honeybradger

We keep the ball a lot so our defenders dont actually have to do much defending. When the opposition are actually attacking us our defenders seem to get it wrong about as often as they get it right. Just because a defender plays in a better team does not make them better, Coady played 3000 minutes for us and couldnt last 5 games at Wrexham.

Misses Middlesbrough, Norwich, Stoke, Southampton and probably Sheffield United as well if they go all the way. It's a shame as with the fixture congestion you would hope he would get a couple more games under his belt for us.

Williams Barnett tore our u21s a new one a month or so ago in the 6-3 loss to Spurs. Very talented player, dont know anyone else.

He was very involved in the goal Cremonese scored a couple weeks ago against Inter Milan. Won the ball back, played the ball out wide to the assister then dragged away the defenders with a run to make space for the goalscorer. Shame that Cremonese were 4-0 down at that point so it didnt mean much.

Dom Ballard at Leyton Orient in League one might be one to watch out for. 6 goals in 7 games at 20 years old.

Motsi looking good despite being only 15. Perhaps he is another Monga, will be interesting to see how he progresses in the u21s.

Maybe youre right. I would like to think he would come in flying but there have been games where he was isolated in the u21s. Cant hurt trying him at least.

Jake Evans is a special talent. We should play him.

One mistake doesnt nullify the other. If Winks keeps pace with Swift he doesnt have the option to cut inside like he did. It's just not good enough to jog back like that, Soumare would get pelters for doing the same.

He was neck and neck with Swift at the start of the counter attack for Portsmouth's goal. By the time Swift receives the ball at the edge of the box Winks is 15 metres behind him jogging back. Winks gets a free ride from our fan base but he is incredibly lazy.

It doesnt matter how good you are on the ball as a centreback if you cant win headers, lunge in to tackles with no hope of winning the ball leaving your teammates stranded, consistently lose your man on crosses etc. It's every week, multiple times a game that he makes a mistake leading to a goal or a goalscoring chance for the opposition. As someone else said he is the Danny Ward of centrebacks, like Coady he wouldnt last 5 games at the likes of Wrexham so why is he starting for us.

Monga was at his worst today but his worst is the same as an average performance from Reid and Ayew. Personally im going to keep the faith as he's still the best option on the left wing that we have. Remember even Mahrez used to be slated for going missing in games, we need to persist with Monga for those moments of magic that we know he can produce. It's just the nature of flair wingers not named Messi that theyre going to have off games.

He was excellent for a spell after his goal, which was a very good finish. Hopefully he can kick on for us. One of the few bright sparks that game despite fading in the second half like everyone else.

The internet, sarcasm and a bit of autism on my part dont mix well.

Let's be real R9 playing backwards would be a better option than Carranza. Playing normally he would score 60+ in this league.

You can accept a patchy run of form if we were building for the future and playing our academy talents but he's chosen to bank on the short term and play the senior players instead. If Cifuentes is going to gun for promotion at all costs and leave our academy players out in the cold frankly the short term results have to be better than what we are seeing.

The list of things that bournemouth do well that our club dont is 10 pages long sadly.

Not the championship but remember in the summer some of our fans thought it was realistic to get Kroupi Jr on loan? Far too good for this league.

Don't think his body is particularly fragile, just that there's been quite a few tackles on him so far this season that could have had him out for weeks or months. Not much he can do when the opposition are hacking him down out of frustration every game and the refs arent protecting him. I actually think he would be safer in the men's game, the refs are more willing to give out cards and stop silly challenges from happening.

3-3 now Feels like it happens like clockwork every time we sub Aluko off that our defence falls apart.

I saw this the other day, yes Faes is one of the more progressive defenders in the championship but the question is whether it creates more goals than his inconsistent defending results in us conceding. I'm not sure it does.

Have a look at the Wout Faes thread in March - April 2024 at the end of the last championship season. We were all calling for Faes to be dropped because of his mistakes at championship level, which were costing us points every week. For those of us that remember the last time Faes was starting in the championship for us we know that playing at a lower level doesnt stop him having those brain farts, it just means the opposition capitalise on them less. Even this season in his limited starts he's had a number of brain farts. Ben Nelson when he was fit last season transformed one of the worst defences in the championship in Oxford United into one of the best. Oxford fans described him as calm, composed and very rarely made mistakes. That is the kind of defender we need at the heart of our defence, we didnt see that player against Huddersfield but it's in our best interests to integrate him and get him back to that level rather than persist with Faes who we all know is incredibly error prone, which will never change.

On the flipside I thought everything was going to fall apart under Rodgers in 20/21 after the how the previous season ended but we managed to get another good season and an FA cup before the wheels truly started falling off.

Not me who brought up goals and assists. Sol thewall Bamba was saying that Monga's goals and assists dropped off after moving to the first team and i was just showing that so far his output is similar to when he was in the u21s. Obviously he has a lot more to his game than just goals.

He's on 0.51 G+A per 90 in the championship. Not much difference. Evans was on 0.82 G+A per 90 last season in PL2 and is on 0.67 per 90 this season after a slow start to the season for him.