roversfan99

I would be surprised if the first team came in to play a friendly today, the day after a first team match.

1 hour ago, chaddyrovers said:

Depends if he is still around. 

The quality of appointment will tell us everything. That's was my overall point, 

 

If Suhail is still around?

Of course he will. He is bullet proof. He is a snake who has been attached to Venkys all this time.

We could get a brilliant CEO and he would be set up to fail here. Would be like appointing Pep Guardiola as assistant manager to Steve Kean.

39 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

lets see who we appoint and what experience/background they have? 

Makes no difference if it is someone underneath Suhail. Wont have any power and will be overruled.

It makes no difference. It will be someone with absolutely no power beneath Suhail.

At least Nixon has got about 400 stories about it.

And how do you know hes good at it?

We did know that Baradji would take months and months to be fit when he signed, yes.

But you can question these decisions. You dont just have to just shrug and agree.

Mind you, if Tavares wasnt so shit, maybe it wouldnt have been as problematic.

1 hour ago, chaddyrovers said:

I did implied nothing of the sort so please stopping lying cos you losing the argument here. 

But different players play different roles within team structure whether its a centre back or wide players or centre midfielders or strikers. That's going years and years. Shearer was number 9 whilst Sheringham was number 10, you wouldn't play them the other way round would you or David Batty has midfielder playmaker would you?

But what I am saying is either scenario falls back to poor recruitment.

Tavares is crap and Baradji is unfit. Forshaw played 3 games in a week. So if neither is seen as a potential alternative to Tronstad, why sign them both aswell as TGH who also plays a more box to box role? That suggests imbalanced recruitment signing 3 players to do the same thing.

If Tavares in particular wasnt chosen to start in any game because he is shit, in favour of repeatedly flogging Forshaw until he got injured, then again poor recruitment.

40 minutes ago, Exiled_Rover said:

Where did he say Baradji, Tavares and Gardner-Hickman are considered box-to-box midfielders?

If you're going to relentlessly argue with him, at least be honest. 

Its pretty blatantly implied.

They are all centre midfielders, and we seem to be in the habit of boxing off midfielders into holding midfielders and box to box midfielders.

He said that Tronstad (our holding midfielder) has back up of Forshaw and Montgomery. He also said Baradji is box to box and suggested that Tavares isnt either.

In which case, why sign 3 players for the same one position?

16 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

Deflect? Coming from you refuse to answer a simple and straightforward question is utter and totally baffling 

The irony.

Its realistic to try and rectify all of our transfer and squad issues if the owners are willing to do so. 

Ive no idea what your point is anymore. That makes no sense.

6 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

Just more and more BS. its was simple question to answer. You avoid it for whatever BS reasons

On the Tronstad replacement point with him being here he would help him settle into the club and not have rush into the team. 

Nixon's propaganda piece?.🤣🤣🤣

Must be true then if their fans said so. 

Cos of key players being unavailable like Toth, Cantwell and Tronstad. Cantwell is a big miss. 

I dont think Miller or McLoughlin are so bad you or others are saying.

You always want to spend and spend all the time..pleased you arent in charge of my financial budget cos it over every single day. 

So its just pesky injuries.

We finished 7th last season. Travis and Tronstad missed big chunks of the season, Ohashi was out for ages, Beck was out repeatedly, Carter was out repeatedly, Wharton was out all season, Kargbo ripped his hamstring as soon as he started a game, Cantwell kept missing games.

Sorry, doesnt add up.

2 hours ago, chaddyrovers said:

No Rev, different midfielders have different roles in midfielder. You don't rated Tronstad. He is defensive midfielder where has Henriksson isn't centre midfielder but number 10. Baradji is a number 8 box to box midfielder. Is Tavares a natural number 6 defensive midfielder player? 

 

If Baradji, Tavares and Gardner Hickman are all considered "box to box midfielders." Then why arent you asking why we signed 3 of them when we play only 1, whereas we have just made do with Montgomery who came into the season having never started a game there (he seems more of a box to box midfielder too to me) and Forshaw who clearly doesnt have the body to play regular Championship football.

