We look better in central midfield with Meyler and Irvine. Bowen continues to play well. That's two positives. Unfortunately in defence we have a steaming pile of horseshit. Hector looks ****ing awful, Kingsley is just about the worst left back I can remember - no pace, no skill, never goal side, error prone - shockingly poor signing. Aina keeps on making ****ing stupid schoolboy errors - dribbling and then losing the ball in his own area. Then you've got Dawson in the middle trying to cover the incompetence of those that surround him in defence. We have signed some ****ing horribly gash players. Dicko I haven't seen enough of - but him and Campbell playing as lone strikers at home - poor.
I think my prediction earlier in the season of "Over 2.5 managers" this season is looking about 50/50. He clearly didn't have much input into the signings last month or which players he could retain so he's been dealt a ****ty hand. From people's reactions on here (have only watched about 10 minutes this season) he doesn't have the ability to make the required tactical changes when required. Silva came in with a crap squad and had them looking well drilled within 2 games. I really thought he was going to push on after more training sessions, drilling his style into the players, but it just went flat and he turned out to only be a "very naughty boy." One question I will ask is "has the football reverted to being as bad as the first half against Nantes yet?"
Leo is a great guy, but if we reflect back on the second half of last season, Silva came in with three assistants, including a goalkeeping coach, when in contrast Slutsky is apparently managing alone. The sales, the slightly substandard sloppy signings and the usual plethora of injuries seriously restrict his options. But the only ones to sack are the Allams.
Even if the squad strength is the allams fault the squad we have is still better then the performances we are seeing .. we have a manager used to managing top players in the best team in the league he was in . This is completely different and takes a manager like warnock who can take average players and make them over perform like he is with Cardiff now. This team should have beaten qpr and reading away and Sunderland at home didn't see last night so can't comment I like the manager just think he's the wrong fit for this squad and league
There is no doubt the Allams have not spent the money they could have while still paying off the debt this season but... There is No doubt slutskys coaching has been all over the place. Look what Neil has done with preston. Typically the play-offs do not go well for Preston North End. No one in English league history has failed more often – nine times in 10 attempts – in the post-season than the Lancashire club. That is not to say that if you had offered their fans a top-six finish in pre-season, when their manager Simon Grayson was poached by Sunderland, they would have turned you down. But now, under Alex Neil, even at this early stage in the season, there are genuine hopes of a top-two finish and promotion to the Premier League for the first time. It is not just the numbers – fourth in the table, one defeat in eight, two points from the top – that support this theory, but the manner in which they have gone about their business: no Championship side have conceded fewer goals and they look incisive and attractive going forward, with the much-coveted Jordan Hugill leading the line. It is the numbers on the balance sheet that makes all this even more impressive. Since arriving in July, Neil has made just one permanent signing, Darnell Fisher from Rotherham United. Seeing value in a defender who was part of a relegated side who conceded 98 league goals last season is perhaps a little unconventional. Yet Fisher has been outstanding, and with the help of the others Preston have conceded only twice in the seven league games he has played. Neil has added three other new faces: Stephy Mavididi on loan from Arsenal and two from the under-18s: Callum Roberts and Josh Earl, who has already made the left-back spot his own. Everyone and everything else already existed at in the first-team, yet in the space of 12 weeks, Neil has transformed them from a steady mid-table side that finished the last two seasons in 11th. All the work has been done on the training ground to create a new philosophy focused on counterattacking football and a high press. “I wanted to change the style of play from the previous regime – which had good success at this club, so there’s no mocking that, but I felt looking at the squad there was enough energy and quality to go and play differently,” Neil says. “When the opposition have got the ball, we want it as quickly as possible. We don’t sit off the game and let them have it.. Make them make mistakes. Hurt them in the transitions. When we’ve got it, we want to rotate it quickly, don’t give them a chance to get set and press you, and try to be as aggressive with our passing as we can.” Neil’s high-octane style does come with its downsides. Injuries could be more prevalent while discipline is already poor: Preston are top of the Championship charts by a distance in that regard. The availability of their most important players could wane in the coming months. But talking to Neil, still only 36 years old, you can feel a fire has been lit under him. He speaks in a thick Scottish accent – the only remaining manager in England’s top two leagues to do so – in the same single-minded way that his team plays: with relentless energy. As he prepares for Millwall on Saturday, Neil is a man in a hurry – but between