Off Topic The General Chat Thread.

Appears that Soyuncu and Dewsbury-Hall were injured ... but nothing explains why Mendy (and Praet) can't get a game ahead of Soumare and Ndidi in midfield ... those 2, combined with a strolling, less than fully committed, Tielemans, leave us with the most pedestrian midfield in the Prem right now

 

I actually thought Ndidi was the only one trying last night....then gets subbed.

How the hell Youri got 90 minutes is beyond me.

Agree with the above...Praet and Mendy should be playing. The thing is with Praet, every time he plays, he is played out of position. And again, Maddison is played out wide?????!!!!! WTF!! Play him centrally behind the striker, that's his best position. 4-3-3 JUST DOES NOT WORK

 

Why haven't the management team seen through Tielemans? The fans certainly have. "Less than fully committed" is a massive understatement. What does he actually do on the field? No tackles again last night, just mouthing off at the ref to make it look like he gives a sh1t. He's a disgrace. There was a lot of watching opponents and backing off, but why can't we get tighter, make tackles and put ourselves about a bit? Those are the things that have given the other relegation strugglers hope. We don't lay a glove on the opposition.

Those injuries to Soyuncu and KDH must have been late occurrences because they came as a complete surprise. Bringing Ricardo in was a leap of faith and ill judged. To ask him to make a comeback in such a vital match was unfair, especially when Thomas and Kristiansen were available.

With still no sign of Mendy being picked and KDH having been overlooked when available I think Smith, Terry and Shakespeare have shown themselves to have been a very poor choice. I wonder how much they will end up costing the club.

 

Those three should be arrested for loitering without intent.

 

When (if) we go down, then IMO EVERY SINGLE PLAYER apart from Tielemans who is out of contract, should not be allowed to leave until at least the January transfer window.
We should take the attitude of "you took us down to the Championship, so you help put us in a position where we have a good chance of returning to the Prem"

 

Nice in theory, but would you really trust any of them to show any effort or loyalty while still banking their Premier League wages? We probably need to free up funds so that the rebuilding process can start. They could surprise us and get us up near the top of the table, but how would we then cope with selling several in January and then relying on a batch of new faces to keep up the momentum? A decent manager would be my first priority, maybe one who is actually capable of picking a team and managing a game through to the end. The last one we had who was capable of doing that was Ranieri. Potter might be a good shout but would have to be given a good package and given complete control, as I'm sure some Prem teams will be after him.

 

I know mate....just still pi$$ed off with our recent performances!

I doubt Potter will drop down to the Championship, but I agree, we need a manager with something about them!

 

Watching Luton v Sunderland last night I was impressed with the effort they put in compared with our embarrassing showing on Monday.

 

I’m starting to think we should have tried O’Neill. I reckon we’d have best trying to stay up through brute force rather than trying a manager who would try and overthink things and tie themselves in knots. Leeds may have made the right call, someone to grab the players and give them a good shake, to wake them up to the position they’re in. It seems our lot are happy to just carry on the way they have been all season.

 

We're going down.
Forest are staying up.
Cov are going to be promoted.

We're watching a real life horror movie. The nightmare is real.

 

Maybe you're right. We'll never know. I wonder if any manager would have been able to bring together what seems like a very fractured group, many of whom don't seem to have that natural fighting team spirit.

 

Need to win tomorrow and I think that will require some thinking outside the box, so:

Iversen

Faes, Evans and Souttar as a 3

Pereira and Kristiansen as wing backs

Mendy holding

Barnes, Maddison, Iheanacho

Vardy

 

What? No Tielemans!!!!!!!! Are you mad? Haven't you seen how well he does in training? You can't drop him!

I take it that Soyuncu and KDH are not available? The trouble with those 3 at the back, besides 2 of them 3 being very slow, is that it leaves our central midfield wide open with only Mendy there. And, although I agree that Castagne has been disappointing lately, I'm not sure Pereira is fit enough for the full 90 minutes so we might need a capable sub. Tielemans maybe? We need a tough tackler who's full of energy!

I'd go with 4 at the back and get 3 workers in midfield, leaving one to guard the central defence, to try and win the ball up higher, bin Barnes, and only use him as a substitute if we need him.

While we need a win, we can't afford to give goals away and hope to outscore them, because it won't happen. Try and keep it tight and nick one on the break would do just as well.

 

Will always be grateful to Youri Tielemans for THAT cup final goal ... but frankly, his attitude since deciding not to sign a new contract has, for me, played a huge part in our current malaise ... any money from his transfer could have been put towards bringing in a younger, hungrier version and his lackadaisical, "off at the end of the season" approach would not have permeated throughout the squad ...

 

Right, I'm gonna call it now. We'll beat Newcastle tonight only to fall apart against West Ham and be relegated.

It would be Leicester all over!!!!

 

I'll call it also. Mendy on the bench. Tielemans starts and expends all his energy mouthing off at the ref. More of the same old, same old. Ineffective and questionable substitutions. Dean Smith says that the team trained well all week and gave it their all. We beat West Ham but Everton stay up. Dean Smith apologises to the fans and says the team trained well all week and gave it their all. John Terry turns the switch on Dean Smith's back to 'off', puts him in a box and carries him off the pitch

 

We won’t beat them with this line up. We have Vardy and Iheanacho up front, but no one is going to get near them to support or provide for them. Ndidi, Tielemans and Soumare never seem to get out of our half.
I saw some talk that Newcastle had a good few injury problems but they look pretty much full strength to me.
I can’t watch!

 

**** knows what Smith sees in training... oh well ...

 

Unexpected point. I know we needed 3 but I was expecting it to be 3-0 after 15 minutes.

All to play for on the final day then.

Oh and we kept something called a clean sheet. I'll Google that

 

There has to be a happy ending to the fairytale. Everton drawing and so are we when Vardy nets a last minute winner to keep us up. Why not?