Chelmofox

Riccardo overlapping - how many games before he's out injured for 3 months? He cant do that anymore. Its what killed him in the first place.

Ramsey in the first 10 minutes. Cracking cross. Watch below and see how much ground he covers to provide the cross too, only for Ayew to be sat somewhere deep scratching his ball sack. If i was Ramsey i would wonder what the ******* point of it all was. Even sadder when you consider Ramsey has likely done his hammy in putting in this amount of effort. Start at 1.38

Did Robins achieve it after 12 games in the Championship? It took him time.

They are actually better defenders. Okoli is pi55 poor at passing, and Wout suffers with the problem of being a c**t.

Out transition approach and way we attack is built around Vestergaard. As a defender, he is slow, poor aerially and actually quite easy to be bullied off the ball. We have seen what he is like in the PL against quality and pacy attackers, and many Championship level attackers have done a job on him. He is not a good defender and not someone we should be building the team around from a defensive perspective. I strongly doubt there are any other EPL teams yearning to have him in their team. Granted, he is a good passer of the ball. But the way he does this has to be done on his terms and im not convinced its how Marti really wants to be playing. He slows the transition right down and can only pass into available space. By the time he done something (and not gone sideways) the opposition have had time to get into their defensive shape. He can't transition quickly, and is the root cause of out current issues. JV has to be dropped. I would sooner play Okoli for his defensive attributed and not try and build attacked from the CB's.

What makes Vestergaard out best defender? Its a genuine question by the way, because i have a huge argument against this.

Loans for Alves and Sammy were the right choice. Sammy has excelled this time, Alves has been injured but from what i saw he was doing ok. Be good for him to be selected straight away after recovery.

Depends what the guys was bought in to do. I think hes a good defender and hes done some decent stuff for us, albeit erratically. Terrible as a ball playing CB but if thats not what he excels at then we shouldnt have bought him.

Would have been nice to have a CF in the right spot for Ramseys early cross yesterday. Because Ramsey was wide Ayew dropped to the 10 position instead of putting himself in a position to take advantage of a great cross. Would actually rather we played a CF. None of them are doing anything great, but when we need results I hate playing this false 9 bollox.

I had a pretty poor connection watching this. I felt he had a good game with a number of key saves. Did his bit saving the penalty. I didnt notice anyone go over to him and congratulate him, but maybe the coverage was poor? Would have thought the save would rejuvenate everyone, but seems not

I don't think Evans is ready full stop. For me the 3 that must feature are Aluko, Page and Nelson. If Ramsey is injured Page has to come back, and possibly even start against Blackburn. Aluko has to be considered over Thomas / VK, or even just as rotation. We can't consider swapping Hamza / Riccy over to the left. We have to drop Vestergaard. He forces us to play a certain style and i think managers become addicted to what he can do, rather than what he actually does (which is worse when you consider the obvious drawbacks). We should be less dependant on the CB's starting transitions and consider a different way to start attacks. Having this less reliance on CB's should mean that Nelson should become the obvious choice over JV. I think we should consider starting Faes and one of Okoli/Nelson (rotate the 3) and drop JV.

JV is incapable of releasing the ball quickly, and Okoli is poor with the ball full stop. Alex Neil really did his homework on us. There was a moment right of the end of the game when it felt we had a bit of urgency behind us. JV received the ball almost on the halfway line (he was the last defender). He held the ball for a moment. His natural instinct was to pass sideways or go back to the keeper, and he couldn't pass sideways. He travelled sideways a bit and resisted the urge to pass back to Jakub, and then ended up passing poorly out of play. He is good if he is given time and room and there is an opening available. He isn't able to switch up play quickly / create opportunities that aren't handed to him on a plate. Read somewhere on here that JV has been our best defender this season. It's a really poor take. He's been good when he is allowed to play to his strengths, but he is so easy to nullify and all the other teams just need to observe what Millwall did against him. When he was appointed, I didn't think JV fitted Cifuentes style. JV's approach is to hold the ball and draw the attackers in to create space. But doing so slows down play and allows the opposition to get into any position they fancy (defensive or attacking). I felt Cifuentes wanted quicker transitions, which JV cannot offer. The big change Cifuentes needs is to drop JV and approach transitions in a different way. Playing JV means we have to play a certain way. Maybe managers become obsessed with how good JV can be with his passing they forget the drawbacks, or in Cifuentes case, are willing to live with them for the time being. But it's got to change.

