StriderHiryu

When you're a free agent, it's not just about a new contract, you usually get a hefty signing on fee. Likely scneario is something like Leicester offer Ndidi £60K a week, but someone else offers him £80-90k a week plus £2-3M signing on fee. They might even go to as much as £5m. For the buying club, you aren't paying a fee, which is a massive saving as Wilf with say 2 years left on his contract is still probably worth 20M. It's not impossible he stays here given he's loved here and has settled, plus the new role change. But I could see multiple teams picking up on a free because IMO he's amazing value for many teams, even if he's more of a squad option that a starter. Any team that gets into Europe like Villa or West Ham could do a lot worse than Wilf. Man United could do alot worse than sign him! It goes without saying I hope he stays. To replace him with someone as good would be pretty tricky. Do you really want to see Casadei on loan here again next season !? If he does go, I could see us trying to get McAtee on loan or perhaps Sammie Szmodics who might be 28, but has scored tons of goals from attacking midffield for Blackburn. Unfortunately, the more I think about it, Casadei returning is inevitable isn't it! We won't have any money, he won't get into the Chelsea team and Enzo likes him.

Totally agree. In terms of goals and assists he’s so far behind KDH it’s absurd, but the team plays much better when he’s in it. He’s looked leggy since returning from injury though. He had a good first 45 against Brum but Praet should have come on sooner. Will be interesting to see if he’s still here next season. I think he would like to be but he’s a great pickup for anyone on a free transfer.

Yeah for me this is the most fair take. The way we play we actually WANT the striker to rush the keeper to take him out of the game to play around him. There is and always will be a risk doing this, bit on average as we've seen the net outcome is worth it. But in a HUGE game for us, in the 44th minute and one up, that is when we need to be savvy. Do what John Ruddy was doing all game and take ages on the goal kick, make the clock count down. Kicking long here may have turned the ball over and given it back to Brum, but they were doing nothing. It wasn't a case of us being under the kosh and desperately needing someone to help relieve the pressure. At the end of the game what pleased me is that we ran the ball into the corners for once. It was the % play to see the game out and secure the points.

Still around! Busy with work but also bricking it due to us collapsing and the heavy FFP fine on our shoulders. Tactically we haven't changed too much, but some differences I would say we've seen are: - More subs being used, with some of these unsurpsingly making the difference. Ndidi had a good first half but was clearly tired in the second. Fatawu not so good against a deep block, so ultimately the Praet / Yunus changes won the game. - I feel like after we go ahead we aren't sitting back as much, though still not as aggressive as I'd like us to be. - Off the ball work much better in the last two games - Going a bit more direct. We looked for the ball over the top a lot against Birmingham, Mavididi been great in the air over the last two games. But to be honest the biggest difference for me in the last two games has been... the fans! Got behind the team after going behind to Norwich, didn't get on Mads back following the error against Brum. There's a good atmosphere and in the second half against Brum, the atmosphere was the loudest I've heard on the TV since maybe pre-Covid! Maybe the PSR stuff got the whol club united again!? Let's not take anything for granted though, this is a brutal league that is super competitive. For me my criticism of Maresca's tactics is that I don't think we turn on the heat enough. We make high quality chances but don't make enough of them. After we get on top in a game, I think I would get the team to be more direct and go for more 50/50s and trying to win the indiviudal duels. For example, the Yunus chance where he somehow didnt shoot from one yard out was a proper scramble, but I would embrace that chaos at times. Not for the entire game, but after the team is thoroughly on top. Man for man we are better than any team in this division, and we'd even have half a chance against some of the teams in the Premier League too.

I wonder if because of a potential incoming embargo we will sign him because we literally can’t sign other new players !

What is insane about that moment is you could argue it was worse than missing from two yards out. He didn't even take a shot! Crazy because if he got it the fans would have demanded he was signed up! Still a great cross. Fatawu is brilliant and really direct. But today you saw one of his weaknesses, in that he often misplaces key passes. Yunus isn't the type to beat a man, but his passing is very good.

Gerry Taggart losing it on the replay was hilarious! I only say this now because we won. If we hadn't I would have had the Yunus pitchfoks out!

Well that wasn't stressful at all

100% this. As has been said many times, the owners of the club have shown repeatedly that they don't care about us as fans, they treat us as customers. They have provided some incredible memories, but it's a shame they don't realise that the fans would actually have their backs during tough times, if only they could be bothered to talk to us. In a world with the Internet and Social Media, it's just not acceptable.

