Lighthouse

It’s not too long ago everyone was insisting a proper keeper was worth 15 points a season. There’s no way Larin, JWP, Scienza, Bree, Slot, Azaz and Matsuki are 15 points worse than the players you mentioned. I’d say they were pretty even overall. This squad should be in the hunt for the autos. Third or fourth and just missing out I can live with, a distant sixth not so much.

Well, I guess the whole, "only picking on Brand because he dared to criticise the vaccines," argument didn’t really pass muster did it?

Nobody is talking about sacking him now but if he finishes the season 5-7th and loses in the playoffs, I won’t be sad if he leaves and no Bundesliga giants will be coming in for him. If you think he’s being held back by injuries now, then I’m afraid Jander, Azaz and Downes are going to be injured for the whole of next season. By injured I mean; f**ked off to a PL team and replaced on the cheap.

The replacements for the injuries we’ve sustained recently are Lewis Dobbin, Nathan Wood and JWP. They would start most games for at least half the teams in this league, probably more. Three years ago we (apparently) achieved the bare minimum of winning the playoffs with Bazunu, Smallbone, Aribo and Edozie making regular starts. Our only striker off the bench was Sekou Mara because our big summer signing was injured for literally the whole season. You can’t be doing worse than that, then getting worried someone is going to poach the manager. Like I said, if he doesn’t take this season’s squad up, he isn’t taking next season’s up either.

If we don’t go up, he’ll be a significant part of the reason and I won’t be sad to see the back of him. If he doesn’t take this squad up, he isn’t taking anyone up, so I’m not sure why we’d want to keep him.

So you think our current coaches are telling players to shoot directly at the keeper and that we need Rickie Lambert to come in and correct this?

I think if I were to choose, Fellows would be the midfielder I would loan out and bring a replacement loan in. I still think he could have a future here, or at the very least command a reasonable fee, he just needs some game time. I’d keep Edozie for the rest of the season, then let him leave on a free in summer.

I've never done any time personally, but my advice would probably be to button his shirt up and get a haircut. Looking like nineties Meredith Brooks from behind is probably not advisable.

I highly doubt that Beattie, Tiss or any of our other previous strikers have some special secret that our current coaches are not aware of. Larin was the league's top scorer before his injury and Azaz has hardly struggled either. Our coaches are generally speaking fine, it's a combination of natural talent and confidence.

He had a bad injury last year but AFAIK has been available for the majority of this season, just not selected. I doubt we’re looking at RBs for January, unless MR wants first team football elsewhere and we’re looking for one in, one out.

I fear you may be grossly overestimating the money we’re going to be spending in January. If we do get another striker it’ll most likely be another loan with DM going back.

If he’s looking for a chance to play in the PL then this is as clearasil get for the foreseeable future.

Nobody's arguing that. The assumption you're making is that Abbott must be the replacement for THB specifically. It's a squad game and overall we're no worse off at CB than last year.

We signed Abbott and Kev to replace THB and Quarshie. I don’t think we’re any worse off overall, and more importantly we’re a net £20m+ better off from the whole thing. Let’s not get too bogged down in guessing which players are replacing which others, specifically.

The fact that he was being kept out of a L2 team by some guy called Ryan Graydon six months ago isn’t much of an endorsement. Between that and the manager who currently watches him every day in training not playing him, I don’t think we’re missing out on much.