honeybradger

He wasnt that good under Cooper, was a dangerous dribbler but didn't have any end product.

In his prime he was shipping 9 to us and was bombed out of our squad a season and a half later for being crap under Rodgers. How he is still here is bewildering, even more bewildering is that Nelson couldnt play over these centrebacks for most of the season despite looking very assured when he came in.

He is so bad that despite the overwhelming negativity on this topic i dont think 90% of our fans understand how bad he actually is. Cant win a header, cant win a tackle, constantly out of position, regularly loses his man. He is genuinely in the bottom 10-20% of starting centre backs in this league yet you will still get some fans saying he gets into most teams.

Is there a case to play Brayrbooke in his position when he comes back from his loan? He might need some time to get settled but at least he has a future here and can put in a tackle unlike Winks.

Otchere starting to find his scoring boots at this level recently. Have been underwhelmed watching him in the past but it looks like he's made an improvement.

Well yeah, I dont think he looked completely out of his depth is what im saying and did well defensively for the most part. First yellow he was put into a bad position by sloppy play from Fatawu. It was either go for the foul or Southampton have a dangerous break, a more experienced player probably lets the opposition player break away but it's Aluko's debut so I can understand the pressure to not let the player get away from him. Not much he could do on the second goal, was defending 2v1 due to the horrorshow pairing of Faes and Vestergaard being out of the picture and the Southampton player pulling off a great fake pass. The second yellow was his only mistake in my opinion.

Apart from the silly yellows I thought he was ok. I thought Faes had a far worse game, no awareness on corners at all, and he will still be a regular for the rest of the season.

How did Aluko do with England u20s during international break? Don't think I heard anything about those games?

Im just saying that the games we had our best midfield starting havent always been great, such as milwall, wrexham or portsmouth, all of which started without Skipp or Soumare. It's not quite the golden bullet to success that it's made out to be.

To be fair the only game we've won starting with the Winks, James midfield is Swansea. On paper and on the eyes it's the best but something goes wrong more often than not.

I didn't personally think so, always preferred Bassey. Although I was surprised and impressed by how well Thomas played for us initially. I vaguely remember the U21 game before Thomas debuted for the first team he had a bit of a horror show where he assisted the opposition goal with a poorly placed backpass and I was surprised that he made the move up despite that performance.

We still prioritised Thomas at left back over Bassey. Im sure if we gave him a role in the first team whether at centreback or left back he would have stayed, it's just there wasnt a pathway for him.

You're completely right, if he didn't play the ball to the players in space he would get pelters probably but I reckon the team would have a higher chance of winning if he was more selfish and took a few more risks. Not an indictment on Sammy BTW but of the quality around him. If he was in a better team he would be doing the right thing but in a side like this with no quality around him he almost has to try and take some long range shots himself as he's one of the few with any quality.

It's a bit funny watching him in that Newport team because he's a possession minded player who beats the press and plays tidy passes round the pitch only for it all to be for nought as the teammate he passes to just plays it straight to the opposition or out of play. At some point i wish that he would just try and take the ball on and try and make something happen himself rather than doing the 'right play' and passing to the player who is supposedly in a better position but doesnt have the quality to make something of it.

Imagine reaching a point where we're disappointed that Reid isnt starting...

The one in black is his teammate, the other orange guy moves back to mark the teammate when Monga opens up for a pass to him but he holds onto the ball instead. It's not good defending by the standards that we are used to watching but this is what it looks like when semi pros come up against elite players.

No chance, what does Johansson have over Stolarczyk? Worse at claiming crosses, worse with his feet and worse at shot stopping. if we had Johansson and Stolarczyk was playing for someone else we would all rate Stolarczyk higher. It's just that our fans love to rag on whoever our goalkeeper is at the time, including Schmeichel when he was here.

I wouldnt take him back on the basis there is no guarantee he rediscovers his form after the injuries and what has likely been a confidence destroying experience at West Ham. We have the best goalkeeper in the championship anyway, no need to spend money on a new one.

Bit of a blow for Sammy as the Newport manager seemed to make him his main man. There were a few times when I was watching that he would call over Sammy to pass out tactical instructions to the rest of the team.

Came on at the 80th minute i think, had a good layoff for a shot at the edge of the box and cut inside to shoot a couple times himself without properly threatening the goalkeeper. I was impressed with his decision making for the short time he was on, think he's got more about him than that Rodriguez fella who plays every game but that's just how football works sometimes.

Bit of a shame that Evans isnt getting on the pitch, thought he looked good in his 10 minutes vs Haiti, albeit Haiti are really poor.

It will be interesting to see if Braybrooke ever becomes a starter for us. You would think he suits what Cifuentes wants from a midfielder more than Soumare and Skipp.

We're doing the same again with Ayew, Daka and Faes starting ahead of the academy options. We just start whoever has the highest wage.

I think you need a lot of top quality to win a cup competition and England's best U17 talents playing above their age group means i think England fall short in the knockout rounds. The last time england won they had Sancho, Foden, Hudson Odoi, Morgan Gibbs White, Skipp (lol), Guehi, Smith Rowe. That's probably half a billion in terms of talent nowadays.

Less than a year younger than Will Alves. Will Alves has experience on loan at championship level, England youth team call ups etc despite having an ACL injury and Heskey has none of that. Would have been a bizarre decision to loan Heskey instead of playing Alves, typical grass is greener syndrome.