I dont think Tavares is a box to box midfielder either to be honest.

You are really tripping yourself up trying to deflect any blame away from the club in favour of just blaming injuries.

2 hours ago, chaddyrovers said:

The imbalanced in the summer is in 2 areas which is right wing back and centre back areas. centre midfielder areas we are well stick but injuries has had impact. But we also need to factor in moving to 3-5-2 formation has improved results. 

We spend around 10m this summer and reinvest money from Sales. How we choose transfer targets is question people will continue to ask. some signings will be good and they get praise and other won't and they get criticise for 

You dont factor in quality.  

We have a large number of players mainly signed in the summer who in theory should provide that cover but are that bad that they dont.

The injuries we have in midfield wouldnt be problematic if Tavares wasnt woeful, Henriksson wasnt woeful and Baradji wasnt signed with a long term injury.

Its easier just to make excuses.

1 hour ago, chaddyrovers said:

So are did buy Gudjohnsen, Tavares, Morishita for around £2m each then add other signings..its around £10m. 

Original budget as £5m wasnt it? 

Yes we sold players for more but still committed to 10m 

Yes we are cost cutting in other areas as previously mentioned like in pitch, stadium repairs and up keep, basic and boring food and drinks served. 

 

Cut backs in wages overlooked.

Cut backs in concourse food quality for some reason not overlooked.

1 hour ago, chaddyrovers said:

feck me, it was very simple question and yet you won't answer. Maybe you think about your actions next time you throw your toys out of pram when complaining about others not answering questions, 

3 or 4 new signings is realistic with 2 or 3 leaving, so centre back signing, right wing back signing, striker signing and long term Tronstad's replacement with players like Gueye and Pickering leaving. Neither starting or rated by Ismael too much

As fans, we cant possibly know how many we will realistically be able to get. All we can surely comment on is how many we need.

You keep mentioning a "long term Tronstad replacement" ever since Nixon came out with his propaganda piece saying thats what we supposedly want.

Alebiosu cover will be too late with AFCON.

1 hour ago, KentExile said:

 

If Gueye & Pickering are the ones to leave, then that leaves you with a 27 man squad

 

                                Toth

                 Miller  Wharton  McLoughlin

Alebiosu  Baradji  Tronstad  Cantwell  Hedges

                   Gudjohnsen  Ohashi

 

                               Pears

               O'Riordan  NEW  Pratt

NEW  Henriksen  NEW  Morishita  De Neve

                        NEW     Kargbo

 

Carter

Ribeiro

Forshaw

Tavares

TGH

 

Montgomery, Michalski, Atcheson, Litherland, Tyjon & Goddard do not need to be included due to their age, but Pratt does take up a squad space

Personally as a winger doesn't fit into the current system, Kargbo would also be sold if possible, which frees up one more slot, but as he is not likely to be fit until January, this seems unlikely, so think he will be utilised as forth choice striker off the bench

If they do not being back O'Riordan, then they need another centre back too

Given Caters injury history, I think he will have to stay in January due to a lack of takers either on loan, or permanent

I assume Garrett will not be in the first team squad this season (if he was, then he also takes up a space), and will spend the second half of the season regaining fitness on loan, or in the U21s

I have a sneaking feeling that TGH will end up back at Birmingham as a squad player during January, and they will bring in  a centre back, right wing back, and a striker in the Ohashi mould full of work rate and running, but not necessarily a goal threat, someone like Mark Harris from Oxford who is out of contract at the end of the season and therefore cheap, and on an "affordable wage". 

Given the above, the heir to Tronstad would have to wait until the squad is further culled in the summer

 

Edit - not saying this is what we need, but think this is what we will get, looking at 25 man squad etc

We would save travel costs on Harris as their fans would be queueing up to drive him here. Very poor.