I thought it was to play the academy?

You always remember the howlers most, and Okoli like a really shite one every now and again. Would love to see his stats excluding passes to another defender and the goal keeper.

VK is worse than Thomas as was seen in his cameo. I really doubt he will start 3 at the back, but we shall see.

I think the manager has a right to stick with his system after 11 games. Up until today, Luke wasn’t our biggest problem. Today he was for sure. I would actually say the manager should play Aluko before changing the system.

Wout has an attitude problem and he as may vital mistakes in him as Luke. Do you really think he will want to become our 1st choice left back?

I ask this countless times but noone ever answers. What else should he do?

The alternatives are Vic, Faes on the left or Aluko. Aluko comes with massive pressure. The rest are dross.

IMHO the solutions are now to stop looking at the results and to rebuild for the future. There are no solutions available with most of our first team at this time. Even if we run into a bit of form (which will probably happen), the same issues will be there. Teams with a bit of grit and confidence have us worked out and if they can contain the wingers we have little hope. This even happened in the Enzo era. However, no clubs like to toss away investments and i am sure there will be pressure on Marti to get a tune out of the experienced players. I can't see wholesale movement to the academy until all hope of promotion is lost.

My unpopular opinion on things. The first 1/2 of the Enzo season massively flattered us. I actually thought we would struggle that season. I remember us being dross a lot of the time but a possessed KDH getting us over the line several times, and Mavi had form and Fatawu was mostly unplayable (yet reckless and raw), and a reborn version of Ndidi. I imagine that season would have panned out very differently if KDH didn't rescue us in the first game vs Cov. We've been dross since we started to struggle in that Enzo season. The teams that did a number on us were the types doing us over now (Hull, Millwall etc). Teams had worked us out. We got through by the skin of our teeth and because we had a much, much better team that we do now. The recruitment since Enzo's summer window (which itself had a few questionable choice) has been appalling. Enzo got nothing in that winter window, which i am sure played on his mind for the rest of that season. Then of course Cooper with his hideous recruitment, and RVN who needs no additional comment. Cifuentes had his squad gutted and i presume has been tasked with getting the experienced squad firing again. I think he is the wrong person to be targeting right now. The board have to take responsibility and he will need to be given time and a window of non journeymen players.

When he's not playing he needs a run of game. When he's playing he needs time out of the squad to regain his composure.

Even though i would rather we were playing more of the academy i disagree with this. Most of our fans are too happy to lay into the academy players (Stolarczyk is a recent example of this, but Page got pelters for not being good enough even though he is 17). Most of our fans (wrongly) think that our squad is head and shoulders above everyone else. If we had focussed more on the academy, and be sitting in the same position as we are now, I guarantee the moaning would be that if we had played more of the experienced team we would be in the top 4. Whoever he plays, if we aren't nailing everyone, there will be moaning if we aren't winning (quite rightly too). The issue i have now is there has to be wholesale changes. No idea how bad Ramsey's injury is but although he is talented, his fitness is poor and we know he is injury prone. This should get Page back in the fold, but all his momentum has been lost. Aluko and even Nelson would need time to get up to speed. This isn't what we needed after 12 games. We needed to be bedding the youth in after performing well - not hoping that they are going to change things. We are WAY off it. Horribly so. Fatawu and Monga looked like lost souls today, and everyone behind them was bullied off the pitch. We are so out of form and need something special to turn it around. I don't see what that is, even from the academy. I am going to presume that the pressure on Marti has been to turn the experienced players around after the RVN debacle, and he is now in the position where he has been let down by them. If he goes to the board with exactly the same opinion RVN had, i can imagine that will go down like a lead balloon. He has nowhere else to turn now, as the Academy wont fix this for him overnight - they will all need time. Horrible.

We were relegated twice with him here.

Did any player go over to Jakub after the save. My connection was dodgy but it didnt look like anyone came to him.