Did any of us honestly feel Hdlaky would’ve been that solid in the Premier League? He came under criticism last season - rightly so in my opinion - for several high profile mistakes and some erratic goalkeeping. He made some top saves and was good at playing out from the back, but is he Premier League class? I remember a few of us last season saying we needed to upgrade at goalkeeper. He’s not getting game time at Burnley. With Trafford - a goalkeeper Muric ultimately replaced in the Premier League - their main starter. Hdlaky did get game time in the cups, but made a really bad gaffe against Reading and after shipping three in their FA Cup exit to Preston, he’s not played since.
I agree with both of you Nuggets and Hampy. In reality we needed to strengthen our squad last season whatever division we were in. McKenna got every ounce out of that team, they played to the very height of their talents, so we needed strengthening, if anything because we'd lost a lot of our 'reserve' players who were not near Championship level let alone PL. And we weren't going to bring in lesser players. My biggest disappointment, is last season we looked a well oiled team, our patterns of play, resilience, team work, players knowing where each other would be and when to cover, we haven't seen really anything of those partnerships this season. Hladky on paper is nowhere near a PL keeper but he was a huge part in how we played last season and that team was as a whole greater than the sum of its parts. And we have lost that this season. Palmer looks great but again would we have been in a worse position than we are now if we'd have stuck with Hladky? I don't think so.
One of you guys hit the nail on the head at the start of the season, your coach was looking for 2 players for every position, it’s virtually impossible in the PL when spending £120-£150m unless you uncover gems from overseas I’d say totally impossible when you do all your shopping in the Championship. You need players who are good at covering a couple of positions. A CB who is comfortable at fullback, a wide player who’s comfortable right or left If we go up we are going to be in the exact same position, I just hope our scouts have some good players to recommend.
Based on how things stand. Most clubs coming up will need one of the established 17 clubs to have a really off season. Unless something changes it feels like this could be the norm. Saying all this, it's easy to be despondent about the situation but early on in the season if we'd had Palmer in from the start and 1 or 2 of the results had gone our way which they easily couldve done, I'm thinking Villa, Fulham, Leicester and Bournemouth (2 of which we were done by poor ref decisions) we wouldn't be far off Wolves. I know all if buts and maybes but I don't think it's impossible, any clubs coming up will just need to have a perfect season and one of the 17 will need to muck up. I mean Wolves who are 17th in the division pretty much have 3 of Brazils first teamers in their team. As I've said for me last season Summerville was comfortably the best player in the championship and I thought he was destined for one of the PL top clubs...he went to West Ham and has struggled. That says it all about the PL, it's a different and yes as many have been saying recently a more boring world.
Leeds fans would have told you Summerville was a bit of a one trick pony, losing Archie Gray was a much harder pill to swallow and £40m for Rutter seemed good value at the time. All three have had a decent amount of game time to be honest the problem hits when the same team bring in a host of Championship players hoping they’ll all step up. Leeds needed to return last season whilst we still had those players and then tried to build on it. I do agree with you though, you’re always hoping one of the Wolves, Everton or other bottom half teams will slip up. I do think you’ll come straight back up, I think you need to ship out enough players who are not good enough for the PL whilst keeping enough to win promotion and try and sign 2-3 youngsters who might be PL ready with a season in the Championship under their belt Possibly shopping in the top teams academy program with loan options to buy clauses
Hladky situation put an instant sour note on last summer. Obviously we don't know the ins and outs of the negotiations but ultimately he didn't want to be here so it was right to let him go. The mistake was Muric - though I do wonder how our points tally with Muric in goal compares to our points with either Walton or Palmer. All the individual signings made sense. It was the amount of them (which itself was necessary) and how they were used that's been the problem. There's been none of the slow integration that defined previous recruitment and though we finally fielded an unchanged lineup last week I'm still not convinced McKenna knows his strongest team. All that said, I saw an image last week, if the games ended after first goal, we'd be 15th, so we can't have been that far off
If we failed to go up, I’d jump at Clarke but we already knew he isn’t a PL player, he is also a huge confidence player. KP needs Bielsa, he did okay under Southgate but I’d not want him back even if he was free and out of contract. Who would you hope to sign to replace Delap when and if he goes. I’m hoping we can move Bamford on if you want him
Jack Clarke has got stronger. Unfortunately he is now the player we needed him to be in September. As for replacing Delap, Hirst showed yet again today that we’re a better team with him in it.
Would you trust Hirst to score more than 10 goals in a season, I just looked at his stats on Wiki and they don’t look great but you’ll know him better than me. I’m still convinced Jack won’t ever make it in the PL, hope I’m wrong as he’s a decent lad.
Probably with as many games as Delap has had, yeah. There or thereabouts. But the point is he brings other players into the game and creates chances where Delap has tended to give the ball up or take the shot on himself.
Delap is great but we look so much better as a team going forwards with Hirst in it. He scored a mere 7 goals for us in the championship last season but it's about what else he brings to the game. I don't think I've ever appreciated a striker who doesn't score that much as much.
