joey_big_nose

Can say the same of Alebiouso. Tactically we haven't changed anything, just comes in and plays as Brittain did.

Thought the real standouts were Alebiousu , Hedges and Cantwell. All were really superb. McCloughlin looks a top addition as well both from today and the two prior games. All in all despite us as fans mostly jumping off the deep end its hard really to look at the first three games and say the squad quality has decreased really. Alebiousu looks a superb alternative to Brittain, McCloughlin has give us what Batth did. Toth looks better than Pears, Kargbo to me looks a similar sort of level to Dolan albeit in a different sort of way. Only area that worries me in terms of being weaker than last term is central midfield where I think we did miss Travis' energy when Hull got on top for a bit in the first half. Tavares its way too early to conclusively judge but I am not at all convinced. He seems to want to dictate more than get stuck in and him and Tronstad make an awkward pair imo. Figuring out the long term partner for Tronstad is key. Hope Tavares can up his tempo a bit and grow into the role as he obviousy does have some quality. But he's going to have to get a lot fitter. Obviously we need a bit more upfront too. Ohashi's workrate is immense and he deserved his goal, and Hedges had one of his best ever games, and Kargbo played a lovely pass for the first goal. But Gueye was very poor again when he came on and Henricksson is not looking like a big impact player so far. We probably need two proven attacking players who the opposition would really fear coming off the bench.

I think Kargbo has done well. Hes a threat every game and had a great assist. Cantwell has been great. But he and Tavares do look loose in midfield. Hes lost it centrally a few times through too many touches and i would really like him to stop doing that!

Got a lot more pace though.

We certainly look to have signed an ideal replacement. Id definitely bring Montgomery on now. Tavares is completely blowing.

Is Ohashi the hardest working Rover of all time? Hes got to be up there.

Ah yeah... There we go. Probably need to give him a go. Think hes really struggled at full back but at centre mid hes got to be able to up the energy. Id make the change at HT.

Not convinced myself. Tavares has a nice Ngozi style languid neat one touch, but Travis in the last couple of years made some really good forward passing which I haven't seen from Tavares yet. Tavares needs to moving 30% quicker. Hes trying to slow the game down to his speed but you cant do that in the Championship. He needs to up the revs. But not in this game as he'll get sent off. Issue is Henrickson looks a card machine also, and i think hes more of a ten. Hmmm....

Think id get Tavares off... He's booked now and Id fancy him to get sent off. Not at the pace of the game. Not sure who comes in though? Henricksson?

Overall really good performance so far. That said set pieces still shocking. And without Trav we do look like we dont have much bite in the middle.

Hedges has started the season really well to be fair.

Really wish Canwell took less touches. He get needlessly robbed. Great goal by Hedges, with lovely through ball by Kargbo.

I agree that we have not actually played that badly so far and have been pretty unlucky not to have any points. In terms of whether the team is any good... Too early to tell really. Signs are good defensively but lacking ideas going forward. Really need Abeliousu, Ohashi, Kargbo and Cantwell to find some effective link and patterns between them as all our attacking play will come through them. Hope they've been really focusing on that all week in training.

Well we have an option so in effect he is contracted to us to 2027 if we want him. So we have voluntarily pre-agreed a transfer value with San Diego. It's a bit of a puzzling one - what is there in it for us to pre-agree a transfer fee? His wages won't be massive so it's not like we would be desperate to get him off our books? If he goes and has a stormer and his value goes into 7 figures we have to accept the lower fee. If he has a bad time he gets sent back. Confusing.

If we really would accept anything around £2M i am sure there would be a lot of clubs interested. The question is if there is anyone willing to pay £3.5M+ as I am sure that is what we will want. Hes a proven performer in a division where a lot of clubs are spending money so id be very surprised if we dont get north of £3M. Just a matter of waiting for the bids to come out of the woodwork.

Yeah a distinct lack of realism has been a consistent feature of Venkys from trying to sign Ronaldinho, to not being aware of relegation, to promoting Steve Kean, to letting our players go for free. How they made any money in business is beyond me.

I think where we are right now with strategy is the owners would rather finish 14th but have a higher squad value due to young players who can be resold than finish 7th with older players coming to the end of their careers. Is a strange place to be as a competitive football club.

Much as it was a horror last ten minutes against Birmingham I think we should select the same side. It looked defensively solid until the subs. Not much going forward but I can't really see what changes in the XI we would make to address that. One small adjustment I would make is to swap Kargbo and Ohashi round from time to time. Let Kargbo sit on the last man and roam around. I guess the downside is the ball could not stick, even more so than with Ohashi, but I would like to see the speed demon free to run through the middle. Rotating Ohashi and Kargbo frequently in the game could be quite effective in unsettling the defenders and making them unsure whether to push up (to compress Ohashi) or drop deep (to prevent the ball over the top to Kargbo).

TBH I don't think there is much intelligence from the Pasha/Venkys side beyond trying to answer the simple question "how can the club cover its own costs". The only viable answer to that is : Pay wages way below the average in the Championship Minimise transfer fees paid Maximise transfer fees recouped That explains the whole way we are operating at the moment. What is missing is within those constraints a committed and engaged owner would make much better strategic and tactical choices, whereas Venkys are so disconnected we make bad decisions again and again that lose the club more money and goodwill.

We're playing, well at least defending, a lot better than his first few games with us. TBH feels like defensively we are in a pretty good place, but we need to figure out what we are doing offensively. Cantwell looks improved, and Ohashi is irrepressible as always, but beyond that we dont seem to have many ideas. I think id be looking to sign two proven attacking players in the next two weeks.

Hmm thought the defensive signings actually looked pretty decent. Its up top and out wide where we haven't signed anyone apart from De Neve (who is bad i agree) we look very weak.

Actually though we lost thought we were much better than i anticipated. Feeling more confident about out season tbh.

Wow Tavares managed both a terrible corner then so weak to allow the cross..

Thought Kargbo had amazing hang time for a small guy. Was a pretty good effort.

Have to say considering we lost both Baath and Brittain we look very well put together across the defence. Look a really good unit.