DJ Barry Hammond

Wouldn’t you take that right now?

Here’s your guaranteed first goal scorer next week… https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/clyw6pexq6po Played and failed to find the net today, making it no goals in 13 for Stansfield.

The step from age group football to full on professional football is huge. Our kids are also quite young still… you don’t get many 16/17 years olds going straight from academy to senior team, the progression path is normally a lot more gradual than that, even for the more exceptional talents (even Beckham went out on loan to Preston back in the day). It also has to be said - the all round environment within the club and on the terraces isn’t exactly an ideal one for fostering and nurturing young talent.

We’ll see. It’s an improvement on the 9 minutes he got against Rotherham in the week! Kevin Nolan is in charge there if you didn’t know.

It needs to be noted that he was signed when Southampton was in the Prem (July 2022) - so the reported 70k a week might be his top division wage and fails to account for any relegation reductions. It should also be noted that the Southampton manager in charge at the point of signing him was Ralph Husenhuttl… so the fans making managerial appointment assumptions based on this signing should probably include his name alongside Russell Martin and Steven Gerrard.

I don’t know - Northampton have lost their last 4 and are winless in 8… seems a good fit for what he’d get here!

Got 12 or so minutes off the bench today. Northampton lost 2-0 at home to Reading, leaving them second bottom in League one, albeit a win behind Wigan and Rotherham in 19th and 20th respectively. Northampton have lost their last 4 and are winless in 8.

Would have been good signing 5 years ago… and sigh, it’s probably a good signing for us now. If nothing else, the sudden flurry of press reports show that panic has hit the boardroom.

Has the Enzo ‘link’ reached this thread yet or was it deemed ‘unrealistic?’

Especially given he played quite well. The only question mark you might have is should he have made a change at halftime - namely Ayew. However - I imagine he’s given it the “we need to show we’re better than this” at halftime, in which case you allow the 11 that came in some time to prove just that in the second half. And those early signs at the start of the second period were indeed positive and with only one stoppage for substations left available to him, I can understand why the two final changes he made were so late on.

From my memory - it was a deserved red card AND Maresca’s in game management that day was questioned.

It’s the 15th minute, still 0-0 and Charlton have Lyndon Dykes up front. Are you seriously telling me you’re not putting on another centre half at that stage? That you’d happily continue with a back four containing Hamza alongside Nelson (and thus a central midfield of Page and Bobby Reid)? Or are you switching to a back 3 with Pereira and Thomas as the wide centre halves?

We needed one 7-8 months ago. Ironically, didn’t a lot on here turn their nose up at the Lyndon Dykes links? On the showing he gave for Charlton, I reckon he would been a decent sticking plaster for us.

See, in the situation this game is in… I wouldn’t have booed as a fan. It’s the last thing the other 9 on the pitch and Kingy would need at this point… regardless of what you feel about Winks.

I’m of the same mind. It is quite obvious that the squad severely lacks a potent threat - or even just cohesive figure - in the striker role and without that I challenge any manager to get a tune out of the remaining squad. Add in the huge fallout of love between fans / the club / players - which is arguably the biggest issue - whoever comes in has a massive and unenviable task on their hands. I do wonder if our fans realise how much damage the constant online social media negativity and criticism towards our own players is contributing to the ever growing mess the club is in - regardless of whether those sentiments perceived as deserved or not.

He’s had one game hasn’t he? True it was a win against Manchester City, but I’m not sure you can point to “look how that’s worked out” yet. 😂

That’s not necessarily the case is it. As an assistant, Kingy has to row I behind the manager, work to the number 1’s ideas and plans. Yes, an assistant can give ideas and advice, but they don’t have a large degree of say of the teams shape, tactical direction of players that are picked. It could be that King sees a significant amount of things he would do differently… but you can’t really go wrong with”no boss, your ideas are shit” as an assistant.

Just the players.

Team and manager under pressure. A stadium atmosphere that has the potential to become very toxic. And you want him to pack the side and bench with untested youth products, some of which haven’t even had a loan to at least experience competitive football outside of their age group. I’d say it would be really unfair on those youth players to put them in that position.

The thing for me is if you look at his general play as a winger… very little of that shouts “striker” to me - especially if you’re suggesting to do this in a single striker formation (or one with two wide players outside it).

Yeah - best return was 9 in 23 (plus 17 sub appearances) over 5 years ago for Montpellier. I also believe that his use as a striker tended to be in a pair at that time - mixed in with time on the left flank when the formation switched to a single striker setup. There’s a reason why a coach like Enzo utilised him solely on the left flank to great effect - that is his best spot on the pitch to utilise his skill set.

Mavididi is not a forward - and in a 3-4-3 like you posted, you need a link forward in the middle that brings the wide men into the game, who can then go and be a presence in the box afterward. Mav is neither of these things.

A significant change in structure like that needs coaching time to get it working correctly - especially with an already leaky defence. There really isn’t the time to do that; and I’m not convinced we have the personnel at centre half to pull off a three; you don’t really want any of Okoli, Vestagaard or Nelson being dragged out wide and asked to defend against skillfull and pacey wingers. Equally - I’m far from convinced that Mavididi has the skill set to play as the pivotal centre forward in that formation - and would be the perfect example of square peg in round hole you’re complaining about.

You what? What’s happening with Mavididi and Fatawu if we’re going 3-5-2? And when are you applying this shape change? At halftime, where up to that point we had looked really good in our original shape? I think changing formation to one we haven’t played or trained for, that also takes two of our most threatening attacking players out of their natural positions would be a very bizarre move for a manager to make.

And Shrewsbury at Wolves 😂