DJ Barry Hammond

He’s definitely playing that Lens game before any sort of transfers happening.

This doesn’t make much sense as a rumour. If Potter was discussing the position with us, wouldn’t he’d have been discussing it with Rudkin primarily? In which case - it’s a bold and somewhat unbelievable move to agree a contract with the person you’ve been discussing the contract with - but then demand that person steps aside. If Potter wanted to ultimately do that - it’s the sort of internal power play you go with 6 months down the line, not up front with the guy who’s deciding on the position.

Absolutely. But if you’re a manager and having to think about the side all week, whilst watching Kristiansen and Thomas get beat repeatedly by the junior’s you’ve promoted, having to prepare attacking movements without your lead striker and realising that the tea lady moves faster than your best central defender - it then becomes very easy to go that way.

It will be interesting to see how they do against Fulham at Portman Road next week. I’m sure a lot of fans will point to them ‘having a go’ at teams - not setting out defensively - as a further criticism towards Cooper. But McKenna does have some distinct advantages over Cooper in that it’s fully his side, there’s no ghost of a previous manager in the background and he has credit in the bank - he’s not going to be sacked after 6-10 games regardless of results. And when you consider this sort of stuff; you can perhaps start to understand why Cooper would go with a more defensive approach and line-up, preferring industry to creativity - because in terms of his professional situation he simply can’t afford to play open football and succumb to a bunch of 3 and 4 nils across his opening games. This is not to say I don’t get why most fans want to see Ricardo and Mav in the side and to play like we did last year; but fans also have no risk attached to their suggestions, the worst that can happen is the manager picking their exact formation and team selection and it going wrong - at which point it’s the manager and players fault anyway.

There won’t be 3 teams getting over 30 points this season. I can see a points total of around 30 being good enough to stay up this season. Luton finished on 26 points last year in 18th.

Plus Iverson is potentially leaving.

They are in an absolute mess - even if the Palace guy takes over, which clearly won’t be a quick process because he’s got to disinvest from Palace first. I’m also sure that once he gets a proper look at the books he’ll pull out.

Well these gobshites are doing you no favours @Super_horns

I did wonder that myself - but surely not? They have left themselves in a vulnerable position somewhat however.

Who the **** is Dan? 😂

I guess it will depend on who Arsenal sign themselves and whether they need to free up space on their squad registration - and if they do, who they decide to do that with.

I think our season would benefit much more from a dominant win and good performance here. I’m not saying go full strength - but we could do with being able to showcase some attacking play.

Is anyone else getting the impression we’ll see record low points totals at the foot of the table? I’m not suggesting Derby levels of low - rather that it might be possible to stay up with less than 30 points this season? Mean last season Forest were 6 clear on 32 points - with Luton next best on 26.

Bit of a nothing game really. Fulham showed bits, but were by no way as dominant as Spurs. Fulham started brightly, we had riden that spell out and appeared to be growing in the game and then conceded an awful goal from an uncoordinated high press. Grew into the game again from there - without ever looking really threatening except at set pieces - and then Faes scores from a corner - so one positive to take. 2nd half was largely a non-event - and again, uncoordinated press allows Iwobi to run free for 30 odd yards on goal and to slot home. Huffed and puffed after that, but never really threatened to score - fair result in the end, but it was by no means a stellar performance from Fulham. Performance wise, no-one really stood out - maybe Hammers, he was solid yet again, even if he probably feels he could have kept Iwobi’s shot out. Skipp came on - did ok, could be useful, but need to see more. Ayew showed he shouldn’t be allowed to take free kicks. Mav got 20 minutes too - didn’t get much chance to do anything. Ricardo remained on the bench throughout.

Ricardo / Kristiansen - the only adventurous full backs we have. You can’t leave big spaces down the flank next to big Jan - he’d get murdered by Prem standard wingers. See Fulham’s second goal for an example of that.

This will be a huge part of it. I can’t imagine Mav’s the type to impress in training either. I also think Cooper feels playing two out and out wingers and a 10 would be suicide against top teams / away from home.

Ok, potentially stupid question… what formation would you say we’re playing at the moment (or at least in the last two games)?

Might as well get this up, given it’s only days away. Kind of a must win game, what with Villa on the horizon after this one (shudder). That will make the team selection for this one fascinating - who do you go with?

Much more likely he’s joining Fulham I’d say - he’d suit them too.

It’s down to Cooper to decide - but I’d go with either Okoli or Nelson - they’re probably not that much quicker, but are at least a tad more mobile - you’d still need someone dominant in the air however, because we lack that too.

Yes. We could also play attacking fullbacks on both sides too.

I can see why you’d say that because he didn’t track the run - but in fairness to him, the situation had broken down way before it got to that point. I’ve played in and behind enough defences to know your centre half should not be marauding into midfield when there was little danger before that point and leaving your extremely slow centre-half loads of pacey guys and acres of space to cover.

I agree, this is something Cooper probably needs to look at. It’s notable that Cooper’s swapped him and Faes around (Jannik was on the left side last season) and that’s no doubt down to the side he’s playing the attacking fullback - and a clue as to why he’s not used Ricardo as yet. It’s either that or play a back three - and in some ways that could work better?

Justin’s decision to press was questionable when you see what’s behind him - but I do question where the rest of the back 3 were, it wasn’t like it was a quick switch of play. First goal - not sure what Faes is doing pressing up in their half - maybe there was a bit of confidence from us growing in the game at that point that prompted his over aggressive press - but that did leave Jannik and then as a result Justin horribly exposed. Both very poor goals to concede.

Joint top I see - you’ve got to be worried that if Tom keeps this up, people will start noticing the good job he’s doing!