Agree totally about Giles. He’s a player transformed. His attacking prowess is of great benefit to the team but, for me, I’ve been more impressed by his defending as I simply didn’t think he had it in him.
I'm concerned about the attention Sergej may or may not be attracting. Wouldn't be City without something to worry about though!
To be fair , it’s easy to forget we are under some quite serious financial restrictions with how well it’s going
Think Hughes definitely goes in the summer (if we’re not a Premier League club). There’s no point selling him in January as we won’t be able to replace him.
Giles now is the player that Boro had three years ago, I’m so glad we’ve found a manager to bring it out of him.
Maybe that was the plan, loan him to Boro in his "**** state" so they wouldn't want him back ever again. Then unleash the beast.
I think if some big money comes in from the likes of Spurs or Palace, we're not gonna say no. I'm talking north of £20m of course, none of this £12m with "add ons" bullshit we've received in previous years. I wouldn't sell him for £40m if we're still in the playoffs come January 31st and the warnings from 2019 should be fresh in the memory with regards to what happens if you sell your two best players while up near the top end of the table. We should reject it, there's no sense in accepting it, the only two possibilities are if he wants to go or if Acun decides we need the money. Or a new yacht.
I think that ship has well and truly sailed. If we got the mooted £4m offered in the summer I'd be inclined to take it and try and find a loan keeper for the remainder of the season.
And so it goes on! Stop it. There is only one possibility, and that is if he wants to go (with the caveat that the money would also have to be right = much more than the £10 mill already turned down).
We can't buy replacements til the summer and with Semi off to the African Nations I can't imagine we'd leave ourselves with just Egan and Famewo.
We've done unbelievably well to get to the International break higher in the table than we were before the injuries kicked in and Sergei has to take massive credit for that. I do think though that we've sometimes ridden our luck. I'm not mad on the current trend for stats for stats sake, but we're currently 23rd in the Championship for XG differentials, meaning our opponents get far more clear cut chances per game than we do - that's a real compliment to us in that it shows we're more clinical than most, however how sustainable is that over a season? Pompey are the lowest scorers in the entire football league yet they scored twice against us. Yes we've got McBurnie, Millar and Belloumi to return but I'd suggest we really need to address the issue at the back (and I don't think that's just the responsibility of the defence) if we're serious about a playoff place.
The goals were one lucky deflection and one mistake in midfield that was ruthlessly punished. Outside of the last few minutes when we sat deep, I thought Portsmouth didn't offer much at all
I'd also say we've been relatively lucky with who we've faced in this period. Outside of charlton we haven't faced anyone in top form. Qpr isn't too tough off the break, but Ipswich, Stoke and Millwall amongst others will be tricky.
When seeing their second goal back I was surprised to see how little danger was actually caused by Amir giving it away. We still had loads of men behind the ball, I think we should've still been able to stop that cross.
Stop it or defend it? Two very different things. A peach of a cross, when most would probably have gone further down the line giving us a better chance of stopping it, but Devlin did manage to find space inbetween our players.
Some crazy predictions on here in hindsight of picking up players like McBurnie/Ajayi/Lundstram despite the restrictions. Was always going to be up there imo.
You can only beat what's in front of you. Birmingham hadn't lost at home for 29 games and I think have won both home games since we won there. I wouldn't underestimate QPR away. There are no easy games in this league and while the teams you mention above may be tough games for us, they will also be tough games for them. We could lose to all 4 of the teams you mention - but we could equally beat them all. That's the beauty of the championship.
According to the poll at the top most people expected us to finish mid-table with hardly anybody expecting us to be promoted or relegated That doesn't seem crazy to me with a manager who has never worked in this country before and was therefore very much an unknown factor
