Iwebema

Of course I hope you are wrong. But its rare you see teams leave it this late to figure it out and make it work. It reminds me of that season, all be it they were trying to fight for title, when arsenal went in totally unprepared, thought they could wing it and got battered by united and signed arteta/mertesacker etc. in a panic.

This is exactly where I'm at, it's a combination of everything and watching it happen for multiple years. I find it quite unbelievable that people are still making excuses because of things that happened almost 10 years ago. This transfer window even for us is a joke, we are completely un prepared. I do understand the circumstances which could be causing players to bulk at signing for us, but any DOF worth their salt would have thought about alternative approaches. The average fan on here had a better grasp and transfer policy than the club, if money is tight prioritise spending in areas of need, not another centre back. If bigger named players don't want to sign because of the potential points deduction then focus your attention on younger up and coming players from the lower leagues. But figure this out quicker than a week before the season starts. It feels like they all went on holiday patted themselves on the back and only really started to think about this season about 2 weeks ago and they are now thinking "oh shit"

I do find his interviews refreshing, he's always very honest and open. I will give him that..but.... He already looks like he has no idea how he's going to turn this around unless we bring in alot of players. Hes shown his tactical inability and you can just see in his body language he's lost. I am still routing for him as everyone should, we need to have some hope he turns it around as he isn't going to get the sack any time soon, but I think we've all been around football long enough to know how this plays out.

All I would say to this is, if any manager plays 3 DMs in the midfield to see what it looks like. He isn't a manager. Inexcusable really even in a friendly. The lack of signings are not on him, but not even trying to find a creative solution to solve the lack of attacking output and whacking the most defensive of defensive teams out there and wondering why it went wrong is. What are you possibly learning from doing what he did today, baffling really. Already looks like he feels the club have let him down and he is starting to go into "it's not my fault" Disaster of a season coming up unless we have a miracle of a last few weeks of transfers.

It might not be true, I haven't done the digging into it, but in my mind Nixon is about as reliable as Sean From Enerdby (apologies if he is well connected and I have that wrong!) But if we work on the assumption it is true, even if it was on a free transfer and we hadn't signed BDR then I think it would be a very questionable signing...the fact we will pay money, offer him a 2/3 year deal and he is of a very similar mold to BDR just makes it absolutely mind boggling we would even be sniffing around him. If cooper/rudkin believe we need premier league experience fine, but I would argue we have alot already, vesty, Ricardo, winks, justin, vardy, ndidi, coady. We have alot. And I can't think of many teams who managed to stay up and made a success from buying old cloggers looking for a last pay check. With what little money we do have we should be maximising any and all of that spend on younger talent that can both give us a chance at staying up but also be flipped for profit. My only hope is, he was the back up to BDR and it's a lagging report/leak.

The PSR rules work in accounting periods, so KDH was for last year and we are now in a new year. Also I don't really understand why they do it this way, but the selling club gets to record the sale as lump sum (minus any you owe on a player) where as the buying club get to record the spend across a 5 year period. So we record 30 million for the books selling kdh, but buying O'Reily for 30 million would be recorded as 6 million per year for the 5 years. If it was in the same accounting period you would reflect that you are 24 million in profit for the year despite the total outlay being the same. This is what this amortisation everyone has been talking about is.

My biggest issue with this appointment is less about steve cooper as a competent coach, I think hes probably better than most are making out. But it just doesn't make any sense given his style and our recruitment strategy recently. We have a goalkeeper in mads that will have his unique asset rendered largely pointless. We have given vestergaard a 3 year deal to not play to his strengths. We have signed wingers to not play wingers. And then there's the fact this is going to be one hell of a slog this season, we need to collectively pull together as a cohesive unite, appointing cooper as has shown is already going to bring the opposite, whilst I know everyone will hope he does well, he is not going to get the support of most for long for all of the reasons everyone has already said. It has to be a red hot start or it's over before it begins. The whole thing is just careless and not well thought through at all. I guess that it should not come as a surprise that our director of football, doesn't understand how to set or deliver football direction, its unlikely he even understands what the word strategy means. We see what happens to clubs who just throw darts like this without thinking things through in more detail and it's never a positive story.

Have to agree, I'm really not sure what more Enzo could do today, if it was a boxing match it would of been stopped. He cant control a disallowed goal, he cant legislate for an absolutely diabolical reffing display (from a guy that has a track record against us) He cant put the ball in the net for mavididi and daka And then 2 more deflected goals. Hes certainly not been perfect but I cant hold much against him today.

💯 I am no tactics guru, but it looks quite obvious that not having an on form striker is really hurting us. When vardy had his mini purple patch a few games ago we looked excellent, but we can't expect him to do that for 46 games at his age.

I do still feel we are in control of games, Sheffield Wednesday aside (where I thought we were really poor), I thought it was interesting to hear Winks after the game talk about the forward players are given freedom to try things, I wonder how much their collective poor form is playing a role? Mavididi, vardy, iheanacho, mcateer etc. dont look at it at all compared to the first few games. I guess my positive spin on it is we still look solid and capable, I just wish we would put teams to bed, though in reality WBA away is a very tricky game, Ipswich got spanked there. Let's hope the last minute winner can spark something from our more creative players...atm I am leaning more to our wingers and strikers not taking advantage of the freedom allowed and taking "the easy route" of passing it off.

Good analysis as always 👍 I think one thing to consider on the first half performance is we were coming off the back of 2 losses and an international break, a slow start felt almost inevitable as we tried to find some confidence. The quick subs by Enzo probably suggest he was also unhappy with the tempo though. For what it's worth, I think we are a proper striker away from things really going up another level, iheanacho, for whatever reason, has been a disappointment and Vardy obviously isnt the player he was, its similar as you point out to man city pre and post Haaland. I think not having a proper striker who just leads the line instead of dropping in like an 8 is causing the lack of aggression that I think some want to see. Still I'm personally enjoying this season, it's not without its frustrations, but it feels like the building blocks of something good that needs a few transfer windows to absolutely nail.