Lighthouse

If his positioning is anything to go by, he'll probably be landing in Hamburg shortly.

Literally every player we’ve ever signed has been on the back of what they’ve done for other clubs. There’s no doubt what our current players are capable of, it’s Still’s job to get the best out of them and replicate something close to their best. Onuachu couldn’t hold the ball up because he had breeze block feet and the coordination of a giraffe on crack. Our current strikers are far more refined and capable. If Still was to say, at a press conference, "I can’t get any of these five strikers to replicate anything close to their previous scoring rates at other clubs and I can’t get any of them to hold the ball up and bring others into play either." I’d be seriously worried and would worry what the point in more signings would be. Thankfully he hasn’t and I’m hoping he’s got something better up his sleeve than what we’ve seen so far.

Lovely afternoon in the sun that, great game of cricket in the end. Rain could yet decide the final three I fear. Fingers crossed.

That’s not really true though, is it. The ball was perfectly placed and hit the side netting just inside the right hand post. Bazunu did everything right, making the striker shoot across him, covering the near post and making sure he couldn’t just blast it over his head. If you’re going to allow players the space to shoot that accurately from that close, the chances are it’s going in.

You don’t seem to object to Tella being in that list and he played his third (and final) game for us on 19th August. I stand by my opinion, KWP is the only player I envy from last time. The goals I mentioned are not ‘ifs buts and maybes’ they are literal, actual goals that our strikers have all managed over a sustained period. I’d also like to believe that 6ft 2 Stewart and 6ft 1 BBD might be capable of holding the ball up and bringing others into play. Put it this way. If fans and/or Still think our current strikers aren’t good enough then Christ knows who you’re hoping to get instead.

MF is a very obviously PL player, who plays a high intensity CM role and covers a lot of ground. The fact that Stu played in a slight more advanced role doesn’t negate the fact that Matty is a class act in this league.

Archer had two half season loans in the Championship, scoring 7 and 11 goals respectively. As luck would have it, those 18 goals came in exactly the same number of appearances (40) as Adams made two years ago. Stewart scored 10 in 13 league games before his injury. I’m not expecting that now but he clearly knows how to score. Then there’s BBD, who’s averaged 18 goals a season in his last two full Championship campaigns. So given that all three of those players have individually outscored Che Adams’ rate of 16 goals a season, I am willing to indulge the ‘delusion’ that they might be capable of five goals each this campaign to put them in the same ballpark, collectively.

From a tight angle with no options only means it’s very hard for the striker to get it right, not necessarily that it’s easy for the keeper to save. If the strike is accurate, that goes in far more often than not. It was too far to his left to save with his feet and to close range to expect him to get down with his hand. If I could be bothered I could dig out a dozen similar goals that Ramsdale conceded last year.

We have Fernandes instead of Stu, Dibling and Robinson instead of Tella and BBD, Stewart AND Archer instead of Adams. So no, I don’t envy them.

KWP is the only player from that team that I envy.

The second one? No, it was struck low from about ten yards out, Ramsdale lets that in nine times out of ten.

Archer playing as a 10 off Stewart Armstrong playing wide off Downs BBD and Stewart as a forward pair Archer playing off the last man, with AA in the space behind Armstrong playing wide off Stewart Any number of combinations of the above players would be an improvement on playing our shortest striker alone as a #9 with everyone else on the bench.

Yes. Playing the options we have in the worst possible way has done nothing to change my mind. Even when it clearly wasn't working at HT, he just made a like for like change bringing on our next worst option alone up front. It's like buying the most expensive set of golf clubs you can find, only using the putter for the first nine holes, only using the driver on the back nine, and declaring the clubs are sh*t when you card 107.

I'm not sure I quite understand the double standards being applied when it comes to past achievements. I've noticed quite a high level of enthusiasm in recent years for bringing back Ings, Lallana, Walcott, Romeu, Tadic, Bale and probably a couple of others I can't remember. Players aged 33-36 with fitness issues who are well past their best physically. Contrast this with BBD, who is 26 and has two full Championship seasons scoring 22 and 14 goals, within the last four years. Likewise Armstrong is 28, has three seasons scoring 21, 28 and 16 within the last six years, and a majority of people seem to want to get rid of the pair of them. Maybe it is just completely different people who believe A and B but if we're doing nostalgia I'd much rather hang on to players who've got another five years at their physical peak and try to get them playing the way they were.

Surely this has to be a full strength team as they desperately need to figure out how to play together. I'd give McC a game just for match sharpness and rest R Job because of his age but otherwise, full strength. McC Maddy THB Stephens Manning Downes Charles AA MF Fraser Stewart

Well, I for one wouldn’t. More to the point, collectively I’d definitely take the front four options we have now over him and Mara. It’s really not acceptable that none of them are scoring.

Then at least play the ‘terrible’ players in a good system. Have BBD central, AA out wide and at least have something to stick to up front.

We have Archer, BBD, Fernandes, Robinson and Edwards. Plus Charles is clearly a much better player and Stewart is actually available for selection. They’re easily comparable in quality to the players you’ve listed. I couldn’t say definitively which squad is better but we’re not miles apart in terms of quality in the way you suggest. Including Tella is odd, he had already left by this time two years ago. If you’re going to say that then I’ll include Dibling.

We have five very different strikers, four of which have proven to be very capable at this level in the past. Che Adams was not some kind of superstar that you can’t get promoted without. If Still can’t get goals out of those players then we have a serious problem because they would get a game for 90% of teams in this league.

If nothing else Martin knew to stick Adams front and centre, Armstrong out wide and managed to get just shy of 40 goals from the pair of them. It’s early days but things have got to start getting better than this pretty quickly. We’ve got DD, Archer, BBD or Stewart to play up there with Armstrong. You can argue to toss as to whether they are good enough individually but every man and his dog has always known that going for none of the above and putting AA up top alone is the stupidest option.

Mediocre? Which games have you been watching, he’s looked utterly abysmal so far.

F**k me that was bad, from pretty much all involved. Five at the back is fine, if your WBs are pushing high up the pitch but ours seemed to play more like traditional FB just with three CBs in the middle. Nothing in front of them and trying to go long and central to a dwarf #9. At home to Stoke that really is a poor mindset, Armstrong leading the line, Robinson the creativity and nine ball recyclers behind them. Second half we got forward more but it was barely an improvement. Pass, pass, pass, floaty cross from deep straight down Johansson’s throat. Downs, I know it’s early days but he looks like Onuachu with a fancy hair-do. Downes, an absolute mug for their first goal and poor generally. Still took nine minutes to make a sub after the red card, used up nearly a third of our remaining time. Stewart should have been on at HT for Wood, up ahead of AA. Not doing that immediately against ten men, just to see how it goes is really poor and indecisive on his part. Early days but big improvement needed. Still no goals from any striker in four matches too.

This is true, I think CaM's post can more accurately be edited to say:

Perhaps, when you were 19 years old, you were so mentally head strong that you could perform at your absolute best week after week without exception. Perhaps you were imune to the weight of expectation, the scrutiny of the nation's press and the frustration of 30,000 people watching your every move. Perhaps working in an enviroment where almost everyone else was incompetent would never have affected your performances at all. All those things might be true, however not all 19 year olds necessarily have the same levels of mental resolve that you clearly did. Furthermore, he is under no more obligation to sign a contract with any club than I am to renew mine with Virgin sodding Media.