Dusic

Kamaldeen will surely be from the bench. Most interesting will be the composition of the midfield 3 with Charles, Downes, Smallbone, Alcaraz and 2x Armstrong competing for 3 places. Surely Adams starts up front.

Exactly. Anyone slagging him already is a bootlicking moron to be honest. Significant change doesn't happen inside 5 games and we have won 3 of them anyway!

Still big mates with Dean Hammond. Saw them both recently in the Rose & Crown in Cuckfield.

The Champ club was Swansea. They made several bids for him. Some (lots?) of clubs have been put off by his size as he is about 5'11 which is obviously small for a CB.

At the very least its evidence of a manager and coaching team being able to instill a clear style of play which they have stated they would do. That in itself is an achievement a lot of managers never accomplish over much longer tenures.

Thanks Ron, see you up at the lodge on Monday. Big Bad Barry EDIT: sorry mods posted under wrong log-in, please can you switch to my Long Shot account. Thanks.

If she expected you to do everything every day then she probably has unrealistic expectations of you. Aside from the Sunderland game he has had his defender on toast every game. Influential in the winner at Sheff Weds, excellent versus Plymouth, scored vs QPR. Its him and Fraser out wide for me until Sulemana is an option. Pretty sure Fraser played wide right for Bournemouth a lot, although we seem to see him as a left sided player based on the two apps so far. Don't think Arma is suited to wide right as he always wants to be cutting in as well.

Personally would be starting Edozie. He has been our biggest attacking threat this season so far.

Yes, for a Championship team, it was.

Awful performance, possibly a factor being that I don't think he played at all in pre season for Everton and also missed our Brentford friendly so clearly wasn't match sharp after just a few days of training with us. In hindsight Charles should have played alongside Bednarek.

Personally feel that once our lineup inevitably settles down and more partnerships are formed that this aspect will improve. Today was awful, no doubt. Butbwe havr made a decent start considering the upheaval. Perhaps a result/performance like this isnt such a bad thing to happen so early on to expose the flaws. I thought it felt like we just expected to turn up, play 800 passes and dismantle Sunderland and we weren't competitive enough and they exposed us. Not so bothered about the 2nd half as we obviously setup in a way we wouldnt start a game on the off chance we could get back into it. The style was great at Sheff Weds and 2nd half vs Plymouth because we played it well. Today we didn't. Simple as that.

Next saga will be whether he signs the new contract or not. I suspect not, at least for the time being as no real incentive for him to when being a free agent next summer would give him so many options.

Still a bit concerned about where the goals will come from across a season aside from Arma and Stewart. Doesn't seem likely we will replace Tella's goals effectively and might be light up front with Stewart, Arma and Mara if one or two got injured. Defence and central midfield looks extremely strong.

Interesting shift in our recruitment towards British players. We could name a very strong team entirely of British/Irish players, arguably on Alcaraz would get in our strongest side. Wonder when the last time we had a first team lineup with nobody outside UK/ROI - probably 20 years or more?

Nothing seems imminent with Onuachu so surely if he is is still here then we integrate and use him? The guy scored stacks of goals in Belgium ao obviously has something about him and no reason to leave him out in the cold if he is still here. Also worth remembering that at times Sulemana pretty much played up front for us and surely could do so if needed. Personally I am more concerned that of Roberts is replacing Tella then we basically need Fraser, Stu, Edozie, Roberts and Sulemana (if he stays) to start banging goals in at a rate none of them have before i.e 10 plus a season for a couple of them, otherwise we will be so reliant on Stewart and Arma. That said, until last season Tella had no goal record to speak of and he hit 20.

Patrick Roberts is a very good player at this level, but would mean there isn't a huge amount of pace and directness in the side. That was where Tella was a nice point of difference, Roberts is more similar to Edozie as in a technical, tricky player.

Right side attacker will be interesting to see who we go for if not Pantsil. Need a goal threat from out there in a 4-3-3. Few real links in that position so far.

Nathan Wood must be pretty pissed off tonight!

Sounds like we will sign Stewart with the hope Adams stays but safety net that if he doesn't he is already replaced.

With a burgeoning recruitment of Scots, in addition to the gaffer is this our biggest tartan influence since the days of WGS, Paul Telfer and Antti Niemi?

Interestingly on the Coaches Voice video with RM talking through the Swansea double over Cardiff when he was there he actually spoke quite a bit about Drameh who was playing for Cardiff at RB. Was raving about how athletic he is and that he is a very good presser (and how they actually played around him because he was always drawn forward to press). He also said they targeted their build up to the Cardiff left side because Drameh was strong on the right. Certainly seems a fan of his, and his numbers are actually pretty decent. https://fbref.com/en/players/e0d1510a/scout/365_m2/Cody-Drameh-Scouting-Report

https://theathletic.com/4805463/2023/08/29/england-youth-transfer-scouts-agents?source=user-shared-article He is mentioned in this article: Quote: There is a lot of talk about Alejandro Gomes Rodriguez, who scores England’s goal in the first game. He already has the facial hair of an adult and is the most powerful and the hardest-running player on the pitch. Though he plays for Southampton and has grown up in nearby Eastleigh, he can also represent Venezuela and Portugal. Overall gist being agents are all over these kids due to the brexit restrictions and also notes that its hard to tell if some are just much more physically capable than others and therefore standout and perhaps get caught up eventually in that regard. There was another comment about an unnamed player which might have been him... Quote: There was one England player with a huge reputation. Everyone knows about this boy and most clubs want to sign him. Chelsea, the agent believes, are the front runners but he thinks other players will catch up with him physically – even if he did perform well against Italy, especially in the first game. This view means he won’t be trying to bring him into his stable. Hopefully we can get him on a scholarship but there will be plenty of offers for him no doubt.

As others have said, if Leeds get Spence then Drameh would surely be allowed to move and aupposedly we are keen. Was Cardiff POTS a year or so ago and has been highly rated for a while but it hasnt worked out at Leeds for him. If he did come in then clearly either KWP or Bree would go. If we could keep KWP that would be great especially as he can cover both sides. Bree clearly will want to play and he doesn't fit here. Could see him going on loan within the Championship.

Of course its partly down to the reduction in media coverage but the club have done quite well at keeping a few of our incomings pretty quiet until shortly before they happened. All of Manning, Fraser and Holgate were on the day stories when news broke and Shea Charles was confirmed by The Athletic after just a passing mention a couple of weeks before.

Of course it works both way but we have lost money on so many players in the last couple of years that its bound to have a significant impact. Aside from Onuachu we have made a recent loss on Orsic, DCC, Diallo, Elyounoussi, Perraud, Lyanco and thats before potential exits for Aribo, Mara etc to whom the same would apply. Clearly we aren't in huge financial trouble because we wouldnt have agreed a big fee for Shea Charles if we were but noticeable that this summers recruitment has been based around British players (tend to have an easier market to move them on) who either Wilcox or Martin can vouch for - quite sensible IMO. Going up and staying up need totally different levels of quality so no issue with using loans very cleverly with no long term obligation.