But we were hardly solid when we had Donacien and Nsiala at the back. Our defence is just awful. Not up to standard. Even if we went long-ball and more pragmatic, like we did towards the end of Hurst's tenure, I still think most opponents would get past us and score. We've got two under-performing, seemingly out-of-confidence goalkeepers. Our full-backs are technically limited and Knudsen's head clearly isn't with us since he got back from the World Cup. Chambers is too old and is trying to cover up his deficiencies by taking repeated pot shots at Hurst in the press. None of them can play the ball out from the back or pass the ball properly. We can't even go to five at the back with this lot, because as the first half of Brentford and that awful 3-0 loss against Millwall shows, we can't play that way with this lot. It's just a terrible, terrible squad, stinking out the division. That's what happens when you continuously cut costs and prioritize transfer window profits over investing in a competitive squad. That's what happens when you give a Championship managerial novice carte blanche to sign whoever he wants from the lower leagues without any checks in place. It's what happens when you have no stand-out quality players to paper over the cracks. We can't rely on the likes of Waghorn, Lawrence, and Celina to grab games by the scruff of the neck and drive forwards. The young lads could be that, in a few years time, but they're not there yet.
It's all well and good putting these youngsters in, who probably deserve their chance, and are probably the better option on paper, but you can't have a team full of kids, especially in our position, you need some older heads in there. But, more importantly for me, is we have no fight in that team. No one in the middle to win the ball back, no one to drive us forward...we are just so light and powderpuff. LAst nights game (City v Liverpool) demonstrated how important a role Fernadinho made...for me thats where games are won and lost. You go through all the top teams, and they all have one player in the middle that gets stuck in and dishes out the kicks. Who do we have? Chalobah? Downes? ..do me a favour!
That's why I hope the right back, centre-back, and box-to-box midfielder I've flagged as targets will be senior players, Stretchy. If we can sort out that back four with a bit of seniority and hopefully with the ability to push forwards from the full-back positions, as well as a box-to-box midfielder, we'll look a lot better. I don't see the harm in having Kenlock, Downes, Bishop, and Lankester in and around the first team, particularly as they've been looking our better players in recent weeks. Plus, with the exception of Huws (who is rarely fit) and maybe Edwards, what 'senior' midfield players actually bring any creativity in this squad?
He was looking pretty accomplished under Lambert and seemed to have found his passing range. He reads the game well, but he's not quite the effective defensive player that he was before. I hope Skuse gets phased out of the team, even if we somehow manage to stay up, as we really need to identify a long-term replacement for him. Out of the current lot, I think Downes has the potential to play that role and he's much more agile.
I agree that Downes id the only one of our crop to be able to play that role, but with Skuse's experience, he's the best option we currently have. If though, we can get Huws back to fitness, then i think he'll be the one to take on that mantle
I said last season that out of our current youngsters Downes will go on to have the most successful career.. Even better than Dozzell and he will benefit from the amount of responsibility he is getting this season (whilst not letting anyone down) As for midfield. I know it'll get laughed at but Adayemi still has a big part to play as if/when he's fit he would instantly add the level of physicality (and experience) that we're so badly lacking. He has well over 100 championship games under his belt and has played the deep lying role as well as a box to box midfielder so knows the ropes and can balance out the midfield
If Huws and Adeyami were both fit this season, then we wouldn't be where we are now. So i agree, they would make an excellent pairing
Gents. There IS the nucleus of a solid Championship XI already in the squad. We need a few top quality additions - our biggest shortcoming is the lack of an experienced, commanding, leading holding midfielder to raise our game and help the others in the XI and secondly we need that creativity and those goals. We should be using this window to add a couple of those on permanent deals so we have a good foundation for next year. We need a captain fantastic in the centre of the park.
We know this and its been said many times on this forum but the person that matters ( Evans ) refuses to pay the going rate for quality players, instead he justifies this policy by hiding behind Financial Fair Play rules when everyone knows he's just not interested in taking this Club forward.
Evans needs to realise the bear minimum should be a £3m outlay and £30k salary for every position including understudies. We are talking about £5m in transfer fees per window and a first team wage bill of about £20m per year. That might sound like a lot but some Championship clubs have a wage bill of three times that and it’s not an awful lot more than we are already spending. We are already losing money but we’re not quite spending enough to give a decent manager any kind of chance.
Alright going by that ridiculous logic, Sam Parkin scored on his second game in 05/06 making that a 50% goal return on his first two. He had a far better record prior to joining us that Jackson, so I guess Parkin is like Romario or something. Is that how it works? Will Keane's on fire, your defense is terrorfied, Will Keane's on fire. Skuse is quality massive loss. Very good player and been allowed to play more under Lambert.
Had people been criticising Parkin’s goal scoring ratio at that point then yes I probably would have told them to stop being so silly and made an equivalent comparison.
I thought I would have a dig through the old posts. In the excitement of the whole kerfuffle, what I missed was that WESTLAKE was the first to bring up Gary Lineker's goal scoring record as a comparison. He said "I'm going to dig up the goal machines record for us all to see." You couldn't write it.
Nah lets cut your little digging out of your absolute drivel and being a **** at every given opportunity a rest, it's wearing a bit thin frankly. Whatever I said....... I certainly didn't compare the two and believe their records were the same. You know what was said about Linekar so don't even pretend otherwise Sadly, this embarrassing post at yet another one of the absolute drivel / trying to reverse 180 sums you up as a person. Let me see, if I mention odds and a bookmaker, you'll try and twist that. I honestly thought of late ' Hampy's been alright ' crikey what was I thinking.
Bore off you absolute melt I’m not going back through various articles - especially when everyone knows what’s going on here. I can give it / take things well, however do not take kindly to some absolute embarrassment ( you ) twisting words to suit their pathetic agenda...... childish. Like I’ve said, I have tolerated your absolute gibberish every season gone - and will not be this. Bit my lip bucket loads of times prior to this season..... that’s gone. You have been told to stop trying to cause disharmony and annoy people on this forum. You don’t learn. I’m not quite sure why you’re as difficult as you are on here so often, but hey in any walk of life you get a waste of space. Guess it’s easy behind a keyboard to type s*** though.... So hey, that’s your call. It will kick off in this forum again at some point, as you will no doubt annoy someone else. We all know that, it’s an inevitability with you.
Westy, don’t give it all that. It was you who had the dig about something that happened way back in August. And then the stupid gambling thing again, don’t try to be all high and mighty about it.
