DE.

It's hard to fathom the decision making at Stoke when it came to buying Gallagher and Ennis, unless the main criteria was strikers who don't score many goals and are injured a lot. In which case, well scouted, I suppose.

The league has been this way for a while now. It's why teams like Brentford, Luton, Ipswich, etc have been able to get themselves up - just needs intilligent people at the top with a plan and a dash of luck. Plenty of bang average teams in the division (inluding ourselves) so a team with the right strategy and the right personnel can get themselves promoted even if they aren't one of the fancied clubs. We'll have to wait until Venky's finally leave before we become a team with that kind of potential though. Until then we'll just tread water at best.

Meanwhile those responsible probably didn't even know we were playing today.

Seems a bit harsh to me. From what I've seen from Ohashi he's good value for what we paid. Nobody should have been expecting a 28 year old player from the J-League, with no experience at this level, to be banging in the goals. He's done well so far imo. Leonard, still don't feel like I've seen enough of him to say for sure. He's obviously not going to be a prolific striker in future, you'd have seen glimpses of that by now if so, but I wouldn't write him off yet. At the very least I think he'll have a decent career in the league below if he doesn't make it at this level. As for Big Mak... god bless him. I have no idea how he's made a career of being a footballer at the levels he's been playing at, but fair play for doing so. He's OK to bring on as a nuisance to introduce some chaos at the tail end of matches, but he will never be the answer to our goalscoring problem. We simply didn't address the striker issue in the summer. The two we brought in are suitable for certain purposes, but not as a primary, goalscoring forward. We still need that and we're hamstrung as a team without that kind of player. There are other issues but this is the most obvious.

That's pretty much just how they play normally. They're basically a £150m version of us - as their paucity of goals shows. They've only scored 3 more than us, lol. They just have a much more expensive and overall better defence and midfield to keep goals out and come out more often on the right side of tight games.

The fact that team, managed by Scott Parker, is 2nd with only 9 goals conceded says a lot about this league though, and leaves me hopeful that starting from Portsmouth at Ewood we can get back on track. Absolutely nothing to fear from 90% of the teams in this division, even with the albatross that is Venky's constantly weighing us down.

The players worked hard but the quality just isn't there. For what it's worth, nor was it for Burnley save for one moment which decided the game. It certainly wasn't obvious that one team had spent a fortune on their squad whilst the other had seen their squad systematically dismantled by inept, disgraceful owners over multiple periods spanning a decade plus.

Our lack of quality going forward is so sad to see. we so desperately need investment, not that we'll get it.

A shame as they aren't very good at all, but then, neither are we. Sky "they are laying down the law again, determined their ground will not slip", lmao... yeah £150m difference in spending power kind of helps with that. Not exactly a statement of intent to struggle to beat our bargain basement team.

Tbf I don't think Cantwell is fit, so that may be why he's looking slightly sluggish at times. His general positional play and ball control has been good - he's made some good passes and drawn some fouls in dangerous positions as well. He and Dolan are both a class above the rest of the team in terms of controlling the ball.

Solid performance so far, we just have very little attacking threat - but we knew that going in. Main positive is that we've restricted Burnley to having little to no opportunities. Need to do better on set pieces as this is our most likely avenue of scoring. Most of our corners have been very disappointing and free kicks not much better. Hopefully we'll improve that in the 2nd half.

In theory you should have a DoF and head coach who are on the same page in regards to recruitment and general style of play. As long as there's solid communication between the DoF and head coach, a system like that can work fine. At no point should a player be brought in who doesn't suit the agreed requirements from all parties. Obviously that isn't the case here because we have amateurs running the show, and that's being polite.

Personally think Eustace is a much better manager than Parker, who has only been successful when his teams have a significant financial advantage over everyone else. Fingers crossed Eustace's managerial nous will get us something from this match, and we can roll on to Portsmouth at Ewood with some solid momentum (getting a result in the cup against Boro would be nice too, of course).

From my personal perspective it's a bit early to say that at the moment, but I do think he's the perfect fit for where we are as a club at the moment. Exactly the type of manager we need not just to survive but to make us better than the sum of our parts. JDT did a pretty good job of this as well, for a while. On this date 2 years ago we beat Cardiff 1-0 and were 3rd in the table. Granted JDT went about things in a very different way to Eustace, but still, the table doesn't lie by the time you get to January. We were where we deserved to be (despite having, incredibly, already lost 12 games by that point). The main difference for me is that, under JDT, it always felt fragile to me. Like something wasn't quite right, and if the wheels came off they would come off in a brutal way. I don't have that same feeling with Eustace - the highs may not be as spectacular, but the lows won't be as low either. There's a stability with Eustace, and his methods seem to suit our players more than JDT's style of playing did. Not only that, but we seem more resilient under Eustace. Under JDT (and before him, Mowbray) once we went a goal down you might as well pack up and go home, because we were done. Not so under Eustace, and that's credit to him.

