Just for fun; Millwall H - Win Birmingham H - Win Hull A - Draw Sheffield A - Win Plymouth H - Draw Leicester H - Lose 11 POINTS
I think after one win in the last five Bullit is in real trouble if he loses the next, that will drop us in the bottom half after being in the top six...if he loses the next two hes gone. He only won that one game because he took Meitie off and brought Ugbo on to score a late winner, not that he gets any thanks on here. Without Ugbo we would have had 2 draws from the last 5 and lost 3.
Without Ubgo - And possibly a different striker who contributes a whole lot more to the team effort than the goal hanger.
I can think of a couple of people worth stabbing. One's name begins with U (nothing personal against him other than he is a crap footballer) and the other one's name starts with j.
A win at Hull could be a tough ask - odds against Philogene scoring? But a home win v Plymouth is achievable. = 12 points. Not unhappy with that.
The overriding concern is that since day one this season we haven’t had a decent no 9. For all the merits or otherwise of Ugbo, Meite has been probably worse. Unsure why Etete didn’t start the last 2 games. He did well when he started before he got injured. I’d start Etete now until Moore comes.
As I have said before Nin, while his failure to score regularly can't be ignored, Meite still does far more for the team effort than the goal hanger. He puts himself about, unsettles defenders and has a good turn of pace. Ugbo does none of that. Apart from point blank tap ins (which anyone can do) Ugbo does nothing else of use.
I wonder if Bulut's repeated comments that he needs new players to get to the "next level" is having an adverse effect on the current squad. Maybe he was expecting it to spur them on to better things but has really psychologically slapped them down as a team. Social vids put out by the club on the website display off-pitch cameraderie amongst the players but that could be very superficial when it comes to doing the business out there. It's obvious we need to improve by bringing in the maximum amount of skill that the budget will allow, but a manager constantly blaming his current squad isn't going to help matters. We're a million miles away from Pep and Klopp but the principle is the same. When it goes wrong they invariably shoulder the responsibility themselves and defend their players rather than slate them. Bulut and his coaches have a responsibility to get the best out what we've got - at the moment I don't think that's being achieved.
I think as a squad we are still higher than where we should be. If we had our best 11 on the pitch week in week out wed be a top 10 side. Unfortunately we are now relying on players who are not up to this level. Those are the players that need replacing and theres a lot of them Rino Romeo Sawyers Adams Campbell. Runnarson and Ugbo need to go back to their parent clubs to allow better loans. Also 3 of our key players Ralls to a lesser extent but O Dowda and Ramsey in particular are constantly injured. They are 3 genuine top end Championship players buts its no good if your not playing. Its going to be a tough end to the year and if we dont scramble a few points we are going to find ourselves in amongst it with the bottom clubs.
It's interesting thinking about the same discussion that was had half a dozen games back. I'm certainly feeling more negative than I was then. Also, Erol hasn't covered himself in glory in that last half dozen games. My glass is now half empty.
It’s been hard watching our games for a little while now after a bright start to the season. I suppose we were punching above our weight but thankfully we’ve got 30 points in the bank. Our wins v PNE & Millwall were streaky but earned by perseverance and hard work. That seems to have been missing in recent games. I thought Southampton were miles ahead of us but so were Hull yesterday which I hadn’t expected. Their loan players are from Man C, Liverpool & Burnley and were streets ahead of our players yesterday whilst City were pedestrian, clumsy and powderpuff. Plymouth aside which should represent our best chance of a win is sandwiched between away trips to resurgent SW and QPR whilst Leicester will presumably be far too strong for us. If we get 4-5 points from these fixtures it should keep us in the top half but unless there’s serious quality coming in January and Ramsey recovers the rest of the season will be about survival and planning for next season.
Difficult to get these last 2 abysmal performances out my head, and in all honesty we're only relatively safe right now through a couple of streaky wins against Millwall and Preston. Without those 2 wins we'd be below the jacks right now. There's still plenty to play for though rather than just staying up. Committing a wadge of money in January to challenge this season is still plausible but should be more biased toward future proofing the club beyond that. Bulut says he's only been given a year in the job to do it - but to do what? The 3 staged targets were safety, mid table consolidation, and ultimately challenging for promotion. Unless we suffer a complete collapse, the first one has been achieved. The second one is comfortably within our grasp with the right January acquisitions, the final one is a top 6 challenge is still a possiblity however remote some may think. As far as this season goes, I think we could make a big mistake relying on Ramsey and O'Dowda to pull us around in the second half. As good as they've been in the past, there are no guarantees. We need viable replacements in those positions as well as a few others currently playing - we all know who they are.
Last 8 games 2 wins...one of those because Ugbo came on and scored. Still everyone on here thinks playing Meitie, Wintle, Grant and Siopsis is a good idea. Keeping good players on the bench and taking good players off is a master stroke. If we lose the next game we have 2 wins in 9 games, and you are ok with that? Bullut should have gone after the Ipswich farce and everyone knows he cost us that game.