I think we've targeted young players who will hopefully be ready for the Premier league in the near future. The likes of Hutchinson, Philogene, Jack Clarke, and Delap fit the profile. Southampton have seemed to have gone exlusively down that route of buying young and hoping they're Premier League ready. In theory, it makes sense - particularly in terms of investing to make profit to keep funding the team. Sides like Brighton, Brentford, and Fulham have been doing that really well for years. But those sides - and others in the Premier League 'middle class' - initially stayed up by hook or (in Forest's case) by crook. I made the point elsewhere earlier in the season, but the Premier League is a much more physical league than it has been for some years. As a newly promoted club, you're going to go up against full-backs that are stronger and quicker than the Championship. You'll play Premier League defences that are taller than they used to be. And you'll come across sides that have at least one physical, mobile enforcer in central midfield. Young players - particularly those untested at Premier League level, tend to struggle. See Jack Clarke and Philogene for us this season. As we're talking hindsight about our transfer business, what we probably should've done in the summer was to bring in at least one strong central midfielder and bought a bit more physicality to our defence. You'll struggle to get quality and value for money signing domestic players as a newly promoted side - that's where we should've gone abroad. Unfortunately, our scouting network isn't quite up to scratch yet. Cajuste is great on the ball, but he's not a scrapper. Morsy is a scrapper, but he noticeably tires after the hour mark. Phillips isn't physical and - when we're defending leads - has a habit of going missing. Jack Taylor isn't up to Premier League standard - yet (hopefully). If we'd save the money we'd spent towards Phillips' salary and brought in some Ligue 1/Serie A physical central midfielder - we'd be better equipped at defending leads (we've thrown away around 25 odd points from winning positions this season). Looking at our defence with a more critical eye - Davis can't properly defend one-on-ones, Greaves is too error-prone at this level, O'Shea is solid but can't distribute the ball well, Tuanzebe is usually solid but makes at least one bad mistake every match, Woolfenden too slow on the ball, Burgess too slow off the ball, and Ben Johnson is arguably too lightweight at full-back. It's no wonder we've conceded as many goals as we have done. Although I get the Johnson deal was great value for money (and he played really well against Chelsea) - what if we'd targeted a more physical, mobile right back from abroad who had a bit of top division football experience under their belts? If we get back to the Premier League over the next few years - I think we've got to massively expand our scouting network and sign some players that can add physicality and a bit of senior leadership to the squad. I think newly promoted sides these days look at clubs like Brentford, Brighton etc. and think 'if they can stay up playing that style then we can stay up playing that way'. Whereas those sides all needed one or two years to stabilise and survive in the Premier League before evolving their style to a more fluid, entertaining system.
I don't agree with much of this. I think we have been found wanting psychologically - they have been so clearly second best in so many games - and the only reason we have gone close in so many games is because for large chunks of games we park the bus and our forwards have performed exceptionally to be able to create and take chances from so little. Here's why I think we are going to be relegated and it doesn't have much to do with the strength of our playing squad: a) they have been a team of strangers, b) the team chopped and changed constantly, exacerbating point a), c) we have given the opposition too much respect and been content to be pegged back, d) the substitutions have consistently been too late on in games, which is why we've let so many leads slip and come out the wrong side of a tight result, e) Davis keeps gifting goals from a lack of concentration and hasn't offered much going forward but somehow retains his place f) the goalkeeping situation has ultimately cost us our place in the league. If we had had Palmer or Walton in goal and all else was equal we'd be over 30 points now and in the mix for survival.
I think you can take bits from both the last two posts and get the picture of why we've struggled to survive at PL level.Those reasons and the ever increasing gulf between the Championship and PL,it seems to be a pattern that's becoming established that the promoted sides go straight back down and with few exceptions (us last Season and Luton this) they then become yo-yo teams.This failure of regular churning of the PL is only bad news for the rest of the Football League and hardens the us and them status quo.The question is how to break that cycle and stay in (or close) to fair play rules.
It’s very rare, but I have to agree with Yorkie more than this. KP is a very physical player when asked to be, he was almost a yellow card every other game for us, he is a holding midfielder who plays the slot between defence and midfield, happy to slot into the back four when out of position and making himself available for an easy pass when building from the back If your coach is not playing 4-1-x-x then why sign him would be my question. I said before the season began Leif would be caught out, you really need full backs with positional sense who can defend in the PL Clarke won’t ever be a PL player, his level is Championship. Your coach came across like a kid in a candy shop with his signings, not sure who his best 11 was, wrongly thinking you can do what you did in the Championship as you did the PL You can’t go toe to toe with established PL teams as player for player they’re years ahead with the finances to keep on improving, you need to out coach your opposite number Mentality is also huge at every level, Leeds crumbling last season, Sheffield this season, losing becomes a habbit, winning breeds confidence It sounds too like your keeper has lost you valuable points, Meslier has cost us a minimum of 8 points this season, Farke should have swapped him out much sooner
