joey_big_nose

Taking a punt on robbie savage to me seems like a great shout from Suhail and Gestedes perspective - boss who will gett immediate buy in from the fans, would definitely take the job. But hes a bigger character than both of them and they wont want to have to deal with that. From my perspective when you are in a relegation fight promoting someone 3 divisions to become your manager to dig you out is a very confident thing to do....

Its not harsh - he routinely makes bad passes and runs, surrendering possession time after time - across the last two months. When he was doing the basics right back at the start of the season he wasn't attracting criticism. Baradji has similar issues. We cant keep on shooting ourselves in the foot in good positions, we do it time after time. Id take Cantwell out of the XI for a bit.

Hedges would transform our ability to stay up. Far far far away our best left sided player. Hes got his faults but he is a long way ahead of most of the squad.

Yes, I like Jorgensen runs, quite intelligent. Doesn't seem particularly quick or strong or technical though. So i wonder how he beats a defender. That said Gudjonsen looked a total passenger when he arrived, but as hes gone on his link up play and ability to compete with defenders have really improved. So all we can do is hope for something similar.

No way we can play Morishita at left wing back.... He can't get up and down, and even if he could he cant physically compete on the ball. Our only real hope for 352 - based on no evidence i can point to - is Afolayan can do it. But is he even left footed? This says no : https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/oladapo-afolayan/profil/spieler/487850 If we do try it I guess we might just use Pickering but expect him to tuck in and focus on defence, and give Alebiouso free rain down the right and let the LCM (Mori below) focus on getting forward in the left channel. Still its obvious for the opposition to target our left side in 352 as Pickering/Riberio can get done for pace easily, and De Neve has such incredibly poor defensive awareness. Toth Miller Carter Cashin Alebiosu Baradji Tronstad Morishita Pickering Jorgensen. Gudjonsen I think 352 goes in the bin till Hedges is fit or we use it to close out games. On the positive side having Ohashi to bring on fresh should improve our ability to close out games significantly. And I agree Cantwell needs to be dropped. Absolutely horrendous decision making and execution of passing recently, though cant fault him for effort. 4231 obviously suits us better defensively now. But then as we have no comfortable wide forwards, offensively it looks very unsatisfying. I guess we could just push Alebiouso forward... But his game is about the overlap. Gah, such horrendous squad planning. Toth Alebiouso. Carter. McLoughlin. Cashin. Baradji Tronstad Afolayan Mori Jorgensen. Gudjonsen

After poor start Cashin looks a much better defender than any of our other (many) left backs. Great in the air. Maybe not such a bad signing.

The key there was Eustace could see be had a good management team to work with ....

I don't think the likes of Martin would touch us even if we wanted him. It will end up being someone who would do well to get a job in League One, just because for someone whose can realistically compete for a decent Championship job will see taking us on as too risky for their career. A bad few months with us could knock them down a division in their next job. Its different in the summer if you have a window and a full pre seaso. But here anyone decent knows they will be hostage to the clown show. Not having any credible football people at all (such as Waggott like him or loathe him ) a manager has to ask himself will he risk their future success for Gestede and Suhail... Rowett has such a bad recent cv he might go for us in a desperate move.

Detached infamously bad owner + Terrible press about pitch + fan base in revolt + in ability to retain good players + lack of Championship experience in squad + joke of leadership team + no money to spend + transfer window already gone+ in relegation places + huge amount of injuries= manager who is desperate. We are shopping a level or two below Ismael. We are going to have to get very lucky.

Id say money is just part of it. Even more important is we have owners who know nothing about football and no interest. As a result we've ended up with absolute chancers top to bottom and run out of luck. Motivated interested owners with the same money available would do a lot better by making decisions based on some understanding of the game and reacting quickly and sensibly when things go wrong....

What i dont get is what manager walks away on a 2 year remaining deal when the next job might be months, even years away. Sort of feels like potentially ' 1) He had a no or small compensation clause in the contract if we fired him 2) We've paid him off on the condition it was reported as mutual agreement.

Selling Alebiouso while staring down the barrel of relegation would be an act so stupid I cant even see our clowns doing it. The summer is only 4 months away, his value isnt going to decline, and we really really need him.

Going through who scored it does seem Dapo has a decent amount of experience playing wide. Anyone know much about him? Can he beat a full back? Quick, tricky, strong? Since he went up to the Budesliga 1 his stats have been diabolical. Okay in Bundesliga 2, but not sure how that compares to the Championship. There are some absolutely massive clubs in B2 (Schalke, Hertha, Dusseldorf) so the quality might not be far off?

True but we dont have anyone who can attack down the left at all...

Yup the journey as an experienced fan is to recognise playing well is a mugs game... Have a shit midfield, cant string a pass together, but make sure you have a defence who won't concede and strikers who put the opportunitues away. You start with that and fill out the middle as a luxury.

If that means we can start again without Venkys i am all for it.

De Neve has been directly linked to us conceding half a dozen goals... Why have we brought him on?

Hes been so rubbish since coming back from injury. We could have used his wages to pay for a bump for Travis and Hyam and be infinitely better off. So ironic we have a wage ceiling but a player who has 4x it who offers so little.

That's the issue really.... I don't think we have ever been a situation where we have had so few wide players back to front. Only Alebiousu is more comfortable out wide than central of all 20 players on that squad. Even Pickering is a left back whose best game is coming inside to support the midfield, not overalapping and getting to the touchline. Really horrendous squad planning.

Agreed... we've got into a real mismash where some players suit 352 more, and some 4231, and we look very confused all over the place. In October we looked reasonably settled, and while we were obviously going to have a bad season there was enough there to stay up. But the injuries (very predictable...) and the absolutely crazy transfer window (why sign another left back who can't play left wing back when we don't have a fit lwb or left wing? why sign a striker who plays in a front three? why sign no other players??) has really tipped us into looking odds on for relegation. I can only hope it's enough for Venkys to decide to exit.

Id aim to get back to the 352 personally, it suits us when everyone is fit. Just been stupid we have stuck with it without Alebiouso, Hedges, Gudjonsen. We absolutely have to sign a left wing back. But I can see the money men saying - quite logically - that we have to shift two out of Riberio, Pickering and De Neve first.

He can be quite good on form. I wasn't a fan last season but this year August to October he was quite good, and surprised me by being motivated by the captaincy and clearly his intensity upping a bit. But then got injured and off the boil again (although to be fair to him he still works very hard). Not worth the money imo. If he was unavailable and we played Baradji and Mori as the attacking mids I wouldn't expect any real change in the quality of our attack. Maybe be a bit better on recent form.

Yes this is true - performance similar to where we were in October - competivie but very blunt going forward. Do feel that Watford were really really poor though. A better team could have hurt us quite easily. But then again Watford are top eight so maybe this is the standard. Need Gudjonsen back to give us a bit of threat. And we need to figure out what we are doing down the left side - its a real mess without Hedges. We can't end the window without having something serviceable there - we've got four (!!!!!!!!) left backs / wing backs and they all can't do the job - i.e. be able to both defend or get forward across the full length of the pitch - at LWB (Cashin, Pickering, RIberio, De Neve). That said if we're looking to get an attacking option on at LWB at the end of the game like today surely Powell would have been a better option. How did he not make the bench? He looked pretty good against Swansea.

I really doubt anyone will fancy him and his wages in the UK. Could see a Saudi club or something like that going for him.

Cantwell has been so poor today. Since his injury hes been a total waste of space. No lack of effort or interest, just gets so many simple passes completely wrong.