Useful Idiot

Why exactly did we sign this guy if he wasn't going to improve our starting XI?

Why did we even sign Djenepo? He doesn't play and we could have used the money on a central defender instead.

Totally losing enthusiasm for this league to be honest. Can't remember the last time I actually enjoyed watching a match.

Referee is a cun7.

Top bloke. Yoshida-san, domo arigatō!

Bednarek's positioning, reading of the game, heading, and defensive instincts are all at a good level. He'd be a really good defender if we set up like Burnley or a Fat Sam team. If we want to play out from the back he's probably not quick enough or comfortable enough on the ball to play in a back four.

It's a good formation but I don't think we will use it often while Ralph is manager. He doesn't like it as much as he does 3-4-3, 5-3-2, or 4-2-2-2.

Not a bad shout! I'd probably play Forster back between McCarthy and Gunn though.

Saints don't have a target man to play effective hoofball you twelve-fingered, three-eyed inbred. Those stats shows what happens when you have a load of panicking idiots playing for your team when they run out of ideas (see England a few years back), not that the game plan is hoof it to the big man and look for knock downs unlike the way Dyche continuously approaches every game. You really must be incredibly simple.

Hoedt is very poor, but I think Stephens might be even worse.

Going with a back four has been terrible for us every time we have tried it with the current defenders we have at the club. Danso may be good enough to play with Yoshida in a back four, I have absolutely no idea as I don't know enough about him. We achieved much better results with Ralph when using a back 3/5 last season, when those defenders included Yoshida and when Stephens didn't play. If we had been able to consistently play that formation and lineup under Ralph for an entire season we would have probably ended up somewhere comfortably midtable. We dropped the back 3/5 under Hughes after half a game last season and then went on a huge losing/drawing run with a back four. It's not just about the formation, its about who plays in it. I am still unsure that we have the quality in the team to play four at the back.

I fully expect us to be on nil poi after two games. In some ways its better to get the hard matches out of the way early. Think its probably better to keep Ings on the bench for this one and play our fastest possible front three. Not seen enough of Danso to work out if its worth starting him in this one. Might shatter his confidence if we get completely thumped on his debut and he might turn into another shell shocked defensive casualty. Might be better to keep him on the bench. I'd probably go: ----------------------Gunn--------------------- -------Bednarek-----Yoshida--Vestergaard------- Valery--------Romeu------Hojbjerg------Bertrand ------Redmond--------------------Djenepo------ ---------------------Adams--------------------- Bench: McCarthy, Danso, Cedric, JWP, Boufal, Ings, Obafemi

Always expected this to be a tough match for us and would have been very happy with a point before the game. I am disappointed that we let in 3, but considering how mentally fragile our players are I'm not completely surprised either. Burnley play in a way that pretty much counters the way we are set up. Conditions favoured them. Our defence is simply not good enough to handle being bombarded with long balls, while Burnley are set up to feed their strikers that way. As we decided to only sign an unproven youngster to bolster our terrible defence, I am absolutely not surprised we let in a lot of goals. Especially with Stephens playing. He played 23 times last season and we conceded 39 goals in those games and only kept 5 clean sheets. Playing him is like giving your opponents a free goal as a head start.

That's certainly the case. I doubt we'll ever get Champion's League football. It will mean that the four clubs who do qualify will have an even greater advantage over the rest of the league and be able to take good players from other clubs even more easily due to even greater finances and guaranteed Champs League.

I don't see how this would help us win the league at all. The big clubs would still play in it, they would just have locked in places in the Champion's League so only the title and UEFA League places would be up for grabs.

Moi is really good at crossing and he seems to have quite a bit of stamina. He's a bit like JWP but compared to him he lacks passing range, vision, pace, acceleration, agility, or strength.

I'm not 100% sure that you should refer to kids as little people. I think that is the way that people who have a genetic condition that adversely affects their height refer to themselves. https://littlepeopleuk.org/

Looks like he's suggesting a 6-4-3/4-6-3 to me. It seems a solid choice, we should be able to cover well defensively, control the midfield, and carve out lots of chances with it. ----------------------Gunn------------------------- ---Upmenaco---Bednarek---Yoshida---Vestergaard--- Valery-----Reed------Romeu-----Phillips-----Bertrand --------------------Hojbjerg------------------------ ------JWP---------------------------Boufal--------- ---------------------Adams------------------------ Could even be more of a midfield diamond with Reed and Phillips acting as the shuttle players to support Hojbjerg while Romeu sits in front of the back 6/4 (whichever way you want to think of it). With plenty of cover, I expect that Valery and Bertrand will be able to spend most of their time in advanced positions without having to worry too much about leaving space in behind. Personally, I think it might work even better with another flair player in JWP's spot, I think that Redmond would fit best. JWP could then take Reed's place in the middle as we have plenty of cover there. I'd expect to win many more than we lose with that side, and quite possibly be pushing for the title by the end of the season!

I expect we'd do quite well if we fielded a team with 14 players.

I'd be happy with a point.

Our financial problems seem to be more related to wages than transfer fees; if 3 players are leaving that should help matters a bit. Saying that, this guy seems to be on about £5k/week so wouldn't make much of a dent in our budget.

Against Burnley, I think we should start Redomind/Ings/Adams and bring on Boufal after 60mins for Ings, then move Adams central.

Nice to see links, but taking a player on loan for a season to develop him for another team doesn't seem like something we would do.

Only completely different. Davis' main strong points for us were that he always played with his head up, he rarely lost possession and he managed to keep the ball in tight areas then move it on to someone else. He was generally reluctant to shoot and tended to take an extra touch and thus lose the chance to have a shot. His first touch was decent and he got through most of his work in the middle areas of the pitch. Armstrong tends to play with his head down. This means that he can to be slow to make decisions which means he loses the ball far more frequently. He has a powerful shot and tries to shoot early, often going for first time efforts. He takes players on by knocking the ball past them or trying a one-two. He mostly plays out wide for us.

Obviously