Yeah that was a crazy and completely unnecessary decision as surely he had multiple years on his current one. Maybe there really were credible links of other clubs wanting him ?
The lowlight for me was when we broke forward down the left on about 80 minutes. I think BBD had the ball and I looked to see who was in the box. There where you'd expect a striker to be was... Smallbone. Lovely.
We'd have been better off not getting them at all. Massive waste of money. Wed be better off playing tall Paul. Archer is going to be a massive flop for us this season. He'll score 2, tops. BBD 5. But he made us all laugh by cheating so that makes him a good lad according to the clubs social media. Who is responsible for identifying targets at the club, is it RM?
Just out the ground. We are definItely going down on that showing. Smallbone and Aribo nowhere near Premier class. On the bright side I thought Dibling was the best player on the pitch when he came on and Fernandes looked decent. And Archer is not even Championship quality.
Never mind me old fruit it's only 2 games in. At least Eastleigh are still top of the Conference and the skates gave away a last minute penalty to be denied victory at Boro so a mixed day for me.
So. It’s bad. But there were some vaguely positive observations. We were second best but I think we looked further off when we first came up under Adkins (first game aside), we did have a spell where we were on top between half time and their goal. Subs mostly had a positive impact, Dibling looks like he should be starting, Fernandes was getting into better positions than anyone else did all game, shame the passes to him were poor. KWP is still good at PL level (if we lose him we might as well give up). For the most part we looked fairly solid at the back, but that goal was a disasterclass. Cons Outside of 45-65 mins we were poor. I don’t think I have ever seen a more toothless side, we are down about a £20-30m striker and we aren’t going to get it. But equally if we did, where is the service coming from. That faffing about in injury time was absolutely pathetic, I’d go as far as saying some players looked like they had given up. I think to play our style in the PL you basically need to be utterly flawless, but I think our passing beyond 5 foot away is woeful.
Agree. Knee jerk reactions. Result (and how we played) disappointing and worrying, but we have been here before and then picked up some results and all rainbows and unicorns again. Need to get further into season before making judgements. Don’t want all those managerial changes that saw us relegated before.
I think it's just SR doing SR things. Besides if it's not broken, break it. (Or something along those lines) Dicks.
I agree but this game, combined with the interviews Martin's given to papers where he's talked about not liking the playoff final performance (a performance some had hoped was a sign he was prepared to be more pragmatic at times) have reminded me why I was so pessimistic about this season.
Last week's performance gave us a little hope. This week's performance has shown the lack of quality against a very average side. Positive, we could still get 108 points.
As is the football fan way, people getting a little over-hyped about where we are, especially about how bad we are. We're not actually a million miles off, if we can get a couple more in. Once Les and Fernandes are up to speed, if we can get a half capable striker, we could be okay. What I'd like to see is - Biljow Suga THB Beddy KWP Big Les Flynn Dibling Fernandes BBD An actual striker
Then the issue becomes how many we concede with a back 4. We’ve looked solid with a 5 so far, but still ended up losing and not scoring. I think if we play a 4 we would be conceding a lot more chances and goals
For a manager who prides himself on playing attacking football and being 'brave' to play 70 minutes at home against a relegation rival without a striker I find genuinely astonishing.
Russell Martin's side remain winless in their previous 15 Premier League matches and without a goal in their past two.
Thing is, their goal was actually quite fortunate with the deflection, and without that it was a 0-0 all day long, and a point on the board. That doesn’t disguise our issues, but let’s wait and see what happens by the end of the window.
Well it’s not Russell Martin’s side that’s been winless, apart from in two games. Quite an important distinction.
