Saint86

Apparently he's had 4 years out of the management game, makes you wonder if he's had some troubles at home etc. Either way, its a slightly interesting appointment by Cambridge. You'd think he's probably far too good a manager for them in truth? So mildly curious to see what happens to him with that one. Surely the last throw of the dice for him re potential failure... if all he can get now is Cambridge anyway... 🙈

FFP / PSR is a sham in any case. It exists solely to cement the top clubs in near unassailable positions, with commercial revenues far in excess of anything upstart clubs can muster, and with almost guaranteed access to the UEFA millions as well. We got screwed by the big clubs before, Leicester at least got Champions League money and a league title before eventually falling away, and Brighton will be the next team to be stripped and sent packing. Clubs like Newcastle and Villa (with mega rich owners that can underwrite any debts) will not be allowed to threaten the established elite (unlike City, Chelsea, Blackburn etc did historically), and its all out of fear of the big clubs breaking away to form a super league. Meanwhile Uefa have essentially created one anyway with their new champions league, and all that is really happening is an ever greater long term competitive divide between the top 5-6 clubs and the rest of the league. Just look at united, shite for years, minimal prize money domestically or continentally, awful transfer business over nearly a decade... and yet Villa dare to have one expensive summer and they face being slapped down, whilst United have an uncompetitive spend which is protected almost indefinitely because of their established "big club" commercial clout. If they don't rebalance these finances controls fairly, they'll kill football for most people.

I mean, pretty much all self inflicted by Sports Republic. Imagine another scenario where they'd not undermined and sacked Ralph (the best manager of their tenure by far), and instead actually gone out and purchased a striker for circa £30M. Actually, i'm not fussy, Openda for £6-8M would have done that summer.... Now granted, thats just one of many possible futures that would have likely seen us still in the premier league - and with a a far better outlook for the years ahead than we have now 😰 .... Woops. Ah well, its fun being the top dogs in the 2nd tier, seeing all our best players and academy prospects being poached, and gradually losing our competitive edge the longer we stay down here 🤣

Sad fact is a lot of people predicted the form of Leicester, yet we failed to capitalise on it. We should be more like 2 points of top after today's win, not 5 points of second. Just need to get through this week with max points if we can. Then see where we stand. If we're still 5 points off when we come back from the international break then we're very likely to be in the playoffs with at least one side at least our equal.

Agree. But to be honest his entire post was pretty embarrassing from where i'm sitting. He could've celebrated the win, but instead he decided to act like a condescending bell end to other supporters. To each their own i guess. As to your point - The amount of goals we're conceding (let alone as a side chasing automatic promotion vs relegation threatened sides) is totally unacceptable and a huge cause for concern - and it comes entirely from the manager's tactics, selection, and set up... Need to get through this week with max points and then get into the break, and then seriously get our defensive shape and efficient ball retention sorted.

Really quite an important win. Not just because of what the other sides have done, but also because it sets us up for this week and hopefully means we can hopefully go into this impending break with some positivity.

Thank god for that!

I hope you aren't trying to imply that he is in someway one of the manager's favourites😶

Last chance saloon with the subs here then.

Notable that they scored after we took off our CM for a CAM again. We cannot defend when 5 of the 6 are attacking players ffs.

Utterly pathetic. What are we doing?

Haha, yes Willy, get stuck in there!! (Martin, get smallbone off now please).

I think it probably was on balance, could have been very very dangerous had he caught smallbone on the knee.

Awful corner by Smallbone, but makes up with it with that cross. Perfectly placed for che (even if he did almost fall over!!)

If you could spend your time slagging off bazunu and manning we might keep some clean sheets!! 🤣 Great goal by brooks though!!! As others were calling for... he had a go!

Disagree. For basically every loss we've made 4-5 changes, most unforced, and we've broadly decided to line up with no CDM, or with just one defensive player and the other 5 midfield/attack players being just CAMs/wingers/strikers... absolutely zero defensive shape. Totally lost the plot and unsettled team. Our defensive woes come because defensively, the central 3rd of the field just hasn't existed. Look at the vast majority of the goals, the other team goes straight through us.

