you need to give your head a wobble tbh Stephens caught doing what he does too often.. ball watching The first Ill concede might not of been on him, much like the Rowe goal it was just an absolute mess, no idea who was supposed to be marking anyone really, but it seemed to me again that Stephens was stood ball watching, Bednarek moves to Rowe ? Instead of dealing with Sargeant, ultimately its poor communication between those two either way you look at it Im sticking with my assessment that Stephens is an awful defender as far as marking is concerned, he’s fine from a reactive POV, but either would benefit from playing next to a competent and organising CB

Has he ? If thats what he’s said fair enough, seemed like he was happy to be here at the start of the year, ive not personally heard differently

I don’t dislike them overall but we’ll be seeing depleted squads within a month or two due to bans Genuinely, with that and the mess at Leeds.. Middlesborough losing their best players, Coventry losing Hamer I know Im optimistic here but it feels like it has to be us and Leicester leading the way surely

An incoming bid doesn’t mean the players pushing to leave

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I don’t know enough about him really, but looking at the Swansea forum and a few posts on here it seems he is just a finisher but.. like I said.. happy to be wrong, my opinion is based on that

I think right now Che offers more personally, especially in this instance that he is in goalscoring form If Piroe is a goalscorer, and little else, then to me its worth holding onto Che because from the system POV he offers more

Didn’t he take a cut previous to relegation too due to a lack of games ?

From what I know the atmosphere is relaxed, it was choppy at the end if last season and, as I said before the French speaking quartet were the most vocal (coincidentally we’ve barely seen them) But ultimately the dressing room is comfortable with the direction and happy with strategy.. eg.. most open to stay unless good offers come in

Nixon is hit and miss Id love McCarthy to leave the building but I struggle to see anybody daft enough to sign him

The first Id agree we should never of let the cross come in but Stephens loses his man (as per usual) Bednarek then has to take JS man and isnt available to pick up Sargeant at the back post The 2nd, again I agree we need to stop the cross at source but AGAIN JS loses his man and then Manning has to cover and, frankly does a poor job at it

Im still not sure if Piroe is better than Che 🤷‍♀️

Possibly, but he was at fault for the 1st and 4th

Ok lets give this a goal then.. I wanted to sleep on the result last night and ultimately Im happier then I was at the end of 90 minutes. There was a lot of good positives, but also of course, some big negatives. We play some exceptional football when in possession, and realistically are scoring and creating a lot more than I anticipated, especially after the last couple of years Frankly we need to be netter at stopping opposing transitions, and for that Id suggest a proper No.6, not Smallbone who is exceptional on the ball but just not defensively sound enough. Beyond that, we need to work on defending crosses, be that they’re set pieces or in play.. thats not anything new unfortunately But I do see a lot of positives and with Charles or Downes at 6 I don’t think we lose that Stephens/Bednarek - Unfortunately Im not convinced by them at this level, they were too often exposed but they’re not great 1v1. Stephens was at fault for 1st and 4th… the guy just can’t mark effectively Smallbone/Armstrong/Alcaraz - Created plenty and S Armstrong creates some lovely spaces but we were far too open today. Im convinced if we started Charles we’d of won that today. Alcaraz will simply have to improve his stamina and start tracking back on transitions, it leaves us short. Shea Charles - Thought he looked excellent when he came on today, provided resilience and is calm and tidy on the ball KWP/Manning - Both good offensively but looked shaky defensively today, they’ll need help on transitions and neither Tella but especially Edozie gave them enough protection. One to be concerned about, as, if we can’t defend crosses effectively we HAVE to stop them at source

Nixon suggesting that Palace are ready to offer 10m for Che Adams I appreciate he only has a year left, but frankly thaf fee is too low for what he offers us this year

I don’t particularly rate either but Bednarek is better than Stephens, both at the basic elements of defending but also, despite what people are saying on here, at passing too And the metrics support the viewing test

Yeah Id rather VAR, it needs work but ultimately it is a bonus As great as the current feeling is Ill await the meltdown when we lose to a refereeing mistake

This narrative needs to die, because he absolutely isn’t the better of the two

Thought all along they’d struggle, but they’ll bounce around January Im not convinced Farke is all that, outside of the Norwich bubble and the clubs in a bit of a mess, post takeover, much like us last year

Sulemana will go, Tella will stay… agree re Djenepo but theres enough depth there anyway

Maybe.. squad depth wise we probably have the best in the division abd I think a lot are underestimating the levels of quality here We need 4 competent CBs Probably 4/5 CMs in varying positions 4 wingers 2/3 strikers So reality is we’re pretty well stocked…. Ultimately if we sign another CM and another 1/2 CBs id be happy, anything on top is a huge bonus

Edozie, Tella, SAA and Sulemana are all comfortably good enough at this level with Arma, Djenepo, S Armstrong, Aribo and probably Doyle, Ballard able to cover there too

Charles/Downes - 6 Smallbone/Downes - 8 Alcaraz/S Armstrong - 10 Aribo could probably play as a 10 if you’re happy without him running anywhere I think 1 more CM and we’re fine but its tricky… do you go back up or drop Smallbone, Alcaraz, Downes or Charles