MancFox24

I understand trying to change things up but this smacks of desperation. Looks like a really stodgy team to me with hardly any pace or creativity

I generally agree. But getting rid Rudkin and KP selling up won't make any immediate difference to the team, and we can't get rid of the players. I've said many times Marti should be given time, but when it starts to look like relegation is a real possibility, I don't think we can afford to hang around

Apart from the 10 mins after their goal, it's probably been the best performance all season from an attacking point of view (low bar I know). Full backs have actually made some overlapping runs which makes the wingers much more dangerous. Lack of a striker is killing us

Have to agree to disagree on that one. Plenty of balls into dangerous areas in this game and he's nowhere to be seen

Carranza has the unique ability of being everywhere the ball isn't

Our big problems are that we lack pace (and possibly fitness) throughout the side and we don't have a striker worth the name. I've no doubt some our players are better footballers than most in this league, but that doesn't count for much in modern football. Even the terrible sides are outrunning us and tactically we're really easy to play against. I think alot of the games will be tight and I'm hoping some of those start to go our way. But at the start of the season I thought relegation was out of the question and I'm definitely not of that opinion now

So where do our points come from then?

Bad combination when you're both slower and weaker than the opposition

We're in trouble

Oh Luke

You must have small hands

Not Soumare

I've no idea what we're even trying to do. We don't keep the ball, we don't go long, we don't press, we don't counter attack, we have zero threat from set pieces, we look open defensively. Hoping for moments of individual magic isn't a sustainable tactic but that's all we seem to be.

People talking about Dyche as though we'd have been able to afford a manager like that. Our market is experienced Championship level managers, inexperienced foreign managers, or coaches looking to make a step up to management. I wasn't thrilled about the appointment and I've been confused by some of the decisions, but he's walked into a club with players who want to leave, an imbalanced squad, no funds to recruit, a toxic atmosphere amongst fans and a points deduction hanging over its head. So we either stick with him and hope he can turn it around or shell out a load more money we don't have to pay him off and bring another manager in of a similar level who'll be asked to try and polish a turd. Having said all that, if he keeps picking Soumare, I'll be the first to contribute to the 'Marti Out' banner being flown over the KP

Our best (still not good) performances have been against the better teams so I expect a reaction tonight. Pretty sure Hamza and Daka will be in for Ricardo and Carranza. Monga will probably get a rest as well. I'm going for a stodgy 2-1 win

Looked OK between both boxes but were quite poor defensively and didn't look like scoring. They are showing some fight under this manager which is a positive, but goals are gonna be tough to come by. It's so easy for opposition teams to stay compact when Ayew is dropping deep all the time. Daka is obviously useless, but he does at least stretch defences in behind to create space for others so I'd maybe give him a start for a couple of games.

I think the big difference is that some of those mid table teams like Wolves, Brentford and West Ham are alot worse this year and that gives you a genuine chance of survival. We were obviously shite last year but we also got a bit unlucky that those mid table teams were pretty strong

Yeah, maybe Villa is a bit of a stretch. It was just after watching them at the weekend and they were utter dross that made me think they could do what we did a couple of years ago and think they're too good to go down

Championship is definitely alot weaker this year. I know this is rebuilding year for us but we need to throw everything at getting back up at the first opportunity. I know it's early but just looking at the start of the PL season and it seems unlikely we'll have the 3 promoted teams coming back down and could be competing with the likes of Wolves, West Ham or even Villa next year and that would make it a much tougher league to get out of

Not saying too much but thought it was the best performance of the season so far. Played some decent stuff after half time and should have scored during that period. When we're lacking a striker who will get us 20 goals, we need to make sure we're getting our fair share of set piece goals and we didn't look that threatening from them today

If Faes doesn't go, he has to start. Still comfortably our best ball playing defender and that will be needed in most games where we'll dominate possession. Same goes for Winks in the midfield. Daka would be useful against high pressing teams like Birmingham, even though he can't hit a barn door. Not having the Soumare renaissance, even if it looks like he's having a good game, if you watch him closely he's positionally terrible and a liability defensively

It's difficult to tell how much our transfer strategy is still being driven by PSR and how much is the owner's financial difficulties. We were compliant with PSR last year and with player sales and the amount trimmed off the wages, I'd have thought it would have given us the head room to go out and get a £10m+ striker. It's a concern if the owner's personal finances are starting to impact our transfer strategy. What we're left with is probably a top 6 Championship squad (even in a poor quality Championship like I think it is this year), although an injury to Fatawu and it's more mid table. Alot will depend on Marti now and early signs are that he's at least bringing some resilience back to the team, even though it's a struggle to watch.

That goal came because Faes was on the pitch

Like it or not, Winks, Faes and Bilal make this a better team. So if that's what we're stuck with, they have to play

If either of these teams get anywhere near promotion, it's a bad year for the Championship