21 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

Gudjohnsen 6 goals in 15 games,is that negative impact? 

Alebiosu been outstanding 

McLoughlin, Miller, TGH, Morishita all have a positive impact for me. Morishita is getting better. 

If so many players have impacted us positively, then why are we doing so badly?

46 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

We cant keep stockpiling players. 6 is enough. Either you keep Carter and leave O'Riordan on loan, or bring O'Riordan back and either not buy one or buy one and sell/loan Carter out. 

You always talk about stockpiling. How many of them are first 11 quality AND are reliable in terms of fitness? None I would suggest. How about trying to improve the quality of the first 11? Novel idea I know.

12 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

So how many signings in January is realistic is what my original question was which you didn't answer? 

If it wasn't realistic when you factor in that some signings have only been here less 6 months. MGP took 6 months to get going and his first real impact from memory was Cardiff away in FA cup in January 

How can I possibly answer that though. Under this regime, probably none, maybe at a push one or two. But we should try to fix as many of those glaring holes as we possibly can.

Lets hope that Henriksson, De Neve, Tavares etc are actually not absolutely terrible but in fact turn out to be brilliant for us.

Dont hold your breath on that though.

13 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

we knew we would have to wait to see the player when he had surgery but its a signing Ismael wanted. Sometimes you have to made a brave call. Lets see what we get. 

 

who are looking at internally Gestede? did he sign every player or was it part of team decision between Ismael, Gestede, Owen and Cairney? I suspect the latter to be honest 

Some might call it brave, some might see it as a luxury couldnt afford. If Tavares and Henriksson werent so bad and if TGH wasnt at best bang average then it might not be such an issue.

Well whatever, pedantics aside. The main reason for how weak, thin and imbalanced our squad is self inflicted. It always comes back to the owners. But notably, whoever is directly involved in choosing transfers is mainly to blame. Hence why I am not just following the narrative of misfortune.

There obviously will be some hard luck with injuries but its not the main reason our squad is so poor and imbalanced.

And I never said it was realistic. And I know that it wont happen. Its just roughly how light I think the squad is.

I have no doubt that even come February that the squad will be nowhere near how we need it to be.

9 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

are any of those really number 6 defensive midfielder? no they aren't so you can't expect them to be. They are more of number 8 box to box midfielder or number 10 players. Forshaw and Montgomery are the back up for Tronstad not them. How can you not see that? 

Baradji is number 8 player and someone who is getting fitter and looks to have something about him

I don't know what you have against Montgomery but you always against young players. 

some signings have been good, ok and bad so far. That natural under recruitmen5

Toth is level above Pears and he is different keeper who command his area much better. 

Tronstad not being available is a massive miss as Cantwell and not something we can really afford. 

I did call for another centre back before the window closed but Miller is comfortable in back 3 and I don't think he is as bad as you and others said in a centre back pairing

Its easy to almost exclusively dismiss any errors made by people at the club in favour of pushing the hard luck and woe is me narrative.

The main reason for our lack of depth is due to failings in recruitment. We have a number of new signings that if they were even ok, the squad wouldnt look as exposed as it does. If Gueye/Henriksson/Tavares/De Neve were even ok then we would at least have some competition for places. Baradji shouldnt just have made his first useful cameo on December 9th to make us think there might be a player in there, not far off half way through the season. And again, the defensive problems are totally self inflicted.

You seem to be justifying and making excuses for the recruitment. I get that no club has a 100% recruitment success rate. But its about 2 things. To have half of our signings not only not really working but being absolutely awful, thats whats not acceptable. And also, its as much about what we didnt do in the summer that is costing us, especially in defence.

We have injuries, its the middle of December, all teams have injuries. If you just want to pin it all on injuries and not look internally, then thats fine, Gestede will be happy with that at least.

5 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

yes home form hasn't been great but you could easily counter that by saying our away form is brilliant. 

our home form and wins at home this season should be much better but don't take our chances. We have 4 great chances yesterday and scored none of them. 

