honeybradger

If El Khannouss is on the way out (as implied by him being in the B team) i am a bit disappointed that Alves has lined up in our B team. He should be the next attacking midfielder in line for us surely?

He did have an 18 goal championship season many blue moons ago. Sadly he seems to have built a career off of that season and at the end of the tunnel we've been lumbered with him.

He plays deeper for Morroco. I have a feeling he is going to be misused here until he leaves then another manager 'discovers' his best position. He may never be a goals and assists machine but his quality on the ball is undeniable, we dont get him the ball often enough. Based on him playing high up the pitch in our last friendly I fear we have another manager who doesnt understand how to use him, hopefully if Cifuentes has anything about him he sees the light.

BEK is simply not an attacking midfielder. Stick him in a deeper role as as the point of contact to progress the ball up the pitch and he will be elite. Compare him to someone like Winks, he is taller, more physical, better passer, better workrate, more press resistant, better ball carrier, better dribbler. We should be playing him in the same role that Winks plays, not as our furthest forward midfielder where he is isolated a lot of the time.

I know it's not entirely accurate but Dewsbury Hall's whoscored rating in our 22/23 season was higher than any PL season Skipp has had. I genuinely dont think he was that bad that season, his worst performances for us would still be better than most of the ones Skipp had for us last season.

Dewsbury Hall at least showed some quality in our relegation season and was good for us the season before that where we finished 8th. Skipp on the other hand i just struggle to see how he's going to contribute for us next season but this time last time we went down i was strongly questioning the use of Ndidi as a an attacking midfielder which somehow worked out so what do i know? The championship is crap after all.

5 years ago. Soyuncu was in the PL team of the year 6 years ago and now he's playing in Turkey. If you actually watch him play football he clearly lacks quality but people are gaslighting themselves that he will tear up the division next season because he was good on loan half a decade ago. If you compare him to Dewsbury Hall for example who was our star player in the championship last time around there's a clear gap in quality. You could point to KDH's ball carrying, playmaking, athleticism and runs into the box and say those were his key qualities. What exactly does Skipp do well? His positioning is very poor, often times he is left standing like a statue whilst the opposition bypass him, his passing isn't good, he's not particularly energetic, he's short, he's not a goal threat, he's not press resistant, he doesnt progress the ball up the pitch well, often times just laying it straight back to the centrebacks. When he was in the championship last time around he was a lot more mobile and a lot more confident, that's all gone.

Did you not watch the games against Zalaegerszeg, Leuven or Peterborough? Skipp is nowhere near good enough, even against relatively weak opposition. That season for Norwich was 5 years ago, it's like expecting Ndidi to still be one of the best midfielders in the PL because he was in that category from 2019-2021, like Ndidi Skipp is just not the same player anymore after his injuries.

Skipp is a £5mil player, not a £15mil one. £15mil would still be a massive overpayment, if he were to be sold this summer we would get nowhere near that, if any offers at all.

Why do we need to sign players? Would rather sign no one than have a similar transfer window to last summer's one. Would people signing Michael Keane and Josh Brownhill really make people happier?

Honourable mention to Ayoze Perez in the West Ham 4-1 loss in 2021. Most of the fans weren't even mad that he got a red 40 minutes in, they were just relieved that he came off the pitch after looking like bambi on ice.

