honeybradger

Even if he is still here at the beginning of the season he simply cannot play if we want to be promoted. He got caught out multiple times by Bristol Rovers who are in league 2. I get a feeling he is going to be a bomb scare no matter how far we fall down the pyramid.

From vague memory there have been 4 or 5 games with Vestergaard in a Leicester shirt where the opponent were up at least 3 nil in the first half and could go on to score 9 but instead they stopped trying in the second half. Says it all really, Vestergaard is an ingredient in a recipe for getting battered.

We can't seriously be considering going into a new season with Wout Faes as our starter? We had this same "clean sheets" nonsense last season and it led to our relegation.

We have had games where when we went 2 goals down Faes would stop even trying to defend. Not to mention of his habit of throwing his hands up in the air and blaming everyone else when we concede. He absolutely does not care in the slightest and the day he leaves the club will benefit both on and off the pitch.

You look at someone like Coulibaly though and he would be a 3rd rate talent if he came from our academy. Someone who should be making his trade in league two or national league. Even Silko was better. Yet we spent £3mil on him when he had one year on his contract. Tommy Neale, who is probably our 4th best midfield talent behind Braybrooke, Page and Briggs outshone our £20mil midfield signing today. The recruitment at this club is just atrocious at the moment.

Thought Tommy Neale was quite good. Better than Skipp at least.

Coulibaly is good for a laugh at least.

Brilliant from Braybrooke. Hutchinson and Opoku should have done better. As I'm typing this it's brilliant from Braybrooke x 2

Looks confident on the ball, not convinced by him as a shot stopper yet but generally looking good.

Why is Carr playing central and Choudhury out wide. Bizarre tactics. Carr look so good hugging the touch line last game.

Great minds think alike

Riley Carr is going to be special . Impressed with Kevon Gray as well.

Vardy won the golden boot at Ings's age. Ings last season scored 2 goals in 23 games in the championship. You can't compare the career trajectories of the two. Vardy is arguably the greatest post 30s striker in the history of the English league.

Out of interest why has he not renewed with Ipswich. If he still has the same quality as he did in 22/23 and 23/24 you would think there would still be some use for him as a squad player for Ipswich. For me Ipswich not being willing to renew is an indicator of him slowing down but it would be interesting to hear from someone who is more clued in on the Ipswich side of things.

I know you won't accept it unless I provide the written contract but here is my understanding: Jakupovic from 2020-2022 was reportedly on £23k a week. Smithies was on £30k from 2022 to 2024 (our worst contract ever). In the 23-24 season we had Hermansen (£10k), Ward(£40k), Iversen(£20k), Smithies(£30k), Stolarczyk (£5k) on our books. That's £105k a week on wages for goalkeepers that season. 2024-2025 we had Hermansen, Iversen, Ward, Stolarczyk. Ward was technically 3rd choice that season so on £40k a week with Iversen out of the picture. Last season was better where we had Stolarczyk (£10k), Begovic (£15k) and Vietes (£15k) but the goalkeeper wage situation has been absurd at the club for years. Arguably £15k on the 2nd and 3rd choice goalkeepers is still insane for a championship club, especially considering we got Hermansen on £10k.

I was impressed by Vietes in the friendly, can see Martin trying to keep a hold of him. If we lose a goalkeeper I can guarantee another one will come in. Having 3 senior goalkeepers is a criticial requirement of the club for some reason.

You've got to love that no matter what money issues we have or gaps in the squad there are the club are always committed to signing a 3rd choice keeper. £10million wasted on wages for 3rd choice goalkeepers since 2020 and that trend doesn't seem to be stopping.

We said we would do well in the championship last season with players who were below standard in the Premier League. As we all know it did not work out. I think you're being disingenuous if you are genuinely trying to say that Chaplin's decline in form will not carry over to league one. Football is a highly competitive sport and if a player has lost their edge then that's going to affect their performances at any professional level.

You think the player who played for Portsmouth last season is the same one who got 21 g+a for Ipswich in the Championship and 31 g+a in league one? Age is less important than performances and Chaplin's have fallen off quite significantly in recent years.

He's just come off a very poor season with Portsmouth. Not the player he used to be. Another player on the Ayew, Cordova Reid, Conor Coady, Ryan Bertrand pile of signing over the hill players.

Braybrooke not being physical is a myth. He's small but Kante was also small and similar to Kante he's agressive and knows how to use his body well. He averaged 2.5 tackles a game in league 2 last season, Winks and Skipp combined averaged 3 so defensively he's an upgrade on our starting midfielders from last season. If those two can play the 6 for us then so can Braybrooke.

As it stands you would hope that that's our starting midfield next season as it's our strongest. Choudhury was pretty good yesterday but I think Braybrooke would be better as a 6 as he's more suited to Martin's style. Think if somehow Skipp ends up being our starting 6 next season then there's a decent chance we do three relegations in a row. He just kills any forward thinking football.

Carr was very good. Probably our second best player behind Alves yesterday. Alves, Carr, Aluko, Wilson Brown, Page, Otchere all impressed yesterday. Evans, Hutchinson, Braybrooke were fine but suffered from being in a weaker side. Nelson probably the weakest recent academy graduate of the group. The usual suspects Okoli, BDCR, Skipp, Faes, Coulibaly all rubbish so expect them to be the ones starting the season.

Motsi's that good. You either give the money to someone like Chaplin and (maybe) get a good league one season out of him and no transfer value. Or you give it to Motsi and he could be a star player with us all the way to the Premier League and if he's sold it would be for £10mil+ like Monga.

Nyoni's only on £25k a week currently. Maybe Motsi is perceived as a bigger talent, but an agreement for a £15-20k a week contract when he turns 17 should still be in the ball park of what he would get elsewhere.