cityfanlee23

Vardy's first season in the Championship he wanted to quit and Pearson and co had to talk him out of it, Cannon shows he has some qualities, he's a very raw striker, he could come good, give him a season in the championship and if he can get us 15-20 goals we can see how he gets on. We don't have money to spend especially if we go down, we will struggle to find a player who will get us 15 goals in the champ with the amount we will have to spend down there.

I was under the impression we could only have 2 loan players registered in the league but can sign up to 4, so I assumed that meant Edouard was going, so can we sign a loan player from spain for example and register him even if Edouard stays?

Ruud spoke about the window today and specifically mentioned looking at some loan options as well as permanent transfers, so it sounds to me like he’s confident enough that he would be leaving. Edouard clearly hasn’t worked out, I was excited when he came as I liked him at Celtic and felt that a run and some confidence we may get him back to his best, but for 90k a week he’s an expensive paper weight at the moment, best of luck to him if he goes, will score bags of goals over there.

Very good point what a weird situation, I know United have basically messed him around, giving him a couple of loans after giving him a big run of first team appearances years ago, to be honest, would probably be a good shout for us. If we go down, Kristiansen will probably be off, he would be a great option at Left Back with something to prove, cheaper wages, and can cover RB when our two glass RB's inevitably shatter.

Can he play RB?

Starting to want him back tbh. I really like Ruud and he's one of my favourite ever players, but it feels like he's a coach. We don't have a lot to go on so I can't judge too harshly, but I haven't been given any indication so far that Ruud is a proper leader and a warrior who is going to make the team run through brick walls. Looking at players like Bouba, he's improved massively in terms of his overall output and his ball play, but I still see him constantly jogging around whilst teams walk through us, jogging back to the box like he has all the faith in the world in his back 4. Under Pearson he would be out instantly, a player like Skipp would be breaking his neck to get back to the box under Pearson, and that is exactly what we need. Ruud really needs to get these primadonnas under control, we need siege mentality and we have basically none.

Modern wingers are boring to watch and rely on team structure too much. most modern wingers are coached out of their natural flair and ability to drive forward, every time I see Stephy get the ball he just can’t wait to stop and turn back, the times where he just drives forward something happens, it’s so frustrating to watch a player who has genuine ability constantly double guessing himself. Times like this we need characters who grab the ball, put their head down and run at defenders every single opportunity they get.

I’m not calling for this, but does anyone know what it would roughly cost us to sack?

For me I'm looking at this and trying to be balanced, the squad is awful, the squad is likely to take us down and we don't have a big budget, but Ruud isn't helping himself at times. So it comes down to a few questions imo: - Are there any managers available NOW who can keep us up? I'm not so sure with where we are in January, and managers like Moyes now in a job, and we probably would need to spend half of our transfer budget sacking Ruud. - Is Ruud doing enough to improve the players we currently have to keep us up? I don't think so. - If we do go down, is Ruud showing us that he has the managerial capacity to take us down, potentially take a points deduction, and build a foundation that can get us straight back up? I'm not sold at the moment, and right now if we are looking over our shoulder at the potential to go down, we need a manager who is building NOW, not sacking Ruud in the summer and scrambling around for someone like Danny Rohl. I can't blame him for individual mistakes, but on the things we can judge, his in-game management is iffy, the subs today were rotten, and defensively, we look just as bad as we did and are not really improving, if he is to keep us up, or god forbid take us down and rebuild he has to prove he can build, right now we are in freefall, can't score and can't defend. Vardy is done at this level unfortunately, his legs won't do what his mind wants him to do. I really want to get behind Ruud, one of my favourite footballers of all time, whenever I think of Manchester United I think of Ruud in the Vodafone shirt, and I can think of many reasons to defend him and why he has been thrown in at the deep end, but for me he just isn't proving he can make us solid. We are still in this fight, we need everyone to pull together and fight for the badge, we have too many passengers.

ZERO end quality. Vardy should have a goal tonight at the very least, multiple chances wasted from our players tonight. I can't see us getting out of this mess at the moment, played so well, zero end product.

Agreed, but we need a bit of bite to be honest.

If we can send back Edouard and organise a loan for him, then a cut price deal for him in summer if we stay up, but frustratingly it's not the position we need to focus on. If we are going to use our only loan slot, ideally we need a CB or RB

Buy a RB and CB, Play Justin as a makeshift winger with a strong incentive for him to get back and defend with a new RB signing, move Faes into a CDM role and tell him to defend with his life and if he gets the ball and sees space, drive the ball forward to the attackers. We needed that result, now we need signings ASAP.

Our awful defence scored 3 goals today HOW

Great goal, very frustrating knowing what he can do when driving forward, to see so many issues at the back. I wonder if Faes would make a better CDM than a CB tbh.

He's a huge miss, but what happens if we stay up? Mads will be gone, and the chances of us signing a goalkeeper who saves us as much as Mads is, is pretty slim, at some point the defenders and midfield covering them need to improve, as well as a few new faces.

Yeah that's fair, the right would still be an issue because defensively he's not fantastic, but at least we would have an option at right wing which would allow Buonanotte or El Khannouss to come central, and a proper RB would help. I just feel like Justin attacks far better than he defends and his position is leaking us goals we need to improve the squad but Justin will still need to play a role regardless, with fatawu out i'd rather he was placed further up the pitch and allow a really strong defensive full back to slot in where he is now.

Can we just play Justin as a winger?

Completely agree with this, mads would have saved multiple goals we've conceded, but purely from a defensive pov from our back 4 and the midfielders protecting them, we've regressed from what I can see. To be fair, we've been so bad this season it's hard to tell how much worse/the same we are

There’s just no excuse for our defending today. I know we’ve been saying for weeks that our defence isn’t prem level, but this is relegation championship defending. unless we sign an entire back 4 and CDM, Ruud is going to have to use his management and tactical skills to improve the players we have also. Defensively we’ve regressed under Ruud and that is a major cause for concern.

El Khannouss has a huge ceiling. Can see him being sold on if we go down for a big profit if he keeps improving like this.

Yeah he's causing us issues atm, I edited my post because I forgot he was the one who was sent to prison for hitting someone with a rock and breaking their skull, bad person, but he's better than this level as a footballer

Edit: Just remembered it was Chair who was convicted, half decent footballer, bad person.

I was hoping when Ruud came in we would develop an attacking edge, and basically spend our games through to January with a mentality of "we can't defend so we will outscore you". We are awful, I genuinely don't see much of an improvement, our entire attack relies on someone creating some magic or opponent mistakes. We have no blueprint after all these weeks, plenty of time to build some sort of system and we just look clueless.

At the time I didn't realise how close Edwards was to it, I was actually joking that Justin had scored and own goal