funkyrobot

Cooper didn’t initially play Fatawu and when he did he played him on the left hand side. He underused Mavididi too and wasn’t managing Ricardo’s fitness. He dropped him after a poor showing in a pre season friendly and then barely played him. RVN was a terrible manager for us but Cooper was too.

Lots of credit to BDCR this season. Thought he was generally poor last year but he was constantly played out of position on the wing. This season he’s grown into being an influential number 10, not in the ‘in your face’ style of a Maddison type, more like a Mason Mount. Not necessarily doing lots on the ball, but intelligent, particularly postionally, with an eye for a layoff or 1-2 and with a fabulous finish in his locker. When Rambo is fit we’ll have two very effective and quite different 10’s at this level who can rotate the start and finish depending on the opponent. 👍🏻👍🏻

A great performance v Derby, a very grating performance v Brizzle. We are desperately short at fullback. Thomas was targeted second half tactically - not for the first time this season.

I’d take laurel & hardy, Jekyll & Hyde or fkin Jedward over a front two of Daka and Ayew.

Daka nearly hitting a 2/10, he’ll be happy with that. Tbf that tackle he put in on Ayew at the end there was truly iconic.

Thomas got ripped apart on the left second half. We generally looked unfit and lackadaisical. You could see James was running on empty but bringing on Daka for him and asking BDCR to go into midfield initially was a bad call. Daka in general is a liability, his terrible non performance was capped off by that tackle he made on Ayew on the edge of the box. AFCON can’t come quick enough. It’s the only way Cifuentes will accept that Patson is not the answer.

Can it play up front? Can’t be worse than Daka.

So you just ignore the perfectly legitimate strikers goal he scored then?

No. First goal was assisted by JJ. Skipp scored the second (so couldn’t assist) and 3rd assist was Thomas.

Tbh Ayew shouldn’t get any criticism today. Ge held the ball up well AND he scored an excellent goal. It’s not his fault the Lino is a boss eyed sheep shagger.

Get the Skipp-Confirmed song written, get the Skipp-Confirmed statue built. In all seriousness he was outstanding today. Weird surname though tbf.

JJ, Skippy, Bobby Reid and Nelson were excellent today. Good work from the rest of them too. Probably only Abdul disappointed a bit. I was particularly impressed with Skipp. I’ve been his biggest critic but he won the ball countless times, played positively, passed it well and got a goal!

The most glaringly empty seats were the empty rows set aside for our esteemed owner and his fellow associates. If they can’t be bothered to either attend or fill the seats how can they expect the fans to show up?

Top didn’t attend like most of the games this season. Can’t blame the fans for not showing up when there’s swathes of empty seats (full rows) in our senior management seating area. Lead by example.

Fair play to Thomas, he’s one of the ones who does try albeit with limited capability at this level. I still can’t get my head round how based on his previous seasons he’s managed to secure a 4 year, double your wage, £30k a week deal here. He’s on triple the wages of Mavididi and Jordan James. His agent has worked some absolute magic!

Winks is the highest paid player in our team on £90k pw PLUS an additional 25% bonus potential. He’s the highest player in The Championship by some distance. Him, Daka, Bouba and Ricardo on European level wages are literally strangling the club finances. Vestergaard, Choudhury, Faes and Skipp are not far off it as well. If Winks was ripping up the league his wage wouldn’t be such an issue but when performances appear lacking in basic effort then it’s a massive problem.

Dyche has confirmed that he has never spoken to the club.

Winks was poor today and his replacements showed how much effort is needed in this division when things aren’t going well. He’ll be dropped for Derby. It’s a shame because he has lots of ability on the ball but he’s not proving to be a player you can rely on when strength, commitment and aggression is needed.

He wouldn’t come back but we wouldn’t want him back. He’s in a league like the Scottish Premier League and he’s got Brondby exactly where they usually are. 3rd.

Winks particularly looked well off it today. He’ll be benched against Derby.

Brilliant today in that second half. Aggressive, running with the ball, skilful, played forwards. Based on that performance he’ll be in the team against the Sheep Shaggers. Unfortunately we have seen this ‘Soumare mirage’ times and times before and he’ll likely be both anonymous and undisciplined next week.

He did well, I’d stick with him against Derby assuming Nelson won’t be ready to come back. He played the ball well and progressively. Defended well and yes he’s not tall but he’s no worse than Faes or Hamza in that role.

It read like a bitter bit of wishful thinking from an ex Toffee tbh.

It was a big ask for Aluko yesterday to come in from the cold and play against a quality and in-form winger in Fellowes. With the state of our fullback options on both sides this season he should’ve been given more time off the bench previously to give him time to adjust to the significantly faster and more physical Championship. Bear in mind also that Aluko is right footed and he’s better on the right or centrally even though he can do a job on the left. I hope he’s back in the squad after his ban.

Great coach. Absolutely out of our reach.