Lillehamring

No not at all - i'm just saying that we are in a comparable situation to the majority of clubs, whilst some clubs have quieter windows than we have.

How do you know the impact of any of the signings of any of the other clubs? Just a casual glance would suggest at least everton and palace have lost better players than they've recruited.

That's not really the case though, or certainly it's a factor that's entirely impossible to measure. Would you rather us sign a player a week who is poor/unsuitable, or take our time to get the right players? We've spent the last few years listening to fans moaning about the quality of recruitment, and then every season we get the same fans complaining that things aren't happening quick enough or to a large enough degree.

We've brought in 5 players, only Villa, bournemouth, brighton, chelsea, everton, ipswich, newcastle, forest, southampton, west ham and wolves have brought in more (most of these are on 6) and everton, chelsea and forest are up there because of their FFP merry-go-round. And most of them have lost way more players than we have. It's like fans on here are so desperate to trash the club they've actually started to believe their own BS.

I've now come full circle to the point where i actually log in here just to laugh at 95% of the posters on here... The ignorance, entitlement, sheep-mentality and fickleness of our fanbase is so bad it's become comical.

To remind us that AI images are still crap.

Made a trip to the big city and picked up the first new LP i've bought in ages. Very happy with it. https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/laetitia-sadier-rooting-for-love/

Final League Position:- 14th Date relegation certified:- not this year Date survival confirmed:- pretty late, our 'easy' run in will see us scoot from 'in danger' to 'comfortable' Top Scorer:- None of the current squad Goals scored in Premier League:- 50 Goals Conceded in Premier League:- 58 Team to give us the biggest whipping:- Man City Date (if any) Cooper gets sacked:- Nope Date (if any) Rudkin gets sacked:- Nope Our biggest win in Premier League:- Villa at home

I think the problem with the points deduction is that it's easy to get sucked into thinking that we'll be chasing it all season. But we have the second easiest start in the league, if we can capitalize on that, the points deduction could effectively be wiped out in no time at all. Last season, after 7 games, there were 7 teams who had only averaged a point a game - say we get docked 6 points and get 1.5 points per game in that period, we'd be on 4/5 points which would have been good enough to be in 16th place. After 10 games, assuming the same points per game, we'd still be just a point behind forest in 16th. 1.5 points per game isn't a huge ask - but certainly it's more in our own hands than people are inclined to believe - and with possible deductions lingering over other clubs, we might not be the only club making up ground. At the end of the day, we only need to do better than 3 other teams - and as big as the step up is from EFL to PL, there're still a number of bang average teams in the bottom half.

Also found this - not sure all if these names are still around.... (or if the likenesses (Other than Davie G) are nailed)

Back in the days of limited photoshooping skills....

Scaffolding by Lauren Elkin Stanley and the women by Kingsley Amis

I'm not that clued up but could probably hold my own at FT level, but i've stopped all fantasy league things as it just became too distracting doing the PL one.

It's one thing to do that against preston, an entirely different thing to do in the prem.

And i think we'll see that in most games - it's what we did against shrewsbury (admittedly with a very odd squad selection; for various reasons) - i think pre-season has led us into a false sense of what is to come, because both ausburg and palermo played with a very low block - but i wouldn't expect to see that approach against us very often in the PL - I don't think we'll have many games where we're going to be huffing about trying to break teams down - teams are likely to come at us. do we have the quality defensively to deal with that? - who knows - but i think we do have defenders who are more than capable of triggering counter attacks, and pace up front to take advantage of it - we just never really got to see much of that part of cooper's game plan in pre-season.

i think he's playing the system that is best for the players he has, a system close, but less limited, to the system they are used to be playing - naturally the squad is that way because that's how the club have recruited - as such, i'm not sure what else he could do. For sure we still need a few elements to click - people were melting down last summer before we got mav and fatawu in - so there's reason to believe that the recruitment team can repeat that success with the missing players this year. I think anybody trying to predict how we will play based on the pre-season is on a hiding to nothing, as we've yet to play an opponent who hasn't really sat deep - personally, i think more often than not we'll see performances closer to the shrewsbury game, where we'll have to defend for periods of the game but have more scope to counter - if this is the case, we could be in for something much more like under ranieri than people are expecting, and yes, i do think we have the squad to play like that.

