Smirking_Saint

We need a striker, a No.10/winger and probably another DM depending on the long term fitness of RL Thats the overall requirement right now.. I’d be hugely surprised if we bring in another GK and for me we have enough in defence if organised effectively

Never been a fan of 3/5 back formations, there is quite a misconception that you can employ them and be defensively sound but realistically they are harder to implement then most orthodox 4 back tactics You really need to be disciplined in your roles and who you’re expected to mark, who is taking responsibility or else you run the risk of players just not taking charge of situations (exactly what we saw early season) Its also hugely susceptible to counters, especially wide and generally causes problems in central midfield who are expected to deal with not only the midfield battle but also cover wide areas vacated by the wing men Frankly Ive never been a fan, and Im almost certain its not something we can implement overnight Thid is a really interesting piece on 3 back formations if anybody is interested- https://breakingthelines.com/tactical-analysis/the-strengths-and-weaknesses-of-a-man-oriented-back-three/

You need significantly more tactical awareness to play DM, its a hugely specific position, you need to be aware of where the space is, where your team mates are, where the opposition is. You need to be able to find a pass in the chaos Just being able to tackle and head a ball simply isn’t enough So no… imo Lyanco in midfield will be as disastrous as Stephens was

No marking, just vibes

Thought the same thing… have to be truly desperate to bring back Bednarek or Stephens to sure up defence

They’re also 7th in the league Just admit the fact that your man Nathans spent 8 weeks googling how to be a premier league manager and little else

And yet at no point did he look like he’d managed to take thr team backwards, especially against league 1 opponents

He’s still better than anything else we have there, he just isn’t suited to a two man midfield unless his partner is specifically defensively aware He’s a good player operating in a system that doesn’t suit him

Are you a child ?

We don’t have months Also every manager doesn’t need months at all.. both Lopetegui and De Zerbi hit the ground running… as did Howe and even Gary O’Neil

Morning Nath Can you run us through what you worked on during the WC break ? And how you tried to embed these principles? Because frankly a team the team didn’t seem to have a clue what the plan was vs Brighton and Im not convinced, after 5 formation changes, you did either HNY

Ive always hated Chelsea but I have all the more reason to hate them lately especially with Boehly basically playing FM You’re likely right, lets hope we sting them for north of 50m if possible

I doubt he’ll be here in 6-9 months time, lads certainly good enough Not sure how pretending to be injured for 6 months really helps his cause though

Get your cash on it to be our only signing

It wouldn’t be Lyanco… Id personally go 433, its pretty obvious that the sum of our downfall is because we just cannot get a grip of the midfield battle, and generally unless you play an aggressive counterpress or are an effective long ball side (we’re currently neither) you’ll need to be combatant in midfield SHOULD Lavia be injured I think Id employ a midfield three of Stu Armstrong, JWP and Diallo.. none if them are able to hold down a midfield on their own but against Fulham Id like to think we’d be able to compete McCarthy (take Gav out of the firing line) KWP ABK(DCC) Salisu Perraud JWP Diallo Armstrong Aribo Che Ely/A Armstrong of course if Lavia is fit then Id go back to our standard 4231 with RL and JWP as CMs but with S Armstrong as the 10 and the forward 3 remaining much the same

I don’t think its beyond the realms of possibility that he’d of stayed fit enough to play the majority of games, he hasn’t got a particularly bad injury record He’s twice the player of Romeu already and OR wanted to go, also got us Edozie and Larios It obviously looks awful now, because of Lavias long term injury concerns, but like I said, wasn’t like OR was pulling up any trees last year

Probably enough when you consider we had AMN and Diallo behind him, I do agree we possibly needed to have a back up DM somewhere but realistically had Lavia stayed fit then OR wouldn’t of got much of a look in Romeo was poor last year, too slow for a two man midfield really, hence why plenty of us were asking for an able replacement and we found a great one

We replaced him with Lavia… who is a much better player, should OR hsd stayed and RL stayed fit then OR wouldn’t have gotten a sniff I absolutely cannot blame SR for that. The big issue was signing AMN or not getting rid of Diallo and signing a back up DM

I believe so yeah… and part of me understands it.. Ralph is a good manager but we didn’t get the striker he needed AND things eventually fell apart for him, im not sure it was mutually exclusive Unfortunately we’re being told NJ needs time.. and we don’t have it, certainly Ive not seen any impact from his coaching over the last 6-8 weeks and arguably if we needed to give a new manager time the it needed to happen sooner

Personally I think Aribo is, of the three, more creative, better on the ball and more composed infront of goal but doesn’t work hard enough which, I agree, isn’t something you can say about Ely.. the lad puts a shift in

Diallo is sort of one of them.. its unfortunately him or AMN unless we go 3 in the middle (we stand a chance then) Djenepo is just not able wide, we have other options (Aribo, Edozue, Armstrong x 2) Lyanco is odd with DCC and ABK on the bench Also as Ive said before, Ely works hard and is ok as a wide man that can defend but as a No.10 ? Absolutely ineffective in a creative position Im afraid

Absolute buzzword waffle… If you aren’t going into any transfer window as a detailed process and attempting to minimise risk then you’re failing as a smaller club It also depends on what metric you’re analysing… our youthful signings from the summer are arguably minimal risk from a cost/sell on POV but failure to have a big enough impact on the pitch has almost certainly been a bigger risk then signing established options

Rasmus has made all of the major footballing decisions (overall) since the summer however was in favour of sacking Ralph sooner but was convinced not to

Do you remember the press waffle when Semmens stuck the boot into Les (not defending Les) about being hamstrung due to long contracts to players that didn’t deserve it ? And then proceeded to sign Djenepo, McCarthy and Walcott onto long unwanted contracts

Yet he proceeded to play Lyanco at CB, Ely at CAM, Diallo at DM and Djenepo at RW…