honeybradger

Danny ward has 40 caps for Wales and 40 PL games yet you wouldnt say he was ever a PL level goalie. I just dont think Vestergaard ever had a season where he was a solid Premier League player. He might have played at that level 100 times but he never belonged there.

I'll be honest I respect that you like Vestergaard and it's hard to argue with the appearance stats but he's shite im sorry to say. The fact that Southampton managed to turn their season around in 19/20 from the 9-0 by dropping him shows how tragic of a player he really is. Him and Faes are two of the worst defenders to ever play at Premier league level and that's not a hyperbole, definitely not PL level and never was.

Im not hinging my hopes on Monga. He could start next week and have a poor game and my opinion of him would not change. Im just saying that he is part of our best XI and by Cifuentes not starting him he's not giving us the best chance of winning games. 'Sensible' decisions have been killing this club for years now, it was 'sensible' last summer to bring in PL experience, it was 'sensible' the summer before that to bring in Coady and Winks on PL wages as not getting promotion would cost more, it was 'sensible' the year before that to play Ward over Iversen because of experience, it was 'sensible' to let the rot continue under Rodgers as he delivered two top 5 finishes and an FA cup. Im tired of mind numbing 'sensible' decisions being made at this club, we need to start making decisions that actually put the club on the right path again, decisions that actually make sense. A good start would be to commit to a proper rebuild around the youth and start giving minutes on merit rather than seniority.

Actually watch the game. Monga is the only player we have who is performing in our current situation. Fatawu on the other hand who everyone would undeniably start lost his head the other day, which he does regularly. Writing Monga off because of his age is silly to me, he's clearly ready right now and might actually already be too good for us. I prefer to evaluate players on how they perform on the pitch rather than their age, Monga is the most mature player we have out of the lot of them. The way he went to pick up the ball after scoring speaks volumes. I am not Monga so no i wouldnt have done well under the pressure at 16, but if we had a big game i would back Monga to perform more than I would petulant senior players like Winks, Vestergaard, Faes. I think you wouldnt start Lamine Yamal if he was here to be honest simply because of his age.

I agree with your statement, Bassey and Faes are in the same bracket, players who couldnt break through but went and made a career for themselves elsewhere. Bassey obviously doing so much more successfully than Faes as he has actually done well at multiple clubs. Monga, Nelson, Evans, Alves, Aluko are talent wise in the tier above Bassey. If Bassey can be successful at Rangers and at Fulham in the PL then the aforementioned can be PL level players if backed properly. Backing Faes, Ayew, Mcateer, Vestergaard ahead of PL level talents doesnt make sense to me, they will only ever be championship level players and the crop of talents we have now can be so much more. Why not play them?

He has 2 assists in 1.5 championship games for us. The decision to take him off the other day and keep Ayew on was very strange. He's still one of our best players so should have stayed on unless he has fully had his head turned.

It's just football. I can absolutely expect our best player to be starting in the league for us, it's not like Monga would combust just because he's 16. Should have started vs Wednesday, gotten 20-30 mins against Huddersfield then started yesterday. I was also just refuting your claim that's he's given time to youth players, he hasnt really.

Needs to be starting in the league as he's currently our best player. It's more than development and 'giving time' with Monga it's also about promotion, we are reducing our chances of going up by not starting him in the championship. If he cant play 90 minutes twice a week (he hasnt played 90 minutes once in his senior career) then he should be playing in the league not the cup. Apart from Monga we haven't seen any youth players play in the championship.

Probably would go Aluko and Choudhury/Justin 🤷‍♂️, you dont need to be comfortable in possession as a midfielder to help out defensively. I think we need to accept that we dont have a functional starting XI no matter how you set it up, i would just personally like to see as many good players in the starting XI that also have a desire to be here.

You're debating with an imaginary person. I certainly didn't say what you think im saying.