We still have a game in hand on WBA and Boro, but when you're in 5th/6th position a run of 2 points from 12 will usually drop you out of the playoff places. We've overachieved so far, so I won't be critical, but without some backing in January we'll likely have to settle for mid table in the end. That would still be a good achievement considering the squad, but still a shame when it's clear the manager doesn't need that much more to keep us competing for those playoff positions.

If we had owners willing to properly back our managers we would have made top six in JDT's first season. Possibly one of Mowbray's seasons as well - the one where they wouldn't let him sell Rothwell. I think with fairly marginal backing in January Eustace would get us there too, and all he'd need is a proper attacker recruited and some luck injury/suspension wise. But no, our owners who supposedly want us to return to the PL will almost certainly continue to sit on their hands, most likely leading to another opportunity slipping through the cracks. This guy has turned dirt to gold this season, it's incredibly aggravating that those above him either don't care or don't want him to be that successful.

Portsmouth and Oxford's upturn in form suddenly making a lot of clubs at the wrong end of the table anxious. Great start at Oxford for Rowett. Much like our manager, his football isn't the prettiest but it often gets results at clubs that need to be more than the sum of their parts.

Very good point in isolation. Burnley game will be tricky, but starting from Portsmouth at home we really need to start winning some matches again.

Incredible result for Ipswich. Everton with only 3 wins this season and having not won in 4 games now must be looking over their shoulders nervously. Man Utd too 🤣

It is funny, and at this point it isn't really hyperbole to say they could end up in a relegation battle. The players look like they have completely given up, and the new manager has somehow made things even worse than they were under Ten Hag.

United have had some low moments since Ferguson left, but this must be the lowest. They are utterly abysmal.

Cantwell has talent for sure - enough to at times be a standout player in this division. I just don't think he has the consistency in his game to regularly bring that talent to the forefront and really drive the rest of the team. It's early days yet and I hope he proves me wrong, but I haven't seen that from him yet. Just occasional flashes of excellence which lets you know there is a real player there, but the fact it isn't consistent is why he's here rather than plying his trade in the league above. I do think having a sub-par group of attacking players surrounding him does hamper his chances of regaining that level of consistency from his earlier days though. You're right to say it isn't enough of an excuse on its own, but I think it's a factor in why we only see glimpses of what he's capable of at the moment.

There's a difference between a stellar cast and what we have. Do you consider Hedges, Dolan, Gueye, Ohashi, Weimann, Siggy and Buckley even an adequate supporting cast, let alone stellar? Most are occasionally useful at best. Cantwell isn't good enough to shine amongst what we have. If he was then he wouldn't be here in the first place. If you want to have higher expectations of him then okay, but I think you'll end up disappointed. As far as his wage is concerned, that would be something to take up with the recruitment department. From my perspective it's a flawed strategy to pay Cantwell to be our talisman when he doesn't have the level of ability to regularly rise above being surrounded by mediocre players.

It's a nice idea but he would need much better players around him to be a proper talisman. Even if he was setting up chance after chance we have nobody reliable to convert them, and he's not a Dack-type player who chips in with a lot of goals. According to wikipedia he scored 13 in 120 apps at Norwich, and that was at the peak of his career. Scored a decent amount for Rangers, but look at the opposition. Nowhere near even Championship level most weeks. Cantwell as talisman is a worthwhile idea if the club is going to invest in decent attacking options to surround him. A pointless endeavour if not, and it appears the latter is going to be the case.

Indeed so - but I'd say that's a reasonable expectation, that he's a Championship level midfielder with occasional flashes of PL quality. Based on that I think he's doing alright, no worse than I anticipated when he arrived anyway, and I'd say in terms of work ethic he's better than I was expecting. Fact is even when we did have genuine PL quality players in the team - the likes of Josh King, Tom Cairney, Harvey Elliot - we still didn't get anywhere because other areas of the team (and usually the manager) weren't right. I don't think Cantwell will come close to showing his true potential here because he doesn't have enough support, and his ability isn't so high that he can literally win games for a team regularly, like Amad was doing at Sunderland a couple of seasons back. The club would need significant investment in the attacking areas to really make use of a player like Cantwell, and we all know that ain't coming.