Fair enough you've got me there

Not true, just focusing on the most recent sample size and individual performances that i have watched recently rather than basing it off a scoresheet from a game that i dont think i watched. With the players being so young a year of development can make a significant difference as well. Let's be honest between the two of us neither of us know how our talents played in the Johnston paint game, maybe they were good and were let down by the others, maybe they struggled individually. The scoresheet implies that they were generally not up to the task but it's not as valuable of a way to evaluate the players' abilities as actually watching the match. The pre season games however we have all watched recently in full so we reliably see how the young players compare to our established first team players and senior opposition with the level they have right now. Overall they compare favourably to both our established players and opposition. I do not want us to have experience in the team at the cost of performance. This Skipp and Winks midfield is honking and is a train crash that I can see coming a mile away if we start the season with it, which i suspect we will. The first halves of the OHL game and the game last night were a massive drag mainly because of the clunkiness in the middle (and our inability to attack down the right) and were only saved entertainment wise by Monga's brilliance. Personally I dont mind Ndidi, Soumare or Pereira adding a bit of experience in the middle and maybe Winks as well as long as he's not partnered with Skipp. This is mainly because Ndidi and Soumare offer physical traits that our younger players dont have but it comes at the drawback of neither of them being good passers. Still I think our best midfield has El Khannouss playing deeper as an 8 and Alves or Page in the 10 role. El Khannous is our best player at progressing the ball up the pitch and also has the physical traits to play deeper and protect the back line. Alves and Page seem more suited to unlocking defenses than El Khannous who doesnt seem like a natural attacking midfielder to me, i dont know why we keep on isolating him by playing him there. Similarly I cant see the reason for playing Coady and Faes for experience if they are not good enough and also lack composure which you don't want to be around as a youngster (Faes).The times we saw Nelson and Aluko this pre season were like a breath of fresh air. Nelson similar to Faes is proactive in defending but unlike Faes he actually comes away with the ball more often than not if he goes for it. Coady is a nothing player who often times doesnt get close enough to attackers to even attempt to defend, compare that to Aluko who has the agility to mop up attackers running behind at one end and crash the box with a piece of skill leading to a goal at the other end and who was generally our most impressive defender this pre season before not getting on the pitch the other day. I dont mind Okoli playing and whilst Vestergaard was decent the other day I always get flashbacks to players running behind him with ease over the years so would rather we phase him out this season. I dont think i have to explain why Mcateer being potentially preferred on the right over Evans or Alves worries me, he has a great mentality but often time feels like a deadweight with him struggling to make anything happen on the right. Im not bothered by Ayew being our starting striker, I would prefer Evans but Ayew may be our best option for now with Evans hopefully taking over by the end of the season.

Personally think we should evaluate players based on how they play in pre season rather than how they played in the Johnston paint trophy a year ago. If youre using one off cup matches then you could argue the likes of Maddison and Jonny Evans werent ready for the PL in 2019 when we went out in the league cup to Newport County or Mahrez and Vardy weren't ready for the Pl when we went out in the league cup to Hull City in 15/16. It feels like our fanbase are coming up with reasons to not trust our young players despite the obvious quality in their performances. Based on the eye test Page, Evans, Aluko, Alves etc are among our better players despite their age. Not only are they gaining hype for being young and already being in the mix, but they are actually backing it up on the pitch as well. If we are going to do well in the division next season we need to be playing the best players available, based on the first half the other day we are going to have a very rough time if we start the season with Winks and Skipp, who are bypassed easily and do not progress the ball well. Mcateer as well can't seem to get past a player yet is somehow considered more ready than Evans and Alves who excited multiple times in their brief cameos the other day. Aluko's ability to quickly carry the ball out from the defence is also a highly valuable trait that should not be overlooked and we saw it unlock the opposition's defence a couple times this pre season. How are players like Coady and Faes (Vestergaard did well the other day i will begrudgingly admit) considered more ready to start for us next season despite lacking the qualities required to progress the ball from the back and who are also too shaky in defence to justify this lack of quality.

Strongly agree, our downfall as a club began in the 2019/2020 season where we accepted abject performances at the end of the season because we punched well above our weight in the first half of the season and were in the top 6. Then those kind of performances where the players dont apply themselves properly became normalised and we are where we are now.

I think if you look past Evan's age and look at his game intelligence, technical ability and finishing then you will find he is more than ready if given a run of games.

Jake Evans is the heir to vardy. Hopefully he gets some more minutes as striker as he's been put out on the wing recently.

This lineup would be a lot of fun and what I would go with against Wednesday. Jakub Pereira Aluko Nelson Thomas Page El Khannouss Fatawu Alves Monga Mavididi/Evans (Don't say that midfield gets run through because the alternative is Winks and Skipp)

You are being too optimistic, there's still a strong chance that we mostly see the same old names this coming season with the young players only getting cameos. I won't be convinced until our last pre season game where we will see if the academy players are favoured or if we start with a similar XI as we did today.

He's as good if not better despite being younger. The only reason those two are preferred is because of seniority, not performance. It's BS really.

This is just a fantasy sadly. We will start with all the crappy players come the start of the season.

Alves is more suited to being a 10 than El Khannous, El Khannous is more of an 8.

Monga is our best player, need to start him as much as possible within his limits as a 16 year old.

Alves > mcateer

The toxicity is valid, we have seen the club's on pitch performance collapse over the last few years. This 'clean sheet' rubbish however is not valid and will massively hold the back in the long term. We need to shift the bad ones, not try to keep making them work in vain.