ENZO OUT

Yep agreed, we've all seen how it plays out. There is something to be said for drilling a plan till you get so good at it that it becomes second nature. But this is a huge season for the club, if we don't get promoted we are going to be in HUGE trouble. Will probably start next season with a points deduction and a transfer embargo, and probably have to sell KDH and others. There is a reason why our opponents today, Stoke, Watford, etc all got marooned in this division. It's because the parachute payments run out. At the end of the day let's judge him at the end of the season, but if he ends up bottling a 17 point lead with the most expensive team in Championship history, that's not a good look, and could be disastrous for the club.

It's got quite toxic on here and I find it not that healthy mentally to look at the forum during such periods. In general my biggest observation is that we are struggling to exert control over games and getting disrupted from getting a rhythm going by being pressed ourselves. If our back 5 have a good game, then we have a platform to build upon, but the number of goals we've let in over the last 2 months means that platform isn't steady. Should Enzo change his tactics? I've always said that a classic 433 with our quality players would probably blow away 95% of teams in the division. In too many games after we go behind you can't see us scoring enough goals to get back into or win games. If you look at our rivals, they have had games that ended 4-4, 3-3, 5-3, etc. The Championship is one of the most chaotic leagues out there, sometimes you just need to win by whatever means possible. I think if we were less cautious and more direct against many teams we might concede goals but would probably win many games 3-1, 4-2, etc. So if it was me I would keep the starting tactics but be prepared to change things when needed.

Summary of this thread: people who spell Choudhury as Choudary Right up there with classics such as: - N'didi - Fatawoo - Vestergarde - Oyazaki - Mehrez

Hermansen injured?

I'm a big Enzo fan, but this comment is the truth. Scott Parker, Daniel Farke, Dean Smith even... any manager we hired should be expected to get us promoted given how good the squad we have is. Enzo still might do it. Up until the second Boro game we were cruising and I'm not really sure how we've gone from certainties to get promoted to clinging on. That Leeds game is the stuff of nightmares, we should have won 3 or 4 nil! One thing I find odd is that a system based manager usually has a slow start but comes on strong towards the end of the season when the team fully understands the gameplan. We started a bit slowly, but then really picked things up and started cruising the league. Even AFCON didn't really derail us too badly in the end. So it's weird that after the window closed we have struggled so badly. And that *might* be a reason we don't make it if things go that way. Ipswich massively reinforced their squad and look at the effect it's had. Leeds signed a few players, one of whom scored against us. Hull today had Carvalho who we 110% should have signed, a player who is probably a contender for most talented in the division. FFP issues are clearly why we weren't able to do this, but I'm just calling it as I see it. We lost Casadei, Ndidi was out injured and Akgun and Praet haven't really stepped in as we would have liked in terms of results. Anyway, let's see where we are at the end of the season, but my point is that being critical of the manager is fair game in my book, even as a fan.

I made this thread, but I echo the sentiment of being way too cautious after scoring a goal. Something we've been guilty of all season long and has come back to bite us against Ipswich twice and we've gotten away with it in many other games when it didn't need to be done. We looked electric in the first 15 minutes and then totally switched off. I don't understand why as Man City didn't play like that. Worse still, I can accept playing the more Spanish style of throttling possession when ahead so that you don't necessarily look to score, but because you don't give the ball away, you don't concede either. But in this game we just gave it away time after time, gave away stupid free kicks and rode our luck. I'm very nervous for the rest of the season, that was an awful performance and tactically hard to understand the switch off. The goal did wake Sunderland up and they targetted Winks a lot more, but it felt more like we let them back into it.

From my observations: Defenders mark space instead of marking their man, so they don't get dragged out of position. Not over committing to our wingers getting the ball and showing them the outside more often, which puts them onto their weaker foot. There's some other weird stuff as well, like KDH moved to the right number 8, meaning when he received the ball in the pocket he can't shoot first time because he's right footed. This feels more like Enzo's doing than the opposition, though. Rather than having a "Plan B", I think we need some newer attacking patterns of play. Here's a blog post from a few years ago with the numerous patterns of play Man City use: https://spielverlagerung.com/2020/09/21/analysing-manchester-citys-attack-chance-creation-methods/ Some things we could try: Switch the wingers to the other sides so that they get to the byline and cross / cut-back instead of cutting inside. Then flip them round and go to the inside. Do this a few times a match. In some games we have started with the wingers on the opposite sides but change it back after 5 minutes. Use the outside CBs to make overlapping runs past the wingers. As they do this, Ricardo / Hamza could drop deep to protect us on the transition. Both of them often make "underlapping" runs, but think we need to mix it up between underlapping and overlapping. JJ or Ricardo we know are excellent fullbacks who can make great overlapping runs, so why not try to use this sometimes? The 8's and the 6's could interchange in attack during some patterns. E.g. Winks could bomb on and Praet could drop. Fully change formation and just go 433. But with Kristiansen and Thomas out on loan I don't see us doing this. JJ could go left hand side, but Ricardo is out injured. If the opposition is parking the bus, there are two ways in my book you can try and beat them: Go more direct. More strikers, more attackers. Accept the game will be messier and more chaotic, but try to overwhelm the opposition with superior quality. This is why teams like Southampton and Ipswich have been better at winning or drawing games where they've been behind IMO. This strategy can go wrong, because you are more vulnerable on the transition, leading to 4-3 games and the like. But a win is a win. Change / create new attacking patterns of play. Our style is to try to find a free man, but recently we aren't able to do it because teams are getting wise / finding it easier to defend against our movements. But if we make new movements, then the opposition won't know what to look out for. Under Brendan we played 4141 / 433 very often. That meant you had two fullbacks and two wingers to attack games with. That system got found out in the Premier League in the end, but I think it would beat 90% of teams in the Championship. I don't expect Enzo to go this way though.

