LCFCJohn

Chalobah first goal since 2021, you’re welcome!

They have deserved that. They will sit back now and we haven’t looked like breaking them down.

Who was raving about Pierce Charles’s distribution on one of the threads

Centre halves are a different proposition to attacking players where they come off the bench and get minutes. You start with your first choice partnership and third choice (Nelson) only comes in if due to injury, suspension or very poor form. I think this means we won’t see much of him, at least for the coming weeks. I’m not annoyed the likes of Monga and Page aren’t in the 11. Nelson is already a more senior player to them and to see he isn’t fancied in as part of the first choice partnership is disappointing.

No I don’t. What message does it send out to the young players? Vestergaard should have been sent on his way last year. Absolutely crap player and tool to boot. The future is in the likes of Nelson but this clearly shows he is third choice.

I like him. I hope he does well. But it’s a poor call. Don’t confuse commenting on that as some nonsense calling for his head!

Marti has massively let himself down with that selection of Vestergaard over Nelson. It’s not just the here and now but why would you be seeing your future at the club if you were Nelson? Sitting on the bench watching an absolute donkey with a shit attitude get the nod ahead of you? I wouldn’t blame him if he wanted to move on. He is an opportunity to get back to developing and having an asset worth a lot and we are passing it up!

Maresca was as bad as any of them. Basically spent most of the time threatening to leave if people weren’t happy with everything. I don’t recall him trying to have a good relationship with the fans.

I find myself surprisingly unbothered by this. I think it’s embarrassing that we have fallen so far as a club we are selling to West Ham though. As a player, a very good goalie no doubt but we have a replacement who will not make us a weaker team. We have the opportunity to strengthen as a result. Whether we take that opportunity is to be seen.

He had a bad injury and was out for 5 months or so. Sorry but this sounds like you are suggesting he wasn’t always first choice and was on the edge of the first team. At best very poor phrasing but given you have not acknowledged the injury perhaps you are thinking it was the scenario above.

Spot on. I don’t get the argument it’d be good to stay down or when it’s referred to as a club going up ‘too soon’. Just because you go up, you don’t have to buy the likes of Skipp and Ayew!

We have his replacement but there’s a couple of areas we need to strengthen, striker and central midfield. If we need funds to do that, it’s not so much holding out as we have his replacement but slowing down strengthening the team. That’s my thoughts anyway. Stolarcryk is not the step down many are making out which you point out as well. If we can reinvest in the areas above, we will be a stronger team and squad for it and our prospects will be better.

Why don’t we just give Stolarcryk a chance and actually see how he does in the Championship? I thought Iverson was treated poorly by us but it’s hard to deny he was more of an old school keeper. Stolarcryk is clearly a modern keeper who is comfortable with the ball even if not at Hermansen’s level. Maybe he will be in time with games and experience, maybe he won’t be as strong in that area but people suggesting it’s a Ward in 22/23 scenario are off their heads!

Doesn’t surprise me. People convincing themselves there’s a massive gulf between them but there simply isn’t. Honestly, it only took a few minutes of watching the Fiorentina game for me to have my heart in my mouth when Hermansen had the ball and it wasn’t even a competitive game!

Not even a comparison worth wasting words on! Kasper were league and leagues ahead of Ward in every measurable category. People are blinkered by Hermansen and his ball playing ability and convince themselves that this means Stolarcryk is crap at this side whereas clearly Maresca didn’t agree. And he has plenty of scope to develop if we actually take the novel route of not just writing players off from minute one. Stolarcryk is better at collecting high balls and commanding his area than Hermansen. Both are great shot stoppers and would be maybe the best two or there or thereabouts in this league by this measure. We will still have one of the best keepers in the league.

I agree with the second part and I actually want to see Stolarcryk promoted to number 1. I don’t think the first part is true though. Hermansen was coming back from injury so wasn’t able to play I thought. He was then brought in for the final game when you’d expect to see more or less a first 11. So it feels more that we are showing we don’t need to sell as others have said.

I think Wycombe can only lose out playing hard ball here. They had a strong season last season but trailed off. It’s a tough league this year with Cardiff, Luton and Plymouth having gone down with the likes of Huddersfield, Barnsley and Wigan strong for the league. Reading just missed the playoffs but are getting back on a level footing. Bolton as well. Stockport might push on. Wycombe are unlikely to finish as high as last season so the only sense to keep Kone is for his goals to get them up which is a tall ask. It’s not an arrogant we are bigger comment, we say it ourselves about the likes of Justin, move them on and get a fee with a year left as you will lose them for free. £5mill is decent for a league one for a player with a year left. They could make themselves stronger by reinvesting that amount!

Hard pass. I wasn’t impressed with him when he was here before and he has hardly kicked on. Yeah sure could do a decent job this season but it does seem his ceiling is Championship.

Where are they? Which group?

Pretty much a very good summary. I also think Marti could be better for us than Maresca. Maresca was quite negative in his approach, wanted to settle for 1-0 and never seemed to learn when we were getting exposed down out right side game after game at the time we lost to Plymouth, Millwall, Bristol City etc. I’m not saying Marti ends up at Chelsea and achieves what Maresca subsequently has but I think he could be better for us and what we need. Squad wise, I do think the striker situation is a bigger deal than you suggest be I get what you are saying that as a cog in the team, with Ayew. The missing link is KDH. Central midfield looks weak to me. KDH’s goals, assists and drive to get forward was possible the most vital piece for us that last season. We definitely need a couple of new face in centre mid and striker but outwards moving picking up is positive.

Leicester 0-1 Wednesday - 90th minute of Bannan’s bald patch all over it

What a trolling one this was when I saw the headline… https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c5y30ldv7jpo

This is the most sensible post I have read on the subject of Stolarcryk taking over as number 1. Sometimes it seems people just decide a player is not as good in a particular area as they would want so that player should be discarded. What ever happened to working on the training ground and developing areas of weakness? I was going to make the same point about Maresca. Many on here still cream themselves over Maresca and how great he was. Well he obviously saw enough in Jakub whilst discarding Ward and Iverson. Clearly that must show he is good enough or there’s potential to be good enough with his feet.

I bet between the new sign on/agent fees and his wages for the year has cost a large amount of that though so it’s not that good. Probably a minimal surplus on the PSR after all that is removed.

There was a plane banner over the stadium when we played Liverpool as we were relegated the season just gone and Sky didn’t show it. There were suspicions than our owner had paid them not to. Not sure how try but there must be some truth behind it as the media would love a narrative normally….