StriderHiryu

That might be one of the reasons why they are comfortable with it. Ayew as a striker in the Championship would bag a lot. I appreciate we’d want cover, but we could try some of the u21’s like Popov or even try Mavididi up there. And that assumes we can’t sign anyone even on loan, which I don’t think would be the case. So then if selling Cannon gives us a chance to stay up this season, I think it’s worth taking the risk.

We were linked earlier in the season. He might not have been good, but at this price, you can take a punt. He is quite similar to Skipp in terms of profile, so if we had gotten him for say 5M compared to the Skipp fee, it would have left the squad in a better posiiton overall.

Analysis from last night's game, if you're interested!

Skipp isn't to blame for his price tag, but that signing will forever be as insane as it sounded at the time. A player at that price needs to be at least at the level of El Khannouss, IE in the first team every week and able to make a meaningful difference to the team. 20M on the bench for a defensive midfielder... it makes no sense. I was thinking back to the great escape season and I can think of two summer signings that made a huge difference. Ulloa scored 11 goals, huge for a team trying to stay up, and Esteban Cambiasso needs no explanation. Even then we still really needed Huth to shore up the backline in the January window. The difference is these 3 were consistent too. Some players clearly have great futures in El Khannouss and Buonanotte, but they can't do it every week yet.

Ruud was dealt an even worse hand than Cooper. Comes into a struggling side mid-season with no time to prepare the team or bring in any players he may have wanted. 6 losses in a row in the league is terrible, but any manager is going to struggle from his starting point. This is not the squad from 2022, it is considerably worse. He's lost Ndidi and Hermansen since he took over, who statistically were the ones that matched or beat players from the top half of the table. I see a clear idea of what he's trying to do, but our squad is so far off what other teams have, it's hard to be able to pull it off. That's where criticism might be fair, because he might be doing a Kompany from Burnley last season. But in tonight's game, we went to a more direct 352 after 60 minutes as a clear Plan B) but it didn't work either. When your options off the bench are Kasey McAteer, Jordan Ayew, Patson Daka and Bobby Reid, well it's not really that hard to see why we are struggling. Overall I'm ambivalent. I think that regardless of who was in charge, we needed one or two of our summer signings to be difference makers. Some players look good, but I am talking about players that make the difference every week. Ipswich right now might have a chance to stay up, because one of their signings in Delap is a difference maker. Wolves have Cunha. Even Everton have Ndiaye who is probably better than any of our forward players. If Vardy took one of his chances in the first half, it's a totally different game, but given his age, it's apparent he's no longer able to be the difference maker. So unless some of our players suddenly hit form, or some new signings of real quality come in, relegation is inevitable.

We made this video with help from Jacob Horsfall, hope it's useful:

Possibly, it depends on the profile Ruud is after. We were linked with Peter Musa this window also, he looked much more like a a player that could do the false 9 part of the role in dropping in deep to link up the play, as well as being a good target man. However, Latte Lah is rapid and would be good during our transitional moments, and very good at pressing. The thing is Daka is supposed to have a profile like that too, but his first touch and awareness are lacking. I haven't seen enough of Latte Lah to make a good assesment of how suitable he is. I would suggest that Esposito had more of the type of profile we would be after of the two, but Latte Lah's stats are good, and he's been a good player for Boro for at least 18 months now.

If you take emotion out of it, Latte Lah's stats are a lot more impressive than not only Cannon, but better than any other striker in the Championship this season. Yes cannon is playing for a side that is struggling, but the underlying data suggests he's one for the future, whereas Latte Lah or someone else is more ready made. FWIW, I think Cannon has a lot of potential and think it's a bit sad he never really got a chance with us, but there are many players for whom it didn't quite work out at Leicester for who went on and did well, like Kramaric or Iborra.

