verlaine1979

BBD should be our plan B and AA should get 5 minutes here and there when we've run out of ideas. Also, Downes is outmatched by most PL midfield pairings. Needs an athlete like Les beside him for the physical battles.

This is shameful. We're not even *good* at playing out from the back. Bednarek has always been shit at it. We move is so slowly that every pass is played under close pressure. That isn't how it's meant to work! Both Forest and now Brentford have popped it around with much greater speed and accuracy than we can muster.

Edozie should definitely be a long way down the pecking order for first attacking sub after that performance. SAA shrugged off the ball quite a few times, but much more composed and used it better, even aside from the fantastic finish.

There's nothing particularly unusual about attacking midfielders of below elite level getting the ball nicked off them in the middle of the park. Both Stuart Armstrong and Steven Davis lost the ball in those circumstances all the time leading to dangerous turnovers.

I'm curious as to how Martin arrived at his possession-first philosophy. If players like Alcaraz are being cut adrift because they lose the ball too often in the attacking third, where are the examples of managers who've thrived only through retention and off the ball movement? The lazy answer is that he's copying Guardiola, but that just isn't true. Guardiola's teams have always had players in both the middle and out wide who are trusted to try and beat their man and create overloads. If anything, he's become even more liberal about this in the last few years, giving Doku regular minutes despite his mixed end-product.

We need players in the middle who can receive the ball under pressure, turn and carry it forward before offloading it, even if only for a few yards to get the defense moving backwards. Gibbs-White did it several times yesterday, either with strength or by having the technique to beat his marker, enabling Elanga and Hudson-Odoi to make runs in anticipation of the pass. You can't advance the ball with any sort of tempo if you exclusively pass it short to players who rigidly stand with their backs to goal.

"It's not the system, we just need to play with a quicker tempo." Seen this said a few times since yesterday, but it ignores an important consideration. The likes of Bednarek, McCarthy, Aribo, Armstrong etc. pass the ball slowly because they aren't technically good enough to pass the ball both quickly and accurately. That has always been the flaw in Martin's ambition - we play a possession game that is too slow to reliably move opponents out of position. On the contrary, our slow build up helps the opposition defense establish and maintain their positions. Hopefully Les, Mateus and a new AM are all able to receive the ball on the turn, as the "only play the way you're facing" schoolboy crap just isn't going to cut it at this level.

Could 4-3-1-2 work with what we have? Back four picks itself, then Downes/Les/Mateus - Dibling (or new AM) - BBD/Archer

Our possession-first tactic looks a little pointless when the likes of Forest look so much better at keeping the ball in tight spaces when they needed to. Tapping the ball between statues before turning back at the half way line is the definition of propaganda football.

Bit men against boys so far.

Can't see us wanting to commit to 30m for Ramsdale next season, however good he is.

Hope the loan works out for him, but Charles just looks a bit lumbering and slow to me, which isn't something he's going to be able to change.

Saw Forest beat United 2-1 last season and thought they looked quick and powerful on the break. Sangare, Gibbs-White, Elanga, Hudson-Odio, Awoniyi and Wood would probably all make our first XI. Will be an interesting measure of where we stand.

I suspect the American finance influence at Chelsea also has them treating player trading like venture capital. Buy lots of young players, for their first loan send them to a good league with no option to buy, then wait to see which ones 2-3x in value. If Les proves himself an effective PL bulldozer for us, he'll be worth at least double what they paid for him without ever having to kick a ball in anger for their first team. On the other hand, if the first loan isn't a huge success, they're sent out again next season to less auspicious clubs with an obligation to buy that hopefully covers the original cost of the purchase or better (as with Broja link to Ipswich now). The key to the approach is that you have to be comfortable with a few big sales covering many more smaller losses.

I seem to remember the forum (myself included) was sniffy about Rafa Silva when he was at Braga because he'd only scored 5 senior goals during his first two seasons. 77 league goals and 71 assists after he moved to Benfica suggest we were probably a little hasty. Hope Fernandes kicks on with us like that.

Taking off Sugawara for Edozie was clearly a mistake. KWP roving from the left and Suga's crossing created a lot more issues than Edozie, even though 90% of our attacks seemed to go through him once he came on.

Downes, Ugo and a through-ball expert wonderkid would seem like a pretty flexible midfield, and well matched to a mobile rather than physical attack like BBD/AA/Archer

Why is everything going through Edozie? It's not as if he's winning those battles.

So the exact thing everyone was expecting to happen, happened. At least it only took 40-odd minutes to show how easily the weak link in our game is going to be punished at this level.

Admittedly, there haven't been a lot of opportunities to see him at top speed with the whole field to run into, but he strikes me as someone with elite acceleration, but only over relatively short distances. If you compare him to someone like Doku or even prime Ronaldo, he just seems too slight to maintain that pace for long.

At least Archer strikes the ball well with either foot. A bit of a rarity.

If you lose twice to a team and finish below them, it's pretty hollow to claim you were better than them.

Looks strong, quick and nice weight of pass. Just what our lightweight midfield needs.

Battle-hardened and won't bottle games against our closest rivals? You mean like Leicester and Ipswich last season?

The Lazio game was on ESPN+ in the US, but doesn't look like they've got Saturday's game sadly.