OnceaSaintalwaysaSaint

At least Taylor put in the occasional good cross but boy there's some crap on the field today. We're playing RM championship football at its worst. Hopefully Fernandes will add something

Strongest contender for smallest front line of all time...keep the ball on the ground lads!

Agree. Much prefer to see Sam AA play and I didn't appreciate Ross Stewart was match fit until seeing him play a lot of the second half against Man U, so he needs more game time. In midfield Les needs more game time too.

And I'm not sure I've seen such a one-footed player in the premier league. I don't think he touches the ball with his left foot yet alone kick it. He looks so one dimensional but get him off the wing and give him a chance.

I kept it suitably vague. Yes, most of us wished we'd spent our savings on a recognised and proven goalscorer but we didn't. That said, I actually thought Archer, despite being out muscled, despite his penalty, showed he has some tenacity and believe he could come good. Similarly, there's some comfort in Ross Stewart playing 30 minutes and not being stretchered off. He didn't do much yesterday but I've a lot more faith in him that I had two weeks ago!

And over the goal line! £7m doesn't buy much of a striker and we're not playing him to his strengths. Agree with S-Clarke, get him in the middle playing off someone.

I looked at the thread when I got back from the game. Most people were happy with yesterday's team selection even if there was the resignation that Jack S would inevitably be included.

I noticed that yesterday. Even our new superhero, Tyler Dibling, visibly faded. Les was another. Up front Archer's press was slower and slower as the game progressed. Downes on the other hand was like a terrier to the end. Yes, make him captain.

RM went up in my estimation yesterday. RM showed that he can adapt and try different tactics. Most agreed with the team he selected. Not too sure he should sub half the team in one go, but he recognised he needed to change things and brought off the people who were either not making an impact or running on empty. The next games are minus Jack S. If the team can do well without him, I'm hoping RM will finally realise the guy is a liability.

Everton is in the League Cup. Beat Ipswich next Saturday and that's a start but it's two high probability relegation candidates playing each other. Our big games are against teams like Notts Forest, Brentford ....oh, oh...

I'm not pissed off with us losing the first four games. In fact there have been some missed opportunities. But what is getting to me is that at the moment, I feel we're the poor man of the league. Seeing Bournemouth being a match for Chelsea and looking at Brighton and Brentford, I'm wondering: 'when did our stock fall so low?' It's almost like this happened last year when we were in the championship for just one season.

And I quite liked the Northam and Itchen singing across the away fans. And Badger, I appreciate the striker situation isn't going to change, it was a comment that we haven't got one. If Tall Paul is the answer, we will fail. Ross Stewart didn't do a lot today but he's rusty and by the time he came on, we had gone in to negative mode, so he's worth trying again. The team needs a target man to hold up/lay off to midfielders coming forward and to be a focus for crosses. It could be Ross. I'm hoping Archer, albeit a lightweight, will get over today and do a job because AA certainly won't in the centre of the pitch.

Yes that's really quiet. Maybe the singers are too spread out, but there hasn't been a lot to sing about so far.

I've seen us play a lot worse than that. The team selection was positively greeted by most on this site and with good reason. We started off well and for over 1/3rd of the game we were competitive. Suguwara and Dibling have a good rapport, Downes is tenacious, Ramsdale was allowed to do what he wanted to do with the ball and KWP was ok. Yes we've lost four games in a row but I'm still pretty upbeat. The lack of a striker is our biggest concern but let's the comments in a month's time.

Quite like this, though am expecting Cornet to start and Dibling to come on from the bench. Would prefer BBD to Armstrong...and you haven't shoehorned Jack Stephens in to the team!

So would I and I genuinely think with KWP/Suguwara (if he plays) and Fraser bombing down the wing and putting in telling crosses, we can do this and it'll be the 'Dutch Steptoe's' last game in charge of Man U.

Agreed. Ankersen did initially try the Brentford approach here. And it could be argued Selles was also in that mould. Always felt another time another situation, RS could have worked out for us but the dross he inherited and the atmosphere at the club at the time worked against him. Reading fans love him and given the constraints there, he's working wonders. But like you said, Ankersen was under pressure to find a new style and manager and along comes Wilcox and RM. Personally, I don't like it but it's trendy. Why managers and teams can't mix up styles of play, I don't understand. Anyway, Wilcox has gone and Man Utd seem to be freewheeling backwards so it'll be interesting to see how they fare in their next game!!

You're right. Mix it up. Not being as tactically astute as a lot of people, I still think there's a lot of common sense behind the saying that they won't score if the ball is in their half. And when you have a good distributor like Ramsdale who can see a quick break, sometimes play the long ball out. RM will make changes. He might be arrogant, he might want to stick to his principles but he's not stupid. He knows he has to adapt. Expect to see Fernandes start, Dibling and Big Les play a big part and Cornet and Archer also heavily involved. And it was noticeable that even at his age, how much of an impact Lallana had when he came on at Brentford.

Normally I get annoyed by these international breaks and one just three games in to the season is frustrating - but on this occasion it couldn't come at a better time for RM to analyse what's gone right and wrong so far and make the necessary changes. The next game, Man U, can be moved out of the free hit category. They're not playing well and there's a real chance of a massive confidence boost if we can topple them.

Agree. Haven't seen enough of Lesley but I'd be surprised if Fernandes doesn't start from now on. We're saying RM needs to change but SR brought him in because they believe in possession football and needed a similar thinking manager. So they also need to change their ethos. It was interesting how Ramsdale went for a couple of long punts half way through the first half. They came to nothing, so did he go back to passing out from the back because firing a ball to AA/BBD is pointless or because he was told to play the system?

This will be the big one. In 40 years, I'd never heard "Your football is shit" sung by our our fans until the cup game at Palace a couple of years ago when Mr Jones was manager, but RM is heading in the same direction. He needs to adapt. Yes, we have championship players in our team but we've also got a lot of premier league standard players and as much as I don't trust SR, they've given us a top goalkeeper and spent money on quality players. It's up to RM to now use these players.

We need to move on from AA as soon as possible. Football at this level is fine margins and AA's miss before half time was criminal. Going in 1-1 at half time and we would have been right in this game. They weren't a lot better than us. THB needs to settle down. He seems to be going through a confidence issue caused by not having so much time on the ball as he did in the championship. Jack Stephens just seems to get in the way of play. I can see ABK playing for us again soon.

Okay, Dibling gave it his all midweek and maybe wasn't ready for a full 90 minutes today, but you're right, the team selection against Man U will tell us what RM has learned. AA was ineffective missed a run in on goal and missed tap in. A striker can't be that wasteful and to be fair he was taken off, but he should never have been starting. Smallbone was caught out a couple of times. THB needs to sharpen up. And as for Stephens. Maybe ABK needs to be reintegrated in to the team.

MotM at Wembley. Really pleased he's back. More than a squad player. Fraser will make a difference.

I like this but I think we'll see AA instead of Dibling and Smallbone instead of Big Les. Dibling will come on as a sub again and hopefully so will Sam AA. BBD and AA need to be much more narrow to allow Sugawara and KWP to go charging down the wing without bumping in to them.