He says this shit every week. Fields a team with far better players, then says we've had a few chances and should have been out of sight. As if that in someway excuses the frankly appalling defensive balance to the side.

Isn't mates with the manager though is he.

Manning went for that header even though bednarek went for it, and then wasn't ready for what happened. Basic stuff.

Good run and effort by Smallbone there.

We really should be winning this today. Perhaps naively, i still expect us to, and for it to be relatively easy by the end. Dropping more points would be absolutely unacceptable however.

Its more that we play a highly drilled style of football, and then we unsettled it by going out and signing a load of players mates from Bompey and putting them straight into the team, whilst also loaning out Alcaraz, and not signing sufficient cover for CDM/RB, or just a first team LB. But its okay guys, we've got £170M burning a hole in our pockets ready for the prem, and we absolutely won't regret selling JWP over having that £27M.

Goes without saying sadly. But Rothwell is mates with AA, Stephens, and brooks... Whilst Martin didn't really fancy alcaraz. On the face of it though, it was a silly bit of business that one, at least from a squad quality and balance perspective. I know I've said it before, but that loan could have been used to get cover at full back or at cdm...

Oh pull the other one ffs. Why are people making so many excuses for last nights limp display, was very poor from us. Kelleher (aged 25, backup keeper and behind baz for ireland) Quasah (21... was at least getting a few minutes of men's football at bristol rovers last year) VVD (32, the bulk of their starting 11's average age covered in one player - proceeded to play for 45min before being replaced). Tsimikas (Squad player, hasn't feature for more than 1 minute in the last 8 league matches!) McDonnell (19... Has 3 appearances total of senior football, a smattering of minutes...) Gomez (Not a first 11 player but is covering for Matip. Played as CDM, which he isn't, to cover for their much weakened squad) Clark (19 years old, has 27minutes of first team football in the league this season). Elliot (20year old squad player, but granted he'd get into our team like as not). Gakpo (Squad player for them, starting because of injuries but suffering horrendous low confidence / form and not playing at all well - looked far far worse that mara last night which says a lot). Koumas (18, near as i can tell, that was his first ever appearance at senior level). As for some of their subs: Kaide Gordan (19 - No minutes in the league this season) - Came on for Gakpo Jayden Danns (18 - 1 minute in the league this season) - Came on for Koumas Trey Nyoni (16 - First senior appearance) - Came on for Elliot MacAllister - did at least strengthen them (not that they needed it...) by coming on for McConnel Konate (came on for VVD at half time). Fairly irrelevant in the grand scheme of this comparison given both of them walk into our team. "Top of the premier league" Quite - We lost to (and were comfortably outplayed by) a bunch of kids with basically no senior football experience. Incredibly poor by us, and worrying how all the confidence has drained out of us.

We aren't getting automatics. So trying to win a winnable game was the correct thing re stopping the rot. If you read my post, i have said playing charles as a defensive mid is the correct thing, my issue is that the other 5 players are all being asked to do attacking roles. We need a conventional CM alongside the anchor man, and then a more attacking CM. The last game we did that we won (smallbone, charles, stu vs west brom - clean sheet). The other issue is that he's just making too many changes per match, which hes committed to now. Would have been better to have started making 1-2changes and giving players a rest over a longer period without unsettling the side as much, as it is we're consistently making 3-5 changes every game, and its clearly disjointed our play. We are where we are now, but he needs to get this sorted by the playoffs, and right now i can't see us beating the likes of hull or ipswich via the playoffs. 1 Win and 5 losses in 6, with 13 goals conceded in 5 of those games. 3 against an u18s side (anyone comparing ages is ignoring minutes played and experience) and two vs a terrible millwall side at home on the weekend. We're in freefall currently.