Last I saw Casado wasnt a starter anymore? Our defenders will never be as good as Barcelona's but they dont have to be as we're at a lower level. From what I've seen of Aluko he has the athleticism to help cover midfield deficiencies and if we dropped Vestergaard for Nelson we would have a lot fewer gaps in defence with the added mobility. Nelson was certainly brilliant at this level at the end of last season 🤷‍♂️

Not what I said at all. Just saying you dont necessarily need a defensive midfielder to play well as long as the players are committed and have quality for the level theyre at which El Khannouss and Page are/do.

It gets run through with or without Winks. We have no defensive midfielder, so I dont think we have a more defensively solid midfield available. It's not like we have defensive solidity with Soumare and/or Skipp either. Maybe Choudhury? Barcelona won la liga with a Pedri, Olmo, De Jong midfield, sometimes you dont need a defensive minded midfielder as long as the players are organised and good enough.

Players like Winks, Vestergaard, Faes who dont want to be here do not in fact provide a stable environment for youngsters to flourish. It's the opposite in fact, disruptive players disrupt the others around them. It's like when you were in school and there would be that one kid that would misbehave and disrupt the class, it tends to lead to the whole class falling into disarray. Once that kid is removed all the other kids tend to fall into line as they are not inherently disruptive. If we are not careful the young players will pick up that disregard for the club from those three players. Midfield would be: Alves Khannouss Page With the new Portuguese guy potentially coming in for Alves. Maybe we're stronger with Winks instead of Page but I'm just so sick of seeing Winks sulking around. It shows how far we've fallen that we're referring to Vestergaard and Faes as the only remaining 'quality' in the team, they are bombscare defenders even at this level.

If he keeps playing or even allowing them to remain in the general vicinity of the squad then I worry about his judgement is all I would say. Maybe 1 out of 3 can stay involved but no more. As a squad we need to be a unit where everyone's got each other's back, not where you have players who are clearly disgruntled and strop off down the tunnel nor players throwing blame around after every goal.

It's pretty clear that those three are problematic. Vestergaard has been frozen out under multiple managers. Winks was unbothered for most of last season, got frozen out, didn't celebrate last week and walked down the tunnel instead of coming to the fans today. Faes has wanted out for ages, even announcing his intention to make a departure earlier this year which has failed hilariously (or not so hilariously depending on how much you want him gone). He also has a penchant for blaming his teammates for his own mistakes. The makings of any good manager is how they weed out these sorts of players and build a squad with a proper competitive, focused mentality.

As my comment above, we started 3 unestablished academy players in the league cup with Page coming off the bench to replace Alves and only 2 unestablished academy players being on the pitch when we conceded. It's entirely unfair that the blame for the loss is being placed at their feet when they made up a minority of the side. How about the rest of the team who also let us down? Mcateer was really poor that game, far worse than Alves and yet he is still favoured by Cifuentes. In respect to your statement saying we would have lost against Wednesday if we integrated more youth i strongly disagree. From what i saw we won because Wednesday fell apart and were horrible in the second half, I genuinely think that Huddersfield is tougher opposition currently. You seem to be assuming that Wednesday was the tougher game because their in a higher league but they are a complete mess, we would have been more comfortable against Wednesday with more youth involvement, not less.

We started with 3 non-established academy players against Huddersfield and brought 1 off the bench. Two of those, Monga and Page, played well and if everyone else played to the same level we would have won. Only 2 non-established academy players were on the pitch when we conceded the goals. As usual the non-established players get blamed by our fanbase whilst the established pros get endless chances. You think you are being 'reasonable' by backing the senior pros and blaming the loss on the academy players but you are actually being entirely irrational. You are part of the problem, too much support for the senior players who constantly let us down, too little support for our academy players who have talent and actually give a sh*t. Players like Faes, Skipp, Winks, Okoli etc are not high level academy products. They couldn't make it at their own clubs so they had to make the step down to us or found their way here. There's a reason theyre with us in the championship in their peak years. Faes for example couldn't break through at Anderlecht, he went to Excelsior where he was terrible, went to Reims where he was OK but a bit of a bombscare then somehow found a £15mil move to us, not a successful academy prospect who broke through on merit by any means. I wouldnt be surprised if at the same age almost all of our starlets are Premier League players. Calvin Bassey for example is an ex academy player who is less talented than Nelson or Aluko but is comfortable at that level. I remember I was one of the only people on here pushing for Bassey to stay at the time as well.