the Norwich sacking in March and Preston hiring him, he had time to reflect on what went wrong in Norfolk. “A learning curve for me was getting to the Premier League with Norwich where I felt at times we had to adjust our approach,” he explains. “Looking back, I would never do that again – I would carry on with the style that I’ve adopted. Now, I’ve got the courage of my convictions in terms of how I want my teams to play. I’ve got complete clarity in my mind.” Neil’s style is only possible with certain players, and he was lucky to inherit attackers who are lung-busting fit and possess great pace and speed of thought: Sean Maguire, signed from Cork City in the summer, and Tom Barkhuizen, a January addition from Morecambe, have particularly impressed alongside Hugill, a square-shouldered six-footer signed from Port Vale in 2014 who was the subject of £8m bids from Wolves and Reading in the summer. Hugill even handed in a transfer request, which was rejected. “Although he’s been promised the riches of wherever, the one thing Jordan did was conduct himself in an immaculate manner. But I did have some difficult conversations with him. We didn’t want to lose our striker; he wanted to try and further his career and make some money for himself. But when the window shut he made it easy for myself, for himself and for the squad.” Without that fee, money remains tight and a strict wage cap remains in place. But signing and polishing young diamonds from the lower leagues and Ireland seems to be working. “I think age is a big thing,” Neil adds. “A lot of the Norwich players had made their money, and there’s a big difference from younger players trying to find their way.” Only Barnsley and Brentford have fielded a younger starting XI than Preston this season in the division. A founding member of the Football League, Preston perhaps do not get the recognition they deserve. “The issue with the club, from an outside perspective, is that we’re one of the clubs that hasn’t been in the modern-day Premier League, says Neil, who took Norwich up via the play-offs in 2015, with North End replacing them by winning the League One version against Swindon. “Because we haven’t been there, we get disregarded to an extent.” Indeed they are one of only five Championship clubs to have never played in the Premier League, but right now they are getting closer with each game.
Agree, let's just hope that Birmingham decide that Saturday's isn't the day to turn their season around.
10 games in...officially time to start looking at the table It does not make pleasant viewing 9 points from 10 games is clear relegation battle form so anyone thinking we're getting promoted is not considering the facts I always struggle with immediately blaming managers, so it's an 'in' from me, but they team are not well drilled at all I think he'll keep us up though
Slutsky is the 4th manager in 15 months. We've gone from a club that just got promoted to the PL with a proven manager in charge, to a club in freefall with crowds halved, all in just over a season. Let's look on the positive side: whatever legacy the Allams leave after their time at City, it has been further ruined by their abysmal attempts at running a once-thriving football club. Incompetent or malevolent? is the usual question levelled at them. Both is the answer. As usual.
Best players sold from an already threadbare squad. Most of the best remaining players on the treatment table. Bunch of players signed with seemingly no plan on how to use them. No coaches to coach them. No surprises we are where we are. Just **** off allams.
These are my thoughts to be honest. I haven't seen this team live yet this season so my impression may be way off but I don't think we have a strong squad or even a particularly strong first 11 available. I dont really understand all the comments above saying this team is better than the league position. I mean is it? This group of players feels no where near as strong as the one that got us promoted last time around.
Slutsky is obviously struggling but I think that's entirely predictable. Who do you replace him with? What decent manager would think Hull City is a good option at the moment? Is that even the main problem? Why push Brucie out when we did? It's been chaos and chancery of the highest order since. He got lucky for a while with Silva but it's well and truly run out now. Big Nige is unattached...oh.
He's managing in Belgium I believe, admitadly it's only a second division team but it's owned by the Leicester owners
But you're comparing now with our old team under our best ever manager. Compare us with preston. Hastily,assembled a few free transfers. John welsh in. Midfield. Our formation looked like three strung across the back. Three strung across midfield. A centre forward isolated and a right winger on his own. Two wing backs, one who can't defend and erratic going forward and a lwb who quite frankly I know not what he is. Clark came on and looked better but still got done all ends up whenever he was ran at. There's far more quality in our team and squad than prestons. That's the manager not coaching his team.
Уважаемый г-н Аллам, Спасибо, что вручил мне ядовитую чашу, когда я ее выпиваю, после поражения Birmingham City... Which loosely translated says: Thanks mr Allam for handing me the poison chalice, do I drink it on Saturday after defeat to Birmingham City.
This is just bollocks. How many internationals in our team and on our bench. How many on prestons? Slutsky isn't getting the best out of our squad. Fact. Three st the back abandoned. Again. It doesn't ****ing work stop playing it.