Yes - BDCR would be the 5% that we didn't retain - ie. an attacking midfielder - if he does start he'll effectively be the replacement for KDH - I don't see any of the other first XI from last year being dropped for an academy player

Really? But for a woeful final five games they could easily have been pushing for the 'best of the rest title' - Notwithstanding, 11th in th BL is a hell of a step up from Millwall. They had some really fast dynamic players, and were strong and organised. Dismissing them as poor seems unfair on them and us. Otherwise - I think i agree with all your other points. (BDCR, like ndidi against palermo, seems like a 'placeholder' - clearly that's the spot he's referring to when he says 'bringing in a starter'.)

I thought today Ausburg transitioned very quickly and with great dynamism but i didn't feel that they really caused us a great deal of trouble - our work rate was first class, front to back. It's not entirely impossible to believe that right now, we've gone back into that mode of being so wary of conceding chances it's made us super risk averse going forward, which is perhaps why we're not playing those cross field balls or throwing bodies into the box as we have got used to in the championship. I think fans are expecting us to be both solid defensively and thrilling going forward, but survival is our priority and so we have to be pleased that we're defending relatively well - i don't think we've conceded more than one goal from open play (correct me if i'm wrong). Something that seems to be overlooked because of the less than dynamic attacking we're producing right now. The three teams that went down last year were horrendous defensively - as dull as it may seem, i'd be happy for us to be like everton scoring just 40 but conceding the 4th fewest goals in the league.

I think the point he's making is that we are getting into shooting positions, and we are getting possession in the box, but we're not making those positions count. There'll be a misplaced pass or a blocked shot or fatawu hoofing it into space. I think what Cooper sees is the potential and resultant outcome - and is frustrated that they don't align. And really, to get into these positions (cue the grumblers suggesting that we don't get into these positions) suggests that tactically our build up play is sound, it's our final ball that is failing us - and this has been an issue under previous managers, too.

How do you know the players aren't happy? This is where the hard work is done - right now they're focussed on anything but dancing and skipping. But just because they're not laughing and mucking about on the pitch doesn't mean they're not enjoying being out there, and i'm sure there's an element of frustration in knowing that they're not playing as well as they are capable - but, again, that doesn't mean they're unhappy. Too many posters on here putting words into the mouths of the players and the club.

I can't imagine any manager coming in would take what is 95% a title winning squad and drop players to bring in teenagers with no first team experience just as an exercise in 'promoting youth' - it's clear that there's potential in these players but you can't gamble an entire season by starting with players who may or may not be capable at this level - and no amount of pre-season friendly experience is going to change that.

I'm not sure i agree with this, or at least that he was worse than anyone else. Ndidi as an attacking option is a dead loss, he gives away far too much possession with his heavy touches and poor passing - at least VK put some crosses in and, yes he did tuen back a fair bit, but at least he kept possession. I also found Fatwu incredibly frustrating - he's like mahrez without the end product - by which i mean he runs in to dead ends and loses possession and his shooting is naive, wasteful and, frankly, atrocious. I can see Cooper getting very frustrated with him and i'm not surprised we've been looking at players in that position. For what it's worth, from a tactical standpoint, we've played a couple of decent teams that are both very solid defensively - i'd argue that of the few teams we'll play this year that sit deep, none will be as good at it as Ausberg and Palermo; the majority of teams we'll play will probably offer us space for us to counter into (which we did decently in the first pre-season game. I get people's frustration at the lack of end product but the foundation of our build up play i think is really sound, comparable in quality to last year but with a bit more urgency.

Well this time last year we had a melt down about how the club sent us to play in a monsoon, so it's probably safe to say this is John Rudkin's fault.