It's the biggest test of Enzo's career so far now, that's for sure. A really poor performance today, we never looked like scoring and the goal we did score felt fortuitous rather than well worked. What both Boro and QPR did is sit back with two banks of 4 at times but didn't follow players around. So darting runs from players trying to drag their opponent's out of position weren't working. I don't think it helped that many players had off days again; KDH, Mavididi, JJ and both of the 8's that were tried. I hope he can sort it out. I'm not sure when Ndidi is back, but I think that will make a big difference. The team plays worse when the 8 is Praet, Yunus or McAteer. Ricardo could have been used there today, so it's a shame he was injured. At the other end, we are also conceding stupid goals. It's all going wrong at the worst possible time...

The stats would suggest the defensive part is as important if, not more important in the role. And that's what Enzo is getting at: 𝐋𝐞𝐢𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐂𝐢𝐭𝐲'𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐠𝐮𝐞 𝐖𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐖𝐢𝐥𝐟𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐍𝐝𝐢𝐝𝐢, 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐢𝐬 𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐥𝐲 𝐢𝐧𝐣𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐝:🇳🇬 𝐖𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐍𝐝𝐢𝐝𝐢 🏟 Played 21 games ✅️ Won 18 games 🎯 Draw 2 games 🚫 Lose 1 game 𝐖𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐍𝐝𝐢𝐝𝐢 🏟 Played 12 games ✅️ Won 7 games 🎯 Drawn 1 game 🚫 Lose 4 games

A great press conference as Enzo talks quite a bit about our tactics. Interesting to hear that he wants our number 8's to be able to defend like a CDM, but be able to get into the pocket like an attacking midfielder. Really thinks a lot of Ndidi.

Diaz turned down moves to Brighton and Barcelona to sign for a Qatari side. That said, I think he's a player that is gettable. His fee was 6M so if a club went in with 3x that amount, they'd be in with a chance. He'll be on high wages, but Premier League hardly pays badly. He can play as either an 8 or a 6, and I think would do exceptionally well in the Enzo system. I'm curious who we go for. This summer was the first one in a while where we found players for good value that performed. Winks, Hermansen, Mavididi, Fatawu all cemented in the first team and consistent performers. 3 of those we don't know how they'll do in the Premier League, but the Bournemouth game suggested they will handle it.

It all depends on how strong a team we put out. I suppose that even our B team won yesterday, which was amazing, but think we'd have to go full strength to beat either of these two. However, if we did go full strength... we could beat either of them! League is the priority this season, though, for obvious reasons.

Playing out from the back, turning under pressure, then a moment of individual brilliance to score the winner: Only thing with this move is that if Kelechi was right footed he'd have had an opportunity to finish himself after the run into the inside pocket / half space.

The full move for the Fatawu goal. Big credit to Ricardo for receiving the ball under pressure and getting out of it beautifully. Playing out from the back and creating the move the Enzo way!

A Galatasaray fan posted this on Reddit after watching the match: We have a saying in Turkish, it roughly translates into “Crossing the ocean just to drown in a pond”. I think it describes Yunus perfectly. He does the “difficult” things, like finding spaces between defenders or a great dribble around a few defenders, but fails to make the simple pass or shot. I hope he can improve on it, but it looks like he is still the same in that regard even though he improved a lot physically. It's a pretty good description of the player I think. It's very interesting to note that he says Akgun has improved a lot physically, as many people still have doubts about that aspect of his game. I would say that he ran from minute 1 to minute 120 in the cup game and got stuck into a lot more challenges. So he's improving in some areas of his game for sure. As I said previously, I think overall he had good involvement in the game, stretching the play and causing a problem. But he's got to work on turning that good build-up play into more end-product. This is a problem we've seen a number of players need to address over the last few years; Barnes, Maddison and KDH, and all 3 of them were able to do it.