StriderHiryu

Ozan Kabak doesn't look bad at all. Here are the problems with Jannik and Faes - they don't win headers, hence why Moyes and Frank just hammer long balls at us.

That's one way of putting it ha ha! From Wimmer and Pavlovic on the thumbnail to Dawson and McAteer

Might be some PSR shenanigans. Both clubs sell to generate revenue when in reality neither player plays.

I largely agree, but there was always a question of if Maresca would have got found out too. You can bet that for the first 5 games, he absolutely would have played a high line with Vestergaard in it too. That said, from what I have seen at Chelsea, I think he would have changed the lineup at minimum and most likely would have changed the build up shape. For example, he was using a 4141 in the defensive phase earlier in the season whilst Chelsea were getting to grips with his system so protect them a bit better. It wouldn't surprise me if Ruud if manager of a Championship Leicester City also smashed that league, but the Premier League is such a massive gulf in class. It says a lot that only once in history have 2 teams gone up from the Championship with such high points tallies in us and Ipswich, and yet both teams have stunk the place out.

Ruud deserves pelters today. A manager can't do much about his team having switched off in the first 10 seconds of the game, and then again 5 minutes later, but he absolutely can for setting up the team in a suicidal manner against a manager that is known for playing a counter attacking style. The third goal is everything that is wrong about his setup and to be honest even the first two are long balls targetting the spaces behind the backline which are exploitable due to poor mobility (not just speed, but ability to turn, etc). He did take Vestergaard off at 60, but to be honest, he should have made 5 changes at halftime to send a message. Vestergaard put in a clear 0/10 performance, and Faes not much better. However, despite all of this, no manager will keep this lot up, the squad isn't good enough for the Premier League. In hindsight our fate was sealed as soon as Cooper was appointed. Signings like Ayew, Reid, Okoli and Skipp are simply not the level they needed to be to improve the squad and team. Okoli should start in that backline if we are going to play a high line, but he was awful for the 4th goal too.

Ruud's got to take massive pelters for playing a suicidally high line with Vestergaard in it. Horrendous decision.

Good luck to him! Worked well in the past for Barnes, Chilwell and KDH.

Seems irrelevant now as we have dropped out but yes, turning him into more of a false 9 / support striker is how Carrick catapaulted his career: Boro signed Latteh Lah as his replacement, both were used in a very similar way.

Wolfsburg signed Andreas Skov Olsen in this window, who is a left footed right winger, which is maybe what they are after, and why Wimmer is likely to be available. Skov Olsen is possibly a player we should have been after, but if we ended up signing Wimmer permanently, he would probably start over Mavididi, but could provide cover or even start in a number of positions. Basically a better Ayew / BCR, with proven ability to beat a player 1 on 1.

Stats look great, can play on either side, is young and has potential resale value, whilst has experience of a top league? A much better link to many of the others we have looked at!

Akpom on loan would be a good get IMO. The goal he scores at 2:18 and the one right afterwards are the type of goal Ruud is trying to get us to score, a goal on transition with the striker holding up the play and linking it all together.

It might depend on what the plan is for the summer. If the feeling is that Ricardo is going to leave regardless of what division / manager we have, which IMO is a likely outcome, then signing Lamptey might be OK. However, I feel like a squad with Ricardo, Justin and Lamptey is utterly irresponsible given the injury records of all 3 players. Lamptey is a great player though, very unfortunate with his injuries.

I'd pass on him for the same reason.

Here's his injury record: An amazing player on his day of course, see his wonderful goal against us earlier in the season.

What a bombshell article! Maybe one of the best written about the club for many years. RVN is on the clock now, but I have sympathy for him. He's clearly trying to change the culture of the "Seagrave Hotel" but it's not working, because the overall culture at the club is rotten. Sadly this makes me feel like we are YEARS away from any improvement. - Ruud walks - We get relegated - The good players like El Khannouss leave, the overpaid ones stay - We perform badly in the Championship because said overpaid players don't really care and are just going through the motions - We don't get promoted in the first 3 seasons, parachute payments run out and we become the next Watford, Stoke, Norwich, etc You can see it coming a mile away.

Even if it was only on loan for the rest of the season, he would be a great addition. Has elements of Vestergaard's game but is much faster.

Which is exactly why unused players should be loaned out. What have we learned keeping Alves and Golding at the King Power? They could have either come back as better players or fetched money for us elsewhere if they were loaned out.

Maybe (and it's a big maybe), we are waiting to get other deals lined up before agreeing for those two to leave? Think back to when we almost signed Jack Harrison, but then didn't, but allowed Albrighton to leave on loan. We actually made the squad worse because of that decision.

There were so many issues with the summer window, and it all leads back to appointing the wrong guy for the job, IMO. I think signing a player to be cover / rotation for Winks was neccessary. But it turns out we have that player, and it's Soumare. So if we signed Skipp we should have sold Soumare and probably Hamza too. And as we all know the fee we paid for him was insane, if we just needed cover there are tons of players around Europe we could have signed on loan. I agree with the striker, but also think we needed to sign a quality CB with pace. We signed Okoli, but he's not starting. For me we could / should have combine the Skipp and Okoli moneny and brought in a fast CB to make the difference. The last BIG money CB we signed was Fofana, and he sent into and stayed in the team till he left. If you look at the back 5 we have started in the 7 game losing run, it's no suprise whatsoever that we concede over 2 goals a game.

Skipp was in the Championship team of the year for Norwich a few seasons ago, so at that level he will cut it. However, signing a player for the sum of money we paid who is making next to no impact in the Premier League was a huge mistake. I think it says it all that the team we were battling with for Skipp was Leeds, who aren’t in the same division as us…

58% passing accuracy Had 5 Ground Duels and won just 2 of them Lost possesion 7 times Dribbled Past once All in 30 minutes. To be fair he made 2 tackles, which is more than Harry Winks has made in his last 3 games put together.

If you lose 7 games in a row in the Premier League, you would typically lose your job. Ruud has been dealt an extremely tough hand, but at the same time he's playing it badly. The starting lineup was wrong and the subs were possibly the worst I've seen from a manager in recent times. El Khannouss had been poor but he was the one player on the pitch actually fighting for everything. The only one that had the attitude that the entire Great Escape team had, and Ruud took him off! I could not believe what I was seeing. There's no way this squad stays up, but it's already toxic. I suspect he will probably leave before the end of the season either way.