honeybradger

Do we? Faes is one of the worst centrebacks in the league in the air and the sole reason that Cifuentes must think that Carranza is decent is that he comes up against Faes in training.

Not saying it was down to Puel, he built a good squad but his tactics held the squad back. I'm saying the playstyle that Rodgers gets credit for in his first couple of years with us was already there from the game after Puel was sacked and before Rodgers was properly appointed (brighton 2-1 win). So how does he get credit for implementing that playstyle when it was present before he even spoke to the players and it deteriorated the longer he coached them. What often is referred to as Rodger's ball was in reality 'Tielemans ball', where we controlled games but also penetrated the opposition before Rodgers could coach it out of them. Rodgers ball is just mindless passing between the centrebacks and we saw that playstyle develop the longer he was in position, surely the intended playstyle of a manager has to be the style that develops the longer he is manager, not the playstyle that is there during the honeymoon period where the players are playing freely.

Before Rodgers took over we played 'peak Rodgers ball' in the Brighton 2-1 win. Not sure the way we played was down to him or due to the quality of player we had, the squad he inherited was ridiculous.

Can a manager who has a tendency to ruin a squad if he stays too long actually be considered to be good?

Mavididi has better defensive work rate and off the ball movement. Monga is better at taking his man on but lacks in the other two departments. Monga has certainly been more threatening than Mavididi this season but i dont mind Mavididi starting. Not a fan of fans blaming recent results on Monga starting though, he hasnt been impressive but he hasnt been bad either, there are worse offenders that are supposed to be far more experienced and are also better paid. Monga's form is acceptable because he is learning, the others are supposed to be in their prime years and are no better.

Ayew has the same number of goals and assists as Monga. It saddens me that as a fanbase we hold our academy players to a higher standard than our senior ones. Monga's performances in recent weeks, which have been uneventful by his standards, are the average game for our experienced players like Ayew and Reid. We need to give Monga at a minimum the same amount of patience that Ayew and Reid have received, sadly it seems that he has already been deemed not ready after 500 minutes whereas he has been no worse than Ayew and Reid who have racked up 3000 minutes for us.

Haaland's consecutive goal streak ends at 6 in a row. Can't even match Vardy's second best of 8.

Players dont only have to find their feet through starting. A season of starting for Huddersfield would have been good but being our first or second attacking option off the bench at championship level could have benefitted him similarly.

I know he's injured but I think loaning Will Alves out was a mistake (not taking the foot injury into account). He showed at Cardiff that he's a bit of an impact off the bench specialist and offers something different to our other wingers. I think he would have gained us points where our other subs have failed to so far this season. If Cifuentes genuinely came into the club with the intention of integrating the academy players im sure he would be reaping the rewards in comparison to where we are now.

Playing talented players in a below average team does not ruin them, where have you seen an example of that? Birmingham weren't good when Bellingham broke out, same for our own Jordan James, Reading weren't particularly good when Olise was playing, Blackburn not great when Wharton was playing, Qpr not great when Eze was playing, Oxford United not great when Nelson was playing. You talk about what supporters can and cant control, but the club and manager also cant suddenly flip the quality of the squad on it's head and start winning, the only thing the club have in their control is to start planning for the future and start building the spine of the team around our academy golden generation.

Monga has been better than Ayew and Mavididi so not sure how you can say he is way off being better. He has been our best choice at left wing this season. Even if he wasnt better he is 16, they are 34 and 27. He is allowed to perform at this level because this is just one step for him on the path to improvement, the alternatives to him arent going to get better, therefore their performances are more unacceptable e even if they perform to the same level.

Did i defend Thomas? I'm just saying the pass was very good.

The players are not playing poorly, they are poor, there is a clear difference. No point in giving confidence to the poor players as it's wasted on them, we need to give confidence and experience to the talented academy players as they potentially have a future of being good.

Bit harsh on the pass, it's pretty much perfect. We dont play passes as good as that into our forwards any more.

So you would persist with Thomas, Ayew, Daka, Carranza, Faes, Okoli etc ahead of the academy players because we dont want to put to much pressure on the first team. to the side. We need to rebuild the squad this season, it's not about results, a lot of players have simply overstayed their welcome.

Hopefully it is starting to click for him that these players wont deliver him. Need to start bringing Nelson, Aluko, Page and Evans into the fold.

The difference between staying up and relegation this season and i am being 100% serious

Ill be honest i dont want a new manager. All that is going to happen is that someone comes in who is not familiar with these players and passes out a fresh round of clean sheets. We need to persist with a manager who has gotten familiar with how terrible this squad is and understands that it needs gutting. (or grows to understand that the squad needs gutting, which is what im sure is happening in Cifuentes's mind at the moment) Also the additions of Ramsey and James are two of the few positives we have had so far, I'm worried we bring in a Cooper type manager who just brings in more trash that needs to be shifted.

Just a lack of individual quality across the board sadly

Far better than we are now

Stolarczyk our best player this season

As one of Wink's biggest critics he has been very good defensively today

He hasnt played u21s football in years i dont think. He's well past that and it would be borderline disrespectful to send him back considering we allegedly fended off PL interest for him. He's hit a brick wall in terms of getting into the first team though sadly.

Who's ready to go 3-0 up then lose 4-3