reynard

Dyche is available. I'd seriously go and get him and sack RVN tonight. Wouldn't be pretty but might at least look like we're trying.

Wasn't there one some years ago against Preston at home when their keeper scored with a long punt up field that bounced over our keeper's head?

Spot on.

Possibly it will be more like a decade.

I'm not sure we should have stuck with Cooper, what we should have done is get in a manager with experience who can see our shortfalls and work on them on the training pitch and at least make us hard to beat. This could easily be the second 7-0 result of the day. RVN is clearly not the man for the job and the complete shambles of recruitment since this time last year should result in the sacking of Rudkin and those involved with recruitment. We would be as well off asking a monkey to pull names out of a hat and recruit that way than employing the current recruitment team who are clearly not fit for purpose. Of course nothing will happen. The word pathetic is completely inadequate!

Who do you take off and who do you put on. Just too many options and none of them any good.

just not good enough anywhere on the pitch right now. No fight No quality No pace Conceding in that manner after 10 seconds is unprofessional and the sort of thing you see in an under 10 game.

I may have this completely wrong and apologies if I do but I'm going to guess that you are not gay, that you don't have a gay son or daughter or perhaps a gay brother or sister. Yes the world has changed, a bit, but not everywhere and not everyone. Coming to terms with your sexuality is not a straightforward thing to do. Many people take a long long time to accept their situation and some struggle very badly even in supportive loving homes. I can only speak from experience in my own very close family that, whilst being gay for some is easily dealt with, for others there are significant issues that lead to depression, anxiety and a huge loss of self esteem. From bullying at school to comments on social media, for eg, we are, I'm afraid, a long way off being in a changed world as you put it. I'm not condoning his behavior but I can fully understand why he ended up doing the things he did. Until the sexuality of people becomes a non-subject people will continue to hide theirs if they feel they need to protect themselves.

This nails the whole problem. It wouldn't make a big difference whoever we put on the pitch the squad isn't good enough. Recruitment across the whole club from analysts to managers to players has gone down the drain since probably Pearson and definitely Puel left. The problems are so deep it will take a decade to sort out in my opinion. Root and branch restructure is required. What is the point of having world class training facilitates if we hardly ever produce any home grown talent for eg.

This is the result of rank bad recruitment over a number of years. Yes he could have played Coulibaly instead of Justin but the 4 centre halves in the squad are all as bad as each other though I'd argue that at least Faes has the potential to score a goal (both ends admittedly). Thomas is the only other left back and most people on here moan when he plays. The central midfield option is Skipp, another who most on here don't rate. Then there's McAteer, another choice which would have been pilloried on here too. Ok he could have changed the entire front 3 for those on the bench but let's be honest Buonanotte has been pretty poor for weeks now, Mavididi has been disappointing most of the season and Daka, a striker who can't score, is another who, in here, gets slated. I'm not defending Ruud especially but, it is hard to see what can be done that would either please most people on here or even perhaps get a positive result. Time to admit the squad, without the three key injured players, simply isn't up to the job.

Possibly true. We need new players to give both the fans and the team a boost and some hope. Getting too late now though.

Well I think we can all agree with this part. 3-0 to Spurs.

This is indeed the main issue. However, a decent manager may at least be able to make them hard to beat which we are not.

To an extent yes but we've made poor decisions, like not getting rid of Brendan after losing the first 7 games, and player recruitment has really been poor over the last few seasons with a lot of wasted money. And for me frankly losing any sort of money with the massive income streams clubs receive is just an illustration of rank bad management throughout the whole league.

This nails it for me. However, anyone thinking getting rid of Rudkin will be like a magic bullet needs to think again. The club needs a full reset from top to bottom. Although it would help having a half decent DOF the problems are far greater than just one person. There's nothing about the playing side of the club which is up to the required level. The youth teams are not good enough. The first team squad isn't good enough and the manager isn't good enough either. The club took a big gamble on Ruud and it has clearly backfired. Sounds stupid but I'd get rid now. We need a complete overhaul of the way we develop players and about how they can seamlessly transfer to the full squad. If we had this then we wouldn't need to keep on buying all the crap we've bought in the last few seasons. But I don't see any long term strategic planning. Not since Pearson and Puel. I recall many of us berating Puel but I'd take him back tomorrow in all honesty. And off the pitch is inadequate too. We need to raise more off field revenue but don't seem capable of doing so. New management might be the answer but then there's plenty of history of even worse owners. We're going down and probably won't be back for some time.

Presumably if he got a bad injury the loan would be cancelled?

We just need to get moving on this. It is clear we need better defenders but also a winger and striker and ball winning midfielder. I don't care what order we get them in though I think a right back is the most urgent.

I fear this may be true. If so the club needs to make changes quickly at board level as we surely must know whether we have breached or not. After all we submit the damn figures. I'd really like to see at least a couple of incomings this week as we need to get some fresh impetus into the season right now. In three weeks time it will probably be too late.

If the club really are confident that they will not have exceeded the losses then they should make a public statement to that effect and back it up with figures. Otherwise this will have a negative impact on any recruitment we may wish to try and do in the next two weeks before the judgement is declared on 13th January.

I think the trajectory points to the opposite direction. We're now not scoring goals but still conceding. The quality of the squad isn't anywhere near good enough. We've taken 4 points from the last 6 matches. Can you see us getting a result like Ipswich yesterday? I can't. There's no identity to how we play apart from just easy to play against. Not saying we definitely can't do it but everything is pointing the wrong way right now. A good January transfer window might tip the balance but I've little confidence of it being delivered based on previous attempts.

If it isn't this week then that would be very poor but I'm not holding my breath.

I'm afraid I think we are gone along with Southampton. We're just not picking up any points, in fact we're not even close to doing so. Villa away will in all likelihood be another defeat. Ipswich are showing some spirit but still have a lot to do. The summer recruitment was nothing short of disastrous. 35 million wasted on two players who offer nothing. we're going to need 7 wins more and I can't see us getting them right now. Recruitment in January is always tricky and we need around 6 players to improve the starting line up to have even a chance of staying up. Looks like the three who came up will go back down.

Presumably we could still sell him if an offer for a permanent move came in.

Right back. Absolutely essential. Centre Back the ones we have just are not good enough. We need one who can dominate set pieces and who is a good communicator on the pitch. Probably need to offload 1 or 2 of the current lot though to make this happen. Defensive ball winning midifelder... We simply have to be more combative in the middle of the pitch. Need to stop teams having so many chances. If Ndidi could stay fit this would be less of an issue but that doesn't look that likely. Attacking wide player. We simply don't have any quality there right now. I'd say this is second priority after a right back. Striker. need a different but effective option here. Someone who can actually hold the ball up and link up play. Send the palace lad back asap.

Hard to see us getting anything from this game either I'm afraid.