TWar

KWP and Salisu looking quality. Bullshit red card. It is a yellow for a dodgy challenge but he got the ball so it shouldn't be denial of a goal scoring op.

Diallo is much more promising to me than Lemina. Similar skill levels but one is 21 and the other is 27. As for Lemina, he's had an alright season tbh, has looked decent enough when I've seen him and probably worth about £7m. Could do a job at a Burnley, Newcastle ect. as a starter or West Ham/Everton size team as a squad option. Would rather we sold personally as we don't need another box to box we need a destroyer ball winner like Romeu.

Yeah agreed. His new role up top is as a provider style support striker and it seems to be yielding better stats than when he played as one of the 10s, with 0.07 xA per 90 vs 0.02 as a 10 this season and last. He is still poor though in both roles, Che on the other hand manages 0.08 which is mildly better, but he has more goal threat and his hold up play means he often helps us get up the pitch even if he is often two or three passes before the goal rather than the actual assist. Che actually has a quite respectable 0.29 xG per 90 whereas Redmond is stuck on 0.16. Long story short, if Ings goes Adams will stay as a support striker, bag 7-10 goals a season. We will hopefully bring in a poacher to play off Che who will bag 10-15, and Redmond will be relegated to the bench.

Getting another support striker would be a bad move. More likely we move for a poacher who can play off Che and Redmond who are both more providers. Doubt Che will just become a 9, it's not really his strength. Who knows tbh.

I think we were very lucky with fitness throughout 2020 and have since been very unlucky.

Maybe there isn't a working system with the depth we have at our disposal. There is a reason the last two managers with these lads almost got relegated.

We were a great investment in league one as we were at a rock bottom with all the potential to rise. Right now rising seems very tricky. Buy low, sell high as they say, we were low and now we are high so who would buy?

Villa have one of the best attacking players in the league, arguably in europe. Without him they look shit, but they have him at the moment and he creates more chances than every one of our attacking players put together, on top of the Martinez is class as is Konsa. Leeds have a better squad than us imo, much more depth, Raphinha creates a tonne of chances and would walk into most teams in the league, rest of the squad is quite similar in quality to us but I think Raphinha is a big difference maker, Ings is probably better than Bamford but Bamford has been fit all season and is better than all our other forwards so that tips things too. West ham have a much better squad than us. Ings, JWP and maybe Vestergaard are the only players who would start for them plus they have a tonne of depth. In fact in attacking mid they have Lingard, Bowen, Benrahma, Lanzini, Fornals, and Yarmalenko. Literally 6 players who would probably start for us over basically all of our attacking mids except Armstrong. Coufal is quality, Soucek is quality, Antonio is quality, Fabianski is quality, Diop is great, Cresswell is having a great season and that's not to mention their best player, Rice, who probably starts for any team in the country. To say we have an even comparable squad to west ham is kind of hilarious. That's what happens when you spend £50-100m every summer for about 5 years.

Love Ingsy but I don't think he starts for any of the top 8 richest (big six plus Leicester and Everton). Could probably move to a West Ham or Newcastle but I think that's reasonably unlikely. I can see him staying if he isn't guaranteed starting time for a team regularly competing for CL. Moving from lower mid table to upper mid table is probably not worth the risk when you know you have a good thing already.

I think, from context, it means a non-english manager or a manager under 60. Both annoy the "chuck it in the mixer", "a good captain screams at his team mates", "bring in big Sam" crowd.

Jankewitz clearly isn't rated, Armstrong is our best attacker and would leave a big hole further up the pitch, Stephens is the "square peg, round hole" I was talking about earlier. Interestingly we did change formation first half vs spurs with Armstrong at the point of a 41212 (442 diamond) but I think most on here wouldn't notice. As evidenced by the fact people think we play a 442 rather than a 4222

3atb isn't the answer, we make no chances, how would removing a attacking player and adding a CB help that. 3 in midfield might work, if we had 3 midfielders to actually play!

Yeah honestly I think Minimino has been disappointing. He allegedly has a clause where we pay less if we play him more and he still isn't getting into a side who create very little. Walcott has been here since the start of the season but he is very sloppy in possession and weak against the ball so while he does add something going forward I personally don't rate him and wouldn't have on a perm. I think our best front line is Ings, Adams, Armstrong and Djenepo but Djenepo isn't really good enough, Ings is always injured, Che is very patchy, and Armstrong can only play once a week so we need to forward assistance pronto.

That's kind of my point. There isn't an alternative at the moment. We have no depth, and a team with glaring holes. The alternative is to coast into summer and hope for 5 quality signings atleast. I think it can be done to get the players we need for cheap as players like Armstrong and Bednarek were cheaper, we just need to get in now.

I remember back when Ralph first turned up a big bone of contention was "square pegs in round holes". People always used to say it, now it is "why not change when things clearly aren't working" and the problem is that these two things are pretty much the options. We don't have the players to meaningfully improve on the team we are putting out, changing to a 3atb would involve less attacking players and would make us further struggle to create chances, and going to a 433 would require as to have a third central mid which we don't have, unless you are counting Armstrong in which case suddenly its looking very similar to the team we play with every week. The only other option is to consider square pegs in round holes. This is the issue, when you have about 14 prem quality players your diversity of choice is pretty low. We need signings to freshen things up. People saying "just try things" don't really have answers, maybe because there aren't answers.

We nullified each other to a large extend as both teams defended well. We were edged by a flukey goal which was the only shot on target all game. People say we were smashed or they walked to victory but it isn't true.

Something that people missed on the weekend. Leicester are quite good. It's why they are third in the league.

This post is very amusing, its like saying a 343 is a 433 where the DM is too shit to not be further up the pitch, no mate, that's the point. A 4222 is just a 442 except the two wingers are playing centrally because they are shit? The point of a 4222 is that they play centrally and interchangeably with our two strikers. For simplicity, don't compare a 4222 to a 442 as it doesn't have wingers, its basically a 4231 but with the CAM position pushed up to be a secondary striker. The 29 year old didn't "figure it out" he had a squad at his disposal worth three times ours that was in a CL final a few years back. As for changing formation, we kind of did last game, we were playing more of a 442 diamond with Armstrong as a 10 and Walcott and Tella deeper and wider. Was ruined by the Ings injury though.

This formation looks a bit like a 442 diamond at times rather than our standard 4222, Tella and Walcott a lot wider than normal and Armstrong a lot higher up.

Leicester are a lot better than spurs.

I think if the Super league happens then we will kick the 6 teams out the league and replace them by promoting top 6 teams from the championship, I don't think the prem will just let themselves get pushed around on this.

The premier league isn't too rich for us, no, there are a lot of teams around our means (Brighton, Burnley, Palace, all three promoted teams next season). We are not rich enough to be perennial top half challengers, but the league doesn't end at 10th. We are funded enough to be in the 9th-16th bracket. Good luck might see us push europe, bad luck might see us get relegated, we are that size. Ofcourse if the top 6 teams leave the league then suddenly we are pretty well funded comparatively!

And they had 1, the goal.

So many people talking like Leicester dominated us but it simply isn't true. Cagey game with few chances settled by a fluke goal. We had a couple of chances where it was bobbling round in the box too and we didn't get the rub of the green. Don't think we were outplayed, it was 50/50 and we were unfortunate.

Glad Walcott is dropped. Djenepo is better. Rest of the team picks itself minus Che vs Redmond which I think is pretty 50/50 tbh