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I don't think that's right but very interesting nonetheless

I'd love to know what you think is meant by 8 and 10

Yeah I don't disagree with any of that. I certainly don't hate him like a lot of people seem to, I like the guy and would love him to start scoring but at this point it's just hard to see how that happens - we all know his technical limitations, at this point his confidence must be through the floor and he's in and out of the team which is not a healthy combination. That said, even if he continues to misfire I'd still be starting him over Carranza or Ayew.

He's bad but they all are and I think he's bad in the way that's least detrimental to the team

Some strike from Ayew, convinced that was flying in

Cop-out answer: I don't think there's any guarantee either has much of an impact and I suppose it depends largely on which replacement and striker. Actual answer: probably A. I remain unconvinced that a new striker is the silver bullet that gets us creating and scoring more chances (not that a new manager necessarily is, either). Improving on Carranza, Ayew and Daka should theoretically be really easy but I think we're unlikely to be able to identify/attract/afford a striker who is good enough and well-rounded enough to consistently score goals in a team this unproductive. I think it's more likely we could find a manager who is just better at coaching a team to attack.

Arc Raiders is great, remarkable how consistently every raid throws up these memorable, cinematic moments. Cool how friendly everyone is as well (in solos at least, I understand team play is much more shoot on sight) though I expect that will change somewhat once we're out of the honeymoon phase and people have better gear.

Schlupp came off with a hamstring injury tonight apparently so at least we shouldn't be stepping on that particular rake

The team is almost entirely devoid of creativity as it is and I'm not sure throwing into the mix an ostensibly attacking player who can't take on defenders or pass the ball would be all that helpful.

No need to be sorry mate

Reading the sequel at the moment, good stuff

Thought he was very good, did everything required of him and looked assured rather than rusty despite his inexplicable absence from the team/squad all this time. I remember Vestergaard and Fatawu putting him in a couple of particularly sticky situations which he dealt with admirably. No surprise to anyone except presumably Cifuentes and the usual contrarians.

Shades of Col City Fan when he wouldn't admit he didn't know what a cult hero was

I've a degree of sympathy for anyone playing up front in this wretched team but so far it's like we've found a way to combine the worst attributes of the other two strikers into one player

We were genuinely dreadful, again. No ambition whatsoever to get a second or even try to keep hold of the ball, even against ten men at the end. Not sure I'd say Boro deserved to score an equaliser necessarily because they weren't much better but we definitely deserved to concede one.

Did he? Granted I wasn't exactly glued to it but it looked very much like the usual 4-2-3-1 with Okoli at right back and Ayew plodding about towards the left. His idea of changing things up seems to be plugging different combinations of players into the exact same shape that week after week sees us create virtually nothing.

I'm under no illusions whatsoever that sacking him actually solves that many of our problems but the guy is a complete fanny. Lifeless football, crap results - off you ****.

We're so back

I think there is probably a similar thing going on to what's been happening at Man Utd over the past however many years, where the environment has just been so suffocatingly bad that as soon as a player leaves you can all but see the weight being lifted from their shoulders. When so many signings fail and so many players not only don't improve but actually get worse the longer they spend here, it goes beyond just bad recruitment or bad management for me.

It is simplistic yes, that's what I mean. Standards at a football club are important - see what's happening to us in the absence of any - but I don't really think the way you set and maintain them is by simply identifying and signing Leaders and then having them Lead.

Particularly given "leadership" is a bit of a nebulous concept and I'm pretty sure what a lot of people mean when they talk about "leaders" is players who shout a lot and show higher than average levels of pashun. Funny seeing the thread about losing Morgan because when he was here there were always complaints about him not being a good captain because he wasn't constantly screaming at people.

The closest thing we have to a coherent strategy is to just always do whatever requires the least thought or effort, so I assume that in most cases the deal basically arrives fully formed courtesy of an agent or because the manager knows someone who knows someone who owes someone a favour, then we add 25-50% to whatever the asking price/wage demands are to keep them sweet. Only if there's no such oven-ready deal on the table do we then actually get the recruitment team involved.

With some of these you could at least see the logic at the time and they've just turned out disastrously for whatever reason, whereas there is no hindsight required whatsoever for Skipp. There can't have been more than about five people on the planet who thought spending that amount of money on him was a good idea but unfortunately that number includes the people at our club with the ability to make it happen.

Enzo I miss u

Looks that way. For a while I thought we were destined to be the new Stoke or Swansea, formerly "established" Premier League team now treading water in the Championship for the foreseeable - that's beginning to feel optimistic. While the squad gets worse year on year and the same failures are allowed to keep on failing without any suggestion whatsoever of accountability or repurcussions, hard to see how the current trajectory doesn't continue.