HarvSFC

Red cards cancelling out goals is an interesting precedent.

It would be nice if we could find someone you actually feel confident in scoring a penalty again.

Surprised he passed his medical given the knock he suffered.

What a stat.

The one positive you used to be able to say about Solak/SR was that they were at least investing money into the playing side. But, since the first season scattergun it has actually been quite minute in football terms. Indeed, we did spent a fair amount last season. However, that was funded heavily by the sales of Livramento, JWP, Lavia and Tella pocketing us over £100m the summer before having only spent money on Ross Stewart and Shea Charles across the season. We didn't exactly break the bank on any one single player in the summer of 2024 either and missed out on a host of targets (Delap, Carvalho, O'Reilly to name a few). Similarly, this season has been funded by the sales of Sulemana, Dibling and Fernandes, while Amo-Ameyaw, Onuachu, Bednarek, Ramsdale's loan fee, Edwards, Bella-Kotchap and soon to be Armstrong have added a few more million to our net spend title hunt. The frustrating thing in the summer was that we had no movement on incomings, barring squad players in Quarshie, Downs and Roerslev until we got the Dibling and Fernandes fees. While, this January, we've known we've need a physical centre forward who can remain fit since the season began. We loaned out Downs earlier in the month, but needed to sell Armstrong and potentially shift Archer out of the squad to obtain one. Should have been a priority, but again it's being left until the last minute. Also, can't understand why we haven't utilised the Premier League loan market again. I know Solak criticised this strategy in the summer, but it played a big part in helping us win promotion two years ago - You just don't have to put a £20m buy fee on each one. With the clear out we've made this month, you'd hope that we'd be able to go into this summer a bit more proactive and decisive. However, we all hoped the same would be the case for last summer with half a year to prepare for it. So, you know this will now be our squad with a few contract expirations until August 29th and four games into next season season. A couple of miserable nothing January's in a row, but at least there wasn't any hope last year. You can also see why no manager with any credibility would go near us if this was our pitch for January to them and Eckert was the only one to accept such conditions. So, what are the positives of an SR ownership now? Level One?

Now that I've had a bit longer to think about it, selling our top scorer midway through the season is a pretty big risk/gamble. As with all gambles it can go one way or the other. But, given SR have lost a lot of the support after the shitshow of last season and this one you'd think they'd be playing a few less risks and taking a more sensible approach to managing us. If this one also goes wrong and our season squanders into nothingness as we sit 7 points off the play-offs right now then there isn't a chance season tickets sell out next season and St. Mary's will start looking like Stoke's did at the weekend. Only leaves McCarthy and Stephens as the pre-SR players in the squad now, not including Romeu after his return and surely McCarthy goes this summer. Lascelles is a good get for Leicester. Leadership and physicality. Stephens and THB have been playing well since moving back to a back four, but I don't want to see Wood in the team for a long while.

Should've been sold the summer we got promoted, leaving on a high when his stock was at its highest, rather than being rewarded with a new contract. We know Armstrong will never be a Premier League striker, we have to look for better and there is better out there. The issue lies with can SR identify it? As due to his goal output we can't get this one wrong. We definitely can't go for another hopeful punt here.

Wolves selling Strand Larsen for big money and replacing him with Armstrong for a fraction of the fee is like us selling Ings and replacing him with Armstrong.

Great goal. Fellows - Azaz - Scienza. Been calling it all season, causing them all ends of trouble down either wing.

I LOVE LEO SCIENZA!!!!!

As predicted, can't get a foothold on the game and struggling to maintain pressure. Nobody in the team apart from Scienza, and he's hardly been in the game and the frozen out Edozie can travel up the pitch like Fellows does. So, we're missing that. While the ball just doesn't stick with Armstrong upfront. Very much liking Peretz. Cleared multiple balls out of the box coming off his line with punches and constantly talking to the defenders. Huge improvement on previous.

How's he not scored? FFS.

No Fellows and Stewart weakens us significantly in terms of moving the ball up the pitch. Just hope we don't adopt the same tactics we did in the home fixture (hoof and hope for the best). At least Manning and Wood are sitting out again.

Saturday and all other recent games have been dire. Tonight was much better. We attacked with pace and intent on multiple occasions and created good chances that the forwards missed. Rather than Wood and Manning killing our attacks dead before we've even moved up the pitch and stat padding our xG with multiple pot shots against a packed defence and without much hope. Not much of the sideways and backwards shite for sideways and backwards sake tonight. We gave Sheffield United a game and we need to do the same on the weekend.

The same January we signed Onuachu and Sulemana, Bournemouth signed Outtara and Semenyo. We paid £40m for our pair. Bournemouth paid £30m for theirs. We got £24m back from their sales. Bournemouth got £104m back. Good players do move in January, we just can't identify them.

Can't add Morgan Schneiderlin to our list of ex-player staff as he's joined the Chelsea pathway.

Goztepe tried to sign him in the summer. I was interested as he could have been the one player who could have potentially developed into something worthwhile for us based on his QPR performance against us and he since caused us issues at Ashton Gate this season.

https://oatcakefanzine.proboards.com/thread/299282/waste-space-angus-gunn Get ready for the Bazunu version. Personally, I hope he does really well at Stoke so that we never have to see him again.

West Brom seem to have similar owners who are allergic to an experienced manager. Eric Ramsay appointed. Himself, Tom Cleverley and Rohl were the three most heavily linked before Still got the job. See if Ramsay is another dud like Cleverley and Still.

We stitched them up with Gunn on loan previously. Bazunu's worse.

"Portsmouth fans are elite and always cheer their team on.*" For a full house. *Other than the lower profile games they're losing in the Championship.

Can play Portsmyth bingo with Matterface. Henry, the atmosphere, the overpaid players of old that sent them down to League Two, the special club. Anything else?

"I know where this question is coming from in terms of formation, and we started in a back four. I actually think we became a lot more solid going into a back three with those changes." So predictable. A back three forever more then.

Can add Doncaster, 23rd in League One, 12 defeats in 17, 1 win in 17 to the list of underwhelming performances.

Don't think I've ever seen Downes not make a hospital pass. The two goals conceded will be Eckert's excuse to play a back five. He'll say he tried a back four, but we conceded twice against Doncaster, so will stick his five, despite conceding goals for fun every week. The two goals conceded is because we've played with no energy or effort since the first half, not the formation.