honeybradger

It's pretty standard to get time off work to go to a funeral.

Monga has 3 goal contributions in 800 minutes. Mavididi has 3 goal contributions in 2500 minutes. No reason that Mavididi should be favoured over Monga aside from perceived seniority.

Why would the pressure on Blackburn be immense? They are 4 points above the relegation zone with 4 games to go. Oxford will struggle to rack up 4 points alone in those 4 games, let alone 4 more than blackburn. They will be safe on the final day. Blackburn are all but guaranteed as safe, the only teams in a relegation battle are Oxford, Portsmouth and West Brom. We're a pretty safe lock in for league one next season at this point.

Was hoping Faes might convince Monaco to get him permanently after a decent run of games. If he keeps this up he will still be here next season.

Every new manager we bring in is labelled our "worst manager ever". 12 months ago RVN was considered our worst ever, now he looks like a footballing genius for getting any wins in the PL with this team. I wont judge any manager unless the club has given them a full season to weed out the underperformers. Currently we are just in an endless loop of giving the same old suspects clean slates and things not getting better (which a majority of our fanbase supported last summer by the way). We need to go through that process of the manager coming to terms that the majority of our starting XI need to be sidelined, otherwise it just feels like groundhog day where manager comes in -> picks established players -> established players underperform -> manager sidelines established players -> manager sacked -> new manager brings underperformers back into the picture.

How bad is Winks defensively by the way. I get he's got to mark two men but he's just so out of sorts. Just looks like a national league player for that goal.

at least aluko is back on the bench. our squad is way too bloated.

There's also the point that our play style back then benefited older signings. Nowadays we play a slow, open,technical style of football which would have left Morgan, Hugh and Fuchs (technically gifted but no longer had the legs for constant overlapping) caught out. Technical experienced defenders will not want to join us. That team also made up for slower legs at the back with a midfield and attack of some of the most athletic players in football. Kante, Drinkwater, Albrighton, Vardy, Okazaki all could run marathons without breaking a sweat. Now we have one of the most unathletic teams in the league. We need to focus on ability and athleticism in the transfer market first and worry about experience later. We're a team that's overloaded with prem experience and yet we can't beat one of the worst championship teams ever, goes to show how much experience is worth if the players aren't good enough. The answer is very little.

Hutchinson Evans Alves Monga Braybrooke Page Thomas Nelson Gray Aluko Stolarczyk The senior players can't survive another relegation surely?

That awful summer of 2016 happened under Vichai's watch, so did the dismantling of Pearson's backroom staff, so did the Adrien Silva debacle with Rudkin getting out unscathed, he also appointed Rudkin in the first place. Before the title win we had the aimless spending in the Championship. Vichai was not as good as is made out, had his passing not happened I am certain we would have gone a similar way.

Wow, what is a striker doing making that turn in midfield. Ridiculous, in a good way. Unlike Ayew who drops into midfield but falls over/doesn't make it into the box.

As someone who was very pro youngsters getting a chance at the start of the season you have to factor in the fact that a number of our fans are quick to get on the back of our youngsters. In an ideal world would it be better for Evans to be ahead of Ayew and Daka? I would say yes. In the real world if he was starting for the majority of this season he would be getting the blame for our woes up front. There just isn't any leeway for a player to develop their game here. Look at Monga for example. Therefore it's probably best that he learns his trade elsewhere and gets a chance with us when he's fully ready.

Surely relegation to league one is a career ender for most of them. Who will pay their £30-50k wages when the average wage of the teams around us is around £5-10k.

Going to be a quality player. Just got to hope it will be with us.

Last time we played them they looked incredibly poor but now they're 12 points ahead of us. Can't see this going well.

Hopefully the goal will give him some confidence. The couple of times I've watched him play for Northampton he was getting in all the right positions but the finishing touch wasn't there.

Mentality is ability as well. These players are exactly where they deserve to be. Pearson was excellent at setting a good dressing room culture but even he didn't turn bad eggs into good ones, he just weeded the bad eggs out. We have had no continuity in the manager position since Rodgers, how are the managers supposed to reset the culture when they're not given more than one transfer window, or in some cases none at all. We should have stuck with RVN, the approach he took with Winks and Vestergaard is exactly what we needed and still need. Same with Cifuentes.

Same with Van Nistelrooy and Cifuentes, it's not the managers fault we are bad. The players are genuinely just championship relegation fodder.

W*nks is a willy puller.

No manager in football is good enough to get this lot playing well. Also it is antithetical for a good manager to come here, a good manager would look at this squad and realise there is nothing to get out of them so would not join us. Only managers who don't have a clue will come here.

We absolutely should. It's not in our hands mate. Portsmouth are a point above us with a game in hand, we could beat them and still go down. West Brom and Blackburn are 4 points ahead of us, we might not get 4 more points by the end of the season.

When I heard "beat 4 defenders" I was thinking he pulled off a dribble like one for that goal against West Ham. Still good though

Not quite as impressive as hoped but still a nice piece of skill.

Beat 4 defenders