Albion on a Friday

Very interesting one what we do with Andre. Clearly a talent, and to be an unused substitute seems a waste. Would be fantastic if we could get both Dozzell and Bishop in my mind both 1 - fully fit 2 - playing well and 3 - in the starting lineup.

Clearly he cannot continue to not get minutes and be happy to stay....!

CM is an interesting one. We now have Skuse / Downes / Chalobah appearing to start - with Bishop and Dozzell back. How long Bishop will remain fit is anyones guess, however his ability to glide past people is a joy to watch. That small jinking run right at the death that bought Lankaster's free kick was fantastic to see.

 

I wouldn’t play them both, Dozzell is probably a better passer but doesn’t run at defenders, he would fare a lot better in a footballing side - Bish gives you more going forward so I would go with him for our ‘style’ of play at the moment.

 

I'd be semi tempted to have Skuse sitting / Dozzell setting the tempo with Bish a little higher up - of course that would mean dropping Chalobah and Downes / being reliant on Bishop / Dozzell both 100%

Nice to FINALLY have some CM options - Nolan + Huws make it 7/3 - of course you can discount Huws right now and we'll have to see how Lambert takes to Nolan. If you count Adeyemi who apparently will be back January time that's 8.....

 

I think his career development has been hampered at Ipswich. He needs a sideways move to another Championship club and to improve his all round game if he’s going to fulfil his potential.

 

There’s no way I’d drop Chalobah - he’s our best midfielder by a mile and the only one who’s really driving toward the opposition box and dropping a pass into feet.

 

Not sure I agree with that - he was chucked in when 16 - I was at his debut at Sheff Weds when he scored but clearly wasn't remotely ready.

Played a good amount until an unfortunate injury - he would have racked up quite a lot of appearances last season you have to feel.

I can agree this season his development with the first team has been limited - however finally fit and getting minutes for England U20s. He'll surely get some game time between now and January. However, if he's not playing much come January 1 somethings going to have to be done one way or other.

 

He needs to be playing in a side pinging passes around - Town are playing a fast build up / counter style and it doesn’t suit a player like Dozzell at all.

 

Hmmm questionable - sure he has good moments but some of his switching off moments is akin to a Sunday league player. People will tell me ' he's young he'll learn' - we cannot afford people learning on the job right now.

He's a very frustrating player - languid, and reminds me somewhat of Pogba.

He does possess power though etc and if he could cut out the mistakes he would definitely not be dropped.

I think he'll be in the first 11 for the foreseeable future, just stating I might try a team minus him for a game at some stage.

 

Fast build up is the complete opposite to counter attack.

You cannot do both!

We're not good with the ball, however I do agree with you Dozzell would probably be suited to a passing side. He might help get the ball out of defence more / collect it better than we currently are doing.

 

Not at the same time Westy, no. What are you on? We drift in and out of games and when the opposition is on top we counter. When we’re on top we work it forward as quickly as possible rather than playing possession football or working the opposition. This doesn’t suit Dozzell at all, he needs to be in a side playing possession football and stretching teams. Or he needs to adapt his game and improve his speed and forward play.

 

Going to ignore the first sentence of you trying to laughably dig yourself out of hole 1000000. Thanks for the usual dig, Mr condescending.

Ultimately we'll see what Lambert decides to do with Dozzell - I'm hopeful he has a big part to play this season yet.

 

Westy, if you’re going to show yourself up by picking holes just to be a snide git when the problem is your own lack of comprehension then you deserve all the condescension frankly.

Anyway, the combination of our ‘style’, and I use the term loosely, with not being enough of a threat in the final third when we need goals from midfield in our current system means Bish would get the nod ahead of Dozzell even though Dozzell has the potential to be the better footballer in the future.

Chalobah can do everything and when you compare him side by side with Dozzell there’s no comparison at the moment. I would really like Dozzell to stay at Town and work hard on through balls, taking on defenders and goalscoring, then we could have quite the player on our hands. In our present situation we just don’t have the luxury to start him every week.

 

Bore off Mr condescending - not my fault you constantly embarrass yourself with absolute guff and have to justify your rubbish time after time after time. Nothing snide about me - you've patronised me for many a year and I've not bit - this season it's not happening. Perhaps I should have spoke up many a year ago about the ignorant way you feel it's acceptable to speak with people, but I bit my lip time after time after time.

If you didn't patronise, then you wouldn't get remarks back. I can quite assure you I'm not the only person on this forum that isn't delighted with your constant patronising of various users on here - sort yourself out. It's frankly embarrassing.

Perhaps Chalobah and Dozzell could play in the same side - at least we have options so we'll have to see what we go for vs Bristol City.

 

If we get relegated nuggets Evans will sell off anyone he can get a price for, the squad we have now won't exist.

 

I’m hoping he will just throw in the towel.

 

I've been hoping the same for years but it doesn't come, and on the mid field subject surely a good player should be able to adapt to what's happening on the pitch? Magilton would be driving forward one minute and making last ditch tackles the next regardless of the system being played.

 

So Evans' fault for not giving Hurst enough money then?

Hurst didn't have to go out and chase the players he did, or pay the money that some of them cost. We spent more on Jackson than Garner and Waghorn together!
Last time we were spending those kind of figures on a striker was for the likes of Priskin or JET from Arsenal, not a low scoring lad from Accrington.
He clearly wanted to make his own team instead of using what we already had and adding to it slowly. I hope he's learned from that mistake.

 

Jackson may yet come into some form - Priskin, JET and Garner certainly didn't set the world alight.

I have no problem at all with the transfers - there were major issues with the squad that were never going to be resolved in one window so I would be interested to hear what you think could have been done differently bearing in mind that if you keep Waghorn and Webster (I think already a done deal anyway) you effectively have no transfer budget. So keeping what we had and 'adding' to the squad was not an option. To my mind, even if we'd kept Webster and Waghorn we still would have needed full backs, a new midfield, wingers and a couple more striking options.

I take issue with sending Woolfenden out on loan, but not with the summer transfers given the hand that Hurst had been dealt.

 

A box to box midfielder, which I think is the type of player Dozzell is aspiring to be, needs to be able to do exactly that and at the moment his forward play is miles away.

 

You're right, JET etc didn't do well for us. My point was the last time we spent that much on a player we were getting internationals that had played premier league.

If Evans had given Hurst the Webster money that should've been enough to add a couple of players. Garner I'm not bothered about so don't mind us selling him and if that money was given back that would add a bit. We saved on McGoldrick's wages and although he's doing ok at the moment I wasn't too bothered getting rid of him either due to his injury plagued time with us. Combine this with loan players going back to parent clubs and Hurst really could've had enough to make a couple of tweaks.

It wasn't the way he wanted to do it though, he wanted his team and he wanted it quickly and made big sacrifices to make it happen.