And that all levels out with us in 20th. We can seperate home and away form but ultimately it all comes down to where we are with those combined and its crap.

I wonder with Cantwell back whether Ismael will be tempted to go back to a back 4. The change was made when Cantwell got injured and initially it worked really well for 3 games but not so much since. Cantwell has to play but im not so sure it suits him as much, and it also would lack balance if we had both him and Miroshita with just one proper midfielder doing all the work, even if its Tronstad.

The issue is, the squad is so horribly imbalanced and full of crap whichever way we play. The defence is a bombscare, Miller is poor, McLoughlin is below average and Pratt has done remarkably well for a young lad who was at Chorley a month ago but I dont think honestly he is at the level yet. 

We also have the issue of right back with Alebiosu about to leave for AFCON. And with Hedges out, we dont have any competent options whether its left wing back or left wing.

1 hour ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

Then we had Cantwell, who is normally available for selection, out for what seems like 2 months and he’s not even back up to speed now.  Toth was really looking the part, now we are back with Pears. Montgomery was good for 20 minutes at the end of a game and then we lost him. It’s as soon as we get one player back we lose another one. I don’t normally shy away from criticising the managers at Ewood but I think Ismael is getting a raw deal at the moment. Just putting a competitive team out there is an achievement. If things are as bad when we get some of our better players back that’ll be another story.

But we have loads of summer signings and/or Gestede signings that are simply not good enough. If they were even ordinary, and had we not let Hyam go or at least sufficiently replaced him, then the squad would look far more competitive.

Toth is just unfortunate although Pears has been fine since he came into the team. Tronstad again unfortunate but hes only missed a small number of games, it happens. Cantwell, again unfortunate.

But you will get injuries. The primary reason we look so stretched is because of failings in the summer. The main area we are stretched is in defence and that is because we came into a season with 3 natural centre backs, 2 of whom have terrible injury records.

It might not be directly Ismael's fault but it is the fault of those above him.

1 hour ago, chaddyrovers said:

What about the injuries to our 3 key players in Cantwell, Tronstad and Toth? 

Those 3 are massive miss for our team.

Forshaw wouldn't be playing 3 games in a week if Tronstad and Montgomery were fit

Montgomery has not shown that he is capable at this level, how many games has he started for us? Not having him as a major loss.

We have had 3 midfielders on the bench in the 3 games that Forshaw started. Tavares, Henriksson and Baradji. All summer signings. The first 2 are awful, Baradji we signed knowing he wouldnt be fit for ages. So we cant complain on that one. 

No sympathy in midfield, we are short because of a mixture of signing awful and injury prone players. No sympathy in defence for the reasons I mentioned above. 

The main reason for our lack of depth and imbalanced and poor squad is not just hard luck. Its poor recruitment. Dont let them fool you otherwise.

1 hour ago, chaddyrovers said:

But you conceded and admitted you cant do all that in January transfer market. How signings is realistic in January? 

I think 3 or 4 is realistic.

Quite frankly, the squad shouldnt be so short and have so many absolute wasters in it. 

Just now, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

Forshaw wouldn’t be playing 3 games a week if Tronstad’ hadn’t have got injured.

Nor would he be had the supposedly £2m midfield signing been anything other than atrocious.

1 minute ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

The number of players we have out injured is killing us at the moment.

But some of those injures were predictable and we should have taken steps to mitigate against them. Wharton and Carter injured, always going to happen. Forshaw playing 3 games in a week, always going to happen. Hedges has had issues with injuries in the past. Baradji signed injured.

And the main reason we appear so thin is that so many summer signings (and a couple Gestede brought in last year) are nowhere near the level required.

Need a lot more than that.

2 really poor teams who will finish in the bottom 6 playing out a poor game absent of quality.

Tavares deserves a shoutout for being absolutely hopeless. Miller also poor. Baradji with a bright cameo but thats the first time hes offered anything and its December which is the issue.