We don’t to have a big lump who’s crap on the ball and slow. I think footballs changed and the physical aspect is important again. Look at Man City’s defence every one of them can play out from the back and they’re all massive. Arsenal and Liverpools 2 regular CB’s great on the ball and quick, all 4 are 6’4+ I believe.
Will Amad not be going to the African cup? Could lose him for a fair chunk if so, sure I read Ba and Adil have switched to play for African nations too
Aouchiche probably has a shout as he’s Algerian iirc but Ba is from Mauritius so I’m not sure he’d be switching to play for them! Could be wrong though
Ba was mentioned but I can’t remember the nation, I probably should stop passing on info from things I’ve half arsed read really
TBH, with Jobe, Ekwah, etc, we shouldn't have a massive problem with set pieces. I've no idea how we compare with other teams tbh ... ... it's impossible to stop every set piece goal.
https://theanalyst.com/eu/2023/08/championship-stats-2023-24-opta/ Looking at this, we have had 69 shots from set pieces which is the 2nd most, but have only scored 4 goals which is around average for the league. This is not including penalties. Defensively, we have conceded 43 shots from set pieces which is one of the lower totals in the league but have conceded 5 set piece goals which is one of the highest totals. Also not including penalties.
On track to get ten more points than last season, which is what I tend to use as an indicator of progress.
Looking like 67-70 points for 6th place and i would take that now, i guessed right last season with 69, top 2 80-83 points, so 13 wins and 8 draws will do it out of 31.
generally, well happy with the squad and the club itself as we see improvements across the board continuing, definite progress. on the playing side we are still being entertained and as i said at the start of the season we would have 'downers' as well as the 'uppers' with these lads, so far i can think of only one game where we looked lost and that, of course, was boro.
Only been Leicester look better than us so far. Add some goals and a right top 6 will help make ground back on Ipswich.
Have to disagree. Ipswich a better side than we are I think. Very well organised. Leeds too. Beauty of football I suppose, different opinions.
Leeds are finding their form now I think come the turn of the year they’ll be right up there for battling for 1st with Leicester.
Right, I thought Leeds were better than Leicester in their win, and I'm just hoping Ipswich will run out of steam. But more than two tong teams helps us catch up if we can find the extra goals needed. And stop conceding at set pieces. I'm almost expecting a goal on those everytime at the momement, so I suppose it is a bit nuts to be talking about top two at the same time.
The lads left from last season appear to have improved as the points return is on course to at least equal last seasons and that's to their credit because Amad was irreplaceable really and Stewart has gone too. Neil and Ekwah especially imo. Bellingham and Rigg have added to our depth of squad I'd say the best we can hope for is probably 5th
I do agree with some of the points raised about the squad and some of the inconsistencies we can see, however I still believe the sky is the limit for these young lads and think at times they can look fearless. I don't think any team we have played has run over us and in most cases we have competed very well with teams who are expected to be much better than us, I think it is refreshing going into games and feeling confident about not only getting a good result but that we will mostly do that playing attractive attacking football. Not all results will go our way for a number of reasons as we have already seen and not all of us will agree on things but I hope we can agree that the direction and trajectory the club is on, is working and on the face of it is working very well. In the last transfer window near the end, there were a lot of fans panicking about player sales and it amounted to a bit of a melt down, I think the club are stronger than in the past and are a bit more shrewd in how they do their business these days so am still inclined to put my faith in them to make the right decisions for our future, and it has been a long time since I have been able to say that.
