DJ Barry Hammond

That’s a tricky one to get during the January window, despite how obviously important this glaring missing piece of the puzzle is. We’d probably have to go for a loan deal of a young forward from a Premier League club (Jaden Heskey for example), but of course there’s no guarantees that it work out as we all hope.

One key area your comments miss on the finances side is the wage to turnover % - which has been 90%+ even before the title winning contracts were granted. I therefore think the idea we had a chance to become an established top half Premier League club is vastly overstated - we just didn’t have the revenue base. Additionally, our watermark days were before Newcastle and Villa started to become serious players for those top 6/8 spots; clubs that have much better revenue bases to sustain that sort of charge… and yet even they are having to do PSR juggles and have not seen a smooth trajectory in terms of league performance year on year. For us - a club that gain’s a significant portion of it’s turnover outside of TV revenue from gate receipts - the Covid period and that lost income will have hit hard and the fact this period coincided with a move away from selling a significant player asset each season with a view to competing at the top level heightens the impact of that lost revenue. With building costs also spiralling at that time and the owners underlying business suffering from the pandemic too - it should perhaps be understandable that plans for stadium redevelopment that would require serious additional financial underwriting have effectively been shelved. That covid period and the differences between finishing 5th rather than 4th all then contribute to the PSR spiral the club still finds itself in; which gives you a clear reason why investment in the squad has been limited - there is no room in the calculations to do more, therefore a new owner can’t do much more on this front without first finding significant and instant revenue streams. This is not to say mistakes haven’t been made since that FA Cup win - but the navigable course to becoming an established top level club was nowhere near as easy as many on here seem to believe and was never a likely outcome in the long run given the significant structural deficiencies that were there at the time (i.e we simply don’t make enough income as a club to be at that level). Now for me, the saddest thing about this period is how I the whole situation became much more of a problem through Rodgers downing tools; had we done what Celtic recently did maybe things would have been different, but our call on whether to sack Brendan or not was a lot harder than there’s. It’s also frustrating that we lost Enzo when we did, because with one more season (or even half of one) I can’t imagine we’d be in the Championship now.

What if Jakub’s got a serious groin tear and is out for 3 months?

As would most of the forum, but there’s no reality of a manager actually being able to do that in the real world. You can possibly get away with banishing one player, maybe two at a stretch - but there’s no chance a manager would be allowed to do such a thing to all 5 mentioned… especially given the wages they’re on / the combined potential re-sale value of those players that would tank if you publicly ostracise them to a youth team. You know, Marti might not really want all five mentioned long term… but want he will recognise is getting £25-£30+ million in sales from those players is likely to give him funds to reinvest in the squad, so it’s in his interests to try and maintain some sort of market value for these players. There are of course other internal factors at play too, such as squad harmony and these players individual standings within the squad. Marti had to come in an offer a clean slate to all and try and build a togetherness within the squad. Isolating five senior players from the off - that’s unlikely to get you very far especially if some of those players are quite popular within the squad - I can’t imagine the Wink’s saga did Ruud any favours. And of course whilst the window is closed players are going nowhere, so with 8 weeks of football still left until the next transfer window and a busy festive fixture list soon upon us, it doesn’t make sense for Marti to completely cast aside anyone in the squad just yet. Fans on here have the luxury of naming a preferred starting 11 with no consequence to their selections and based on very limited factors (i.e. their view on that players recent performances or lack of).

The other glaringly obvious thing with this lineup - it’s not one you’d want to repeat, even if we get a win tonight!

Swap with Ayew though… that shape is a possibility isn’t it?

Mods - can we amend the username to include “(NITK)” for a week as punishment?

I don’t know? Who would play on the right - Skipp? But then where is Fawatu? And what’s further confusing - I can’t work out what the formation is / who’s playing where if it’s a back 4 with Okoli at right back.

There we go!

I think the Mick McCarthy meme is appropriate at this moment…

Marti out - can’t be scoring goals like that.

This would be one way to further the downward spiral within the club. Rate these players or not, you can’t exile several high profile players within a squad without creating a massive fallout in terms of squad harmony and seriously damaging your clubs reputation in the transfer market. There is also an irony in you highlighting Daka as one of the players to be exiled, given it’s very arguable that he should retain his starting spot on Saturday when considering the alternative options we have at our disposal and how they have faired in the striker position.

Our attacking play is far too formulaic and as a result, predictable. Marti needs to embrace a little more ‘chaos’ football theory!

Yeah, today was a game for swapping your wingers for at least 20 minutes so they were attacking with their favoured foot on the outside. When your opponent is playing 3 centre halves with wingbacks, you need to try and stretch them across the pitch, otherwise it becomes very easy for the defence to double up and close up the space in the middle.

As correct as this assessment is… it’s quite disappointing that this the case.

I’m not sure how the pair would do in a properly contested midfield. This game scenario is very, very different to the ones we had last season.

Bit of both.

How did he fair tonight? Missed the game because of work (might have been a blessing), but saw he came on at halftime.

I’m not sold on the idea of both of them playing together… like many I see suggesting. Maybe at times - but my gut tells me it’s one of them alongside Soumare that will be Marti’s preference.

Early kickoff’s suck - games generally lack the rhythm and intensity of games at 15:00 or 19:45.

Not created much inside the box though… all from range.

Think he’d be better from deeper in the midfield.

Ex Celtic manager… are they copying us?

It’s a bold strategy Cotton… let’s see if it pays off for ‘em? (I figured the start of a permanent thread in the main forum to discuss the local clubs, whatever league they may be in, would be handy.)

He didn’t look ready for first team football, especially at Championship level, during pre-season; looked very raw and ‘young’ (for reference he’s 20, but he looked younger than that in stature).