funkyrobot

It is nice to have a left footer at left back tbf. Switching JJ to the left invariably means the ball is shuffled inside and backwards most of the time.

Need to see way more from BDCR today. I expect he’ll be up for it being back at Fulham.

Teams are now announced 1 hour 15 minutes before kick off.

Did u see the state of winksy’s free kicks pre-season and Monday?😬

Damn it, Notts Forest have actually signed a good player.

Nketiah is going to be on a massive wage presumably? Big money for a tap-in merchant.

Surprised by the levels of credit BDCR got for yesterday. I thought he was our worst player on the pitch of those who started the game. He got better in the second half but he was still levels below the performance that we’d expect from Mavididi. Hes perhaps a bit more disciplined defensively than Mavs but got he’s quite a lot to do for me if he wants to stay in the team.

KDH talked in at least two preseasons about trying to get more goals. I don’t think many will agree with you about his former role. Yes he might’ve been given more leeway to stay forward under Enzo and as a result he got more goals and assists but he was never a pivot. A box to box midfielder certainly but not a pivot who will play deep and centrally. Until Winks we didn’t really play with that role. More a CDM in Ndidi with Tielemans and particularly KDH more advanced,

That doesn’t show KDH in a pivot role. He played ahead of Ndidi & Tielemans. Always on the left.

No way was KDH the pivot. He’s always played that inside left attacking number 8 position.

Enzo takes some responsibility. He also negotiated the Vesty 3 year extension. Don’t know why you are desperate to exonerate him for leaving a long term project after 1 year at its most critical point. The board take major responsibility for this situation we are in but Enzo doesn’t need apologists. He stripped the club of all the coaches, ensured our friendly opportunities were brief, gave 3 years to an older player specific to his style of play and took our best player at a comparatively cheap place. He didn’t even have the guts to leave a comment to the fanbase when he left.

The point still stands. Enzo stripped the coaching team and left with all of the replacements and when he left took our best player for £5m more than Oliver Skipp. Credit for getting us promoted but he left with the entire coaching team, all in one go and our best player. He also cancelled the US tour before he left the building. For a good period of early pre season we operated with back up coaches early. That’s partly why we are even less well prepared for the new season than we usually are!

He gave us longer than 1 season too.

Mike Stowell was our Gk Coach from 2007 to 2023. Enzo got rid of him, replaced him and then took his replacement less than 12 months later. Adam Sadler was at the club from 2014, same thing happened to him. He dismantled the coaching team and then took all the replacements away too. He took out star player. It’s not the norm for a manager to leave and then take his best player to his next club. Probably the last time was when O’Neill took a few back in the day but even he left Izzet!

Taking the entire coaching team and the star player is certainly working towards dismantling tbf.

He won’t be playing all three if he also wants a number 10 tho

That’s just not true. He came on as sub in the cup 2 years ago, I was there. Did a couple of tricks which the fans loved and Rodgers told him off about (unfairly) if he’s good enough he needs to play. We wasted 2 years or more of KDH at LCFC by leaving him in the reserves for too long. The best way to improve talent is by giving them game time. There are never going to be perfect benign conditions. Yes we are in a relegation battle, what’s wrong with him being involved in that? It’s real football! For me it at least made every sense to let the lad have way more minutes in pre season. We were short in the specific role he plays in. He’s a professional footballer and there’s no point being overly protective. Look at Liverpool, they gave our former player Nyoni significant game time pre season and he’s younger than Alves. I’ve not at any point said the signing of Buonanotte is a negative signing btw. For the club, at least for this season, it’s a welcome addition of creativity into a squad distinctly lacking in that area. The difference is this lad was more trusted by his club at a younger age than Alves has been here prior to the injury he suffered (ironically via a deliberate assault in a youth match.) Because of this, Brighton have a player that’s good and mature enough that he’s trusted to be loaned to another premier league club - a club who are in a relegation battle!!

He was massively under-used in pre season. Got token minutes at the soft end of the games when all the subs had been made and the minutes were being played out. Cooper then signs a lad the same age, but one who had actually been trusted significant game time by his parent club to play in his position. Doesn’t exactly send positive signals to Alves or the fans. If Alves is good enough (and I think he is) and when it’s clear we are struggling to buy creativity, he should be a much bigger priority within the squad.

Clever from LCFC, significantly weaken Spurs on the eve of the match… Only joking, Skipp might be a sensible signing if a little uninspiring from a creativity perspective. Not only is he a better footballer to support Winks than Ndidi and Hamza, he’s also better to be the pivot replacement for when Winks is unavailable. Not sure what it means in terms of Hamza this season though. It’s does however leave us still very short creatively. Buonanotte looks like our only option as clearly the boss doesn’t fancy Alves for whatever reason. The Brighton lad will definitely miss two games against his parent club (hate that rule) and will pick up an injury at some point. At 19 he can’t be relied on alone anyway.

I’m not saying deploy it continually but try and utilise it where possible, keep it as an option. Particularly when our squad is built to play that way and we aren’t able to make wholesale changes despite Cooper demanding it. The invert does still leave 3 at the back with a pivot ahead so it’s not exactly kamikaze, particularly when Fatawu is happy to provide support. You do have to try and win games and Cooper’s more defensive set up definitely did not work against Lens. Set up to draw or snatch a win with a defence like ours is likely to be as risky as some of our attempts to beat the press last season.

Who are you gonna play left wing though? BDCR and Fatawu both prefer and are better on the right. By playing Mavididi as a centre forward you are effectively playing someone out of position on the left. If Cannon plays, the wingers can play in their best positions.

Yeh this is the formation I’d go with. Similar to Enzo’s way but with Ndidi slightly more defensive and with an attempt to bring Buonanotte centrally at times. I’d still try and invert Ricardo though when on the ball. Cooper definitely won’t go with it though. No way he plays Cannon and I think he’ll bench Ricardo, Vesty and even Buonanotte. He’ll play Okoli, Hamza, Mavididi up front and he’ll fit BDCR in. As I say I wouldn’t be surprised if he went fully rogue and played Fatawu on his wrong side where he was anonymous when Cooper tried it in preseason. I think he’ll play Justin at RB and at left back he might even bring in Thomas. I thought he preferred VK but he mentioned that Thomas was back from injury so that might explain his absence. I really hope that his sticks with our best fullback in Ricardo and our best proven left back in Justin but pre season has really made me doubt Cooper’s approach to team selection. I think he’ll try and grind out a 0-0 with a predominantly non footballing defence and a triple CDM set up and it will fail. Hope I’m wrong.🤞

Based on a bizarre pre season I’m going to take a guess at Cooper’s formation v Spursy. He seems to love a player or two out of position. GK Mads RB Justin CD Faes CD Okoli LWB VK CM Winks CM Hamza CM Ndidi RW BDCR LW Fatawu CF Mavididi I’d play GK Mads RB (inverted) Ricardo Faes Vesty Justin CDM Winks No 8 Ndidi No 8 Buonanotte RW Fatawu LW Mavididi CF Cannon Both teams will lose but my one will do it with a bit more attacking intent and a bit more hope. 😂

A painful podcast to listen to. Great information for Hoffenheim fans tho tbf.

Asprilla will have us as his 5th favourite club to join based on the list above. No chance. Get it locked and direct ALL traffic to the Ayew thread.