dmayne7

. I remember that the real badge of honour was having the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe (you'll never sing that!)

Sorry. Didn't mean to be so entitled... Oh dear, my heartfelt condolences in that case . Cracks me up when people say Leicester is an absolute hole because they've clearly never had the pleasure of visiting the Medway Towns!

It's pretty understandable though. People's perception of a club is often influenced by the stature of that club when said person was younger. Growing up in Gillingham, with a lot of Gills fans in my family, I went to the 3rd tier playoff final between Man City and Gillingham (incidentally, a genuine case of corruption in the English game). I knew they were a much bigger club then but I'd always assumed they were one of those teams that would jump between the top 2 divisions, perhaps spending a little more time in the top flight. Was quite surprised when I checked and saw that only a quarter of their time was spend outside the top flight. It happened with us when we won the league as well. The media talked about it as though it was some club that had spent most of it's history in L1 when the reality is that we're one of those 20 or so clubs that probably expect their team to be playing top flight football, with a more recent history of actually winning some things. Obviously, no expectation to ever do what we did and still one of the greatest shocks. If you grew up supporting us around that time, you'd rightly be expecting us to be a top half PL team at least with the odd cup run/potential European qualification

Justin yes because he's proven in a big stretch of games, where he was playing every position in defence, that he can be outstanding at this level. However, that was a long time ago and doubt he'll ever get back to that level (much like Ndidi and Ricardo), but some confidence and he should definitely be capable of doing the job we need of him right now. Faes however, no chance. He makes a big mistake in virtually every game he plays and has done, when his job is just be steady above all else. He's also got a massively inflated ego so shipping him out as soon as we can, would be ideal.

I think we all feel like that at the best of times! But I do think that plenty of us would at least have been more cohesive in our approach. Take Skipp for example. I actually think he's a pretty good player who's been underused and given his age, English tax etc, not necessarily a terrible value deal, if we needed another home grown player. However, in the context of limited funds, how desperate we were for a ST/another Winger/strengthening the defence, and worst of all, the fact that we already had 3/4 defensively minded midfielders, it was an absolutely mental transfer. It's that complete lack of any strategy behind the deals that is so infuriating.

We should know better than anyone how much difference having players with high confidence can make. Literally the difference between a good prem player and bang average championship player. Unfortunately, some of these guys are never going to get back to heights they once hit, or at least don't look like doing so (Vardy, Ndidi, JJ, Ricardo etc). Still, a bit of confidence and enthusiasm could completely change the makeup of the team. Biggest issue is that we are absolutely desperate for some players in lots of positions now; RB/LB, CB, LW/RW and a ST. Ideally would still get a more dynamic midfielder in there, ala KDH but that's bottom of the list. Defensively something has to change and we have to find a way to replace Abdul

You're definitely on the wind up now . Did you watch today? So many times he just backed off and let Justin make the decision (a player who needs all the help he can get at the moment).

Clearances made doesn't equal the best defender . He makes a least 1 massive error every game, sometimes more. And that doesn't have to be gifting the opposition a goal, it could also be that he's caught miles out of position, dives in when he shouldn't. The whole defence takes responsibility for how crap it's been (and the whole team because of how open we are) but as a defender, your job is to not make mistakes first and foremost. Faes always makes big errors and it's not like he's got the ability to completely dominant forwards for 90 mins either (which is pointless if you're then gifting up a huge chance). Don't think Okoli has been great but he's miles ahead of Faes. VK been poor, still much better. Even Justin who has been awful on the whole has still been less shite than Faes. Faes had a fantastic game against Bournemouth but that's been it. Otherwise he's been delivering 5/10 performances at best. Pretty much every goal that Justin has been at fault or blamed for, Faes has been involved in someway. I genuinely cannot fathom why anyone would think he's competent. He's only being picked because he's slightly less slow than Coast/Vestergaard and I wouldn't be surprised if it's also because he'll kick up a massive fuss if he gets dropped (speculation of course).

Nope. Terrible comparison as one has a tiny sample size. And in the case of Faes (player A), it would be more like 20 errors Vs other defenders, say Okoli (Player B) with 100ish clearances and 5 errors (random guess and something that compares against your 200). In that case, player B is clearly a better defender and that's without factoring in what else that might bring to the team.

Great point and yet another example where stats can be used to support any argument.

Well if you want to acknowledge that, then you have to acknowledge how many massive errors he makes every game. He is utterly abject.

You're not wrong but ultimately the responsibility falls to the board for leaving somebody so out of their depth, to take charge of the game. If they were competent we would never be in that situation. He did a cack job but it wasn't what he was employed to do so I think the level of abuse levelled at him is a bit embarrassing when I suspect the real target is still Cooper (for what he left us and the mood he created), and the board for above reasons.

I'm not disagreeing that changing to that system, a notoriously difficult one, isn't high risk. But we don't know if they've been working on that for weeks. We played it in pre season as well. It was absolutely crap and the biggest issue was that he made no changes at half time, just like Cooper. But the reason Cooper got sacked is because the performances had been utterly shambolic or did you think they've been good? So keeping things exactly the same would have been madness. That first 30 mins against Chelsea was the most passive I've seen in 25/30 years of supporting so I'm pretty sure if we'd been exactly the same in terms of setup, everyone would have lost their mind. Point is, this is a coach who probably never expected to manage a game and he's thrown in at the deep end. He tried something and it didn't come off. His failure to change it when it was clear it wasn't working will probably cost him his job. The fault lies completely with the board for failing to get Ruud in place in time and for also being in a position where one of Cooper's cronies had to take charge. Everyone is angry at that performance so he's the fall guy and I understand that. Ultimately what we're talking about is entirely subjective so whilst you might disagree with my opinion, it's quite literally impossible for me to be wrong.

Definitely this, although as cack as JJ has been, Choudhury at RB scares the **** out of me. He's the only player who's more casual than Faes and that's not what we need. Any vaguely competent right backs in the youth team? And Winks in for Wilf if he's fit.

And? I didn't say it wouldn't. It's just a weird thread to slag him off for changing the system and personnel when he would have been slagged off for keeping it the same. Let's be fair, it was utterly shite and still too close to what Cooper what did (so if the thread was how it was similar that would be fair enough, although damned if you do and damned if you don't)

I can see why they call you evil.

When you look at the Brentford players, Mbeumo is the only really quality player (Wissa maybe in that conversation), otherwise they just have a lot of decent players. But it shows what playing to a system you understand can do. They managed to look leagues ahead of us. Massively concerning how you turn all that round in such a short space of time.

Faes 😆

It's not, Faes has got that locked down.

Taking a touch there was so stupid.

He's comically bad. Problem with Okoli being injured is there's no way we'll go for a Coady and Vestergaard pairing.

That effort from Ayew

Unlikeable and absolutely cack. What a winning combo

No you probably don't but the style of play is exactly the same. Which do you want? Somebody sticking with the same approach as Cooper which has been diabolical or somebody to actually try something different?

Which then means we're starting with negative momentum and more pressure on RVN to get a result as one game is done the pisser