Saint86

I mean, he absolutely is. He should be an automatic starter imo. The question is who will get dropped to let JWP start because Downes is playing very well alongside him and i think Jander will struggle to get back in to that pairing. Its a great problem to have though - because assuming Jander gets back to his best, we then have Azaz, JWP, Downes, and Jander for the central 3 midfield spots - and thats 4 of the best CMs in the league no questions asked.

Boro appealing desperatley to have him kicked out and Wankshear given the award.

We'll beat them at home this season, no questions. This team is on a mission.

This will always be the case unless we are ourselves top. Which we essentially were after Swansea. All we can do is try to stay top few in the form table - the points will sort themselves out then.

I agree. I am not convinced there are stand out teams so far... although i think the most likely 2 are ourselves and west ham. The 8 team play offs should also keep the league competitive and make it hard to pick up soft points near the end of the season - will impact automatics and relegation places imho. (I'd be worried if i was a shit team this season as so often they put together a nice little run vs sides that have nothing to play for and stay up as a result... not sure that will be the case this season).

A few of the City fans i know reckon they can't defend either. I reckon this will be something like 2-2 (given they are a bogey side for us). The -4points remains an issue for us i think as we're constantly playing a game of catch up (and when we're not winning it adds pressure mentally).

Did Bolton pay us for him? Haven't seen a transfer fee reported anywhere.

Maybe, but we can have them regardless. The Tonda train rolls onwards...

https://fmttmboro.com/index.php?threads/tonda-eckert-news.83872/page-31 Still obsessed and delusional (they have more recent posts on this than we do...), but also starting to realise we aren't going away. Will love it if we torpedo their season.

That went about as well as expected, glad to see Tonda has started reading my posts and taking note 😌 In all seriousness though, good performance from us. Made Swansea look like the rapid press merchants they are, didn't really give them much outside of a sloppy penalty. Let them blow themselves out and punished the mistakes as they came. Wasteful if anything. I hugely dislike this passing back to Peretz, especially with wood. They don't have the first touch or passing to do it - it's an accident waiting to happen and indirectly led to the penalty in this one as well. Great again by Larin, azaz, and Scienza. Onwards and upwards though!

Without the 4 point deduction, we'd currently be top. And yet we've had some fans calling for Eckert to go on social media etc. 🤣😆

I know the foul was given, but that was a superb bit of reading and interception by jwp to stop the through ball.

In fairness to Eckert - he is the only manager to get Stewart fit, he nursed larin very efficiently into the side whilst developing his fitness - and he rotated the two for a very effective end of season. I think its also fair to say that he very successfully managed what I imagine was the most congested fixture congestion of any side in England from the last international break (or certainly for any side with our resources). All evidence suggests he's in top of managing fitness... And he'd equally be getting pelters for overplaying key players and them getting injured.

I agree. But I do think there are some mitigations. We've played 3 horrible sides that have either kicked us off the pitch or outmatched us physically / aerially - or both. Those games were all away, first game of the season at Watford (tough), Birmingham away under the lights (tough - only lost 3 at home last season), and newly promoted Lincoln away (medium/tough as riding on a wave and a cup tie for them). Don't get me wrong, the Lincoln one in particular I was pissed off about as so predictable that we would let them in from the second we went 5 at the back and invited them to cross. Start to the season / summer prep has been upset due to uncertainty over spygate, and due to squad uncertainty. Bound to be a hangover mentally due to missing out on promotion, and the way in which it happened. People do need to remember as well, that he only has a half season of experience as a manager - he is still very young and does make mistakes as a result. What's been impressive with him so far is his ability to learn - but regardless, he does still struggle Vs the physical sides and he needs to figure that out. Vs Millwall and Stoke I think we played pretty well in all seriousness - promising signs on that front. And at least we aren't losing matches we've struggled in.

Thanks for compiling WES. Does highlight that we aren't doing that bad and that part of the fanbase needs to resist the urge to so readily become negative. I feel bad because there used to be a dedicated thread for this, the author of which has passed away and whose name i cannot now remember.