Aged like milk (We will be revising our Twitter game going forwards)

Points taken here. To defend Lox, his intention is to act as a news outlet for all fans. But I get it, if reports are unconfirmed and in this case highly emotional, it can spread negativity and toxicity among the fan base, which just divides us all and causes issues. We had a call-in show tonight and it makes me sad when I see callers call in who are genuinely sad and upset because of what is going on at our club. We don't want to flame the fires and make things worse for everyone! We will take this onboard going forwards. As we sadly see in all aspects of life, Social Media can and does have huge ramifications. In this instance, I want to defend my friend again by saying it was not intentional to clickbait anyone! But we can do better, and hopefully we will do going forwards.

Wins a penalty (and gets the man sent off) in this game. Also caught ball-watching to allow a goal in, though maybe it was a bit unfortunate. Seeing this video does make it clear why we wanted to sign him though. PACE. He is fast. When we step up with a high line with Vestergaard and Coady, when we lose the ball, it puts us in trouble. Kyle Walker for Man City (and now the Uzbekistan player they are signing) are there to give them some kind of chance on transition. I can see the thinking behind this one, but at the end of the day Ahmed Musa was also fast, and look how he turned out...

With the new fullback coming in, maybe they both get played down that side together? One of the two of them could play as the right sided CB, the other would push up like JJ did today. Both of them are quick, so together they might be better defensively? It could be RVN's thinking till Fatawu is back next season.

Ok that's good to know. How does the plan work though? Because my guess is that they will say "revenues = 30M, wage bill = 60M. You need to cut the wage bill by 30M", and then force us to do that.

I think the issue is that after relegation we would be put on a financial plan, which would involve selling any sellable asset and / or loaning them out. When Leeds went down, see how many players they had to sell or just loan out for the season. Last time we went up, we had the highest wage bill in Championship history. If this time round it's halved, AND there's a points deduction AND an embargo... it's probably playoffs in season one at best.

Thanks for this, he’s not a player I’m too familiar with. Seems quite similar to Vestergaard but can also operate as a right centre back. So I could see why his profile could be interesting. Any idea how fast he is?

Ruud had no preseason or his own transfers. Hard to judge anyone given that sort of hand.

When we push up he wants pace on the break. He went 352 so wanted faster CBs as he knows most of the team is going to push up.

It's Bilal El Khannouss, but the main reason why is because Ruud is building the team around him and letting him conduct the orchestra like Maddison once did. I will be going live at midday today to do the analysis for the Man City match, and I'll show you some of the excellent and innovative rotations that Ruud has introduced into the team. It allows El Khannouss to pick up the ball all over the place so he play key passes and make things happen. Will it be enough to stay up I don't know, but I think it's good that RVN has both improved and built the team around the best outfield prospect we have.

That might be good for us, going under the radar would help us a lot! I can't remember the last time a player put in such an all round display for us. 92% passing accuracy whilst always being brave enough to go for the killer pass, and the number of challenges and duels he won is some going. As some on here have said, it's like Maddison with workrate!

Under Ruud we tend to attack with 4 going forwards, with a 5th joining quite late in the attack. Under Maresca we'd attack with 5. It means you are a bit more stable on transition, but you do lack a bit of a punch going forwards. But that said I think it's the right apporach for a team like us, we need to get the amount of chances we concede down as a foundation to build from. Problem is we make so many unforced errors, and in the Premier League, those get punished.

Highlights reel... from just this one game! Did not deserve to be on the losing side today.

He puts on one of the faster CB's when we have to go for it. We went 352 at the end, so wanted some pace to give us some chance if Man City counter attacked us.

Come on you transfer nerds, join me and Lox tomorrow at midday where we present players we think we could sign. You guys are the best at it, so join in and give us your options!

Seems more like he played right back rather than centre back, but he might also have been used as the RCB in a 325 shape. Age an issue, but if it's a short term deal, maybe it's not a bad option? Has played for Newcastle, Porto and Marselle in the past.

At first I thought he must have heard a shout, but if that was the case I would have expected him to have gone mental at Ward afterwards. For me he should have just chested it back, relative to where he was at the time, Ward would have picked it up easily. This goal, especially with the way Ward lay on the floor afterwards sums up this current squad. It's looking grim.