You completely ignored the comment I quoted? The commenter said that Nelson had 'played himself out of contention for months' hence why I said he had been written off.

Evans has really not been given a fair chance at all. It's not like he is competing against prime Vardy. Ayew and Daka are completely stinking it up at the moment. Yes he didn't blow the doors open in pre season but he only got 60 minutes in what I consider as his preferred position, that being striker. He's still massively talented and I dont like the fact that Cifuentes hasnt even put him in a position where he can stake a claim against Ayew and Daka. With all being fair he should at least be rotated in with those two, who are proving time and time again that they dont have what it takes to be our main striker this season. Aluko has also been left out in the cold for absolutely no reason. Based on his performance in pre season he should really be on the bench at least. Monga and Page will undeniably force their way into the first XI over time due to their level of talent. With Page not even getting off the bench today and Monga being arguably our best player and starting on the bench I feel like Cifuentes is giving them less than they deserve. The fact that we probably win today with them starting means that im not impressed with the prospect of Cifuentes bringing them into the team eventually as their lacking involvement is hurting us now. It feels like the youngsters will only get chances under Cifuentes due to the underperformance of the senior players forcing his hand which is not how it should be in my opinion.

That's just your opinion though which you have yet to provide any tangible reasoning for. I feel like I have given a fair assessment of how Cifuentes appears to be unfairly keeping our academy at arms length. Unless there's a rational argument otherwise as to why the way Cifuentes is managing the academy players vs the senior players is correct then I won't change my opinion.

Andy King had us feeling like a far more cohesive and fair squad in less time if we're being honest. 4 weeks ago we were arguably in a better position with our academy players getting a fair shot and taking that opportunity to impress. It felt like we were ready for a proper rebuild. Now Monga is the only one getting minutes and is getting less than he deserves. Cifuentes has made us a closed shop where the same experienced pros who have screwed us over for years get free reign again and have clear playing privileges over the academy based on their seniority in the squad rather than ability. I won't accept that it's too early to judge Cifuentes as I saw a brighter future for us when he was out of the picture, what he has done in terms of the way he has set up the squad since he has been here has only damaged us.

He doesnt get time, we need points now. I am convinced he's not putting out our best XI or best bench, irrespective of whether they are academy players. I think it's fair to criticise him on the basis that I believe his decisions are costing us points as well as damaging the long term trajectory of the club. Shit ownership or not the manager does have an impact on the direction of the club and instead of offsetting the damage of the likes of Rudkin he is compounding that damage by backing the same old crap experienced players over the academy ones.

He has opportunities for us to be better: He's not giving minutes to the like of Nelson, Aluko, Page, Alves, Evans. He's not starting Monga who is our best player. You cant tell me that Evans would not be better than what Daka and Ayew showed tonight. Vestergaard will constantly let us down. Yes Nelson wasnt good the other week but he is a young developing player whilst Vestergaard is at the end of career and still puts up clangers just as bad as Nelson against Huddersfield like he did today. I know which player I would rather start but i also have a strong hunch which player Cifuentes will back. Aluko was so so impressive in pre season and has received 0 (zero) minutes this season. His ability to drive with the ball was one of our best attacking outlets and he was very good defensively. Justin and Thomas were poor today, Cifuentes is again shooting himself in the foot by not giving Aluko a chance. Page has impressed with every chance he had, including against Huddersfield. 0 minutes today, he is a similar talent bracket to Monga who was our best player, not a far reach to suggest that given a chance Page would be one of our better players as well yet Cifuentes is not utilising him. Instead he is playing the mardy Winks who has given up on this club. Alves didn't show much against Huddersfield but he was a good impact player on loan at Cardiff. Cifuentes should be utilising that instead of leaving him at home. Would be better than Ayea in the role that Ayew played in the second half as well.

Van Nistelrooy was absolutely right about him and was right to freeze him out. The best time for him to never play for us again was after the Everton 4-0, the second best time is now, he's a rotten apple.