Verbal Kint

It's not really though is it? Do you seriously think last summer when we sold Ings and Vestergaard that Ralph had watched Adam Armstrong and Lyanco and thought they were the ones he wanted to replace them with? Do you genuinely think he rates the likes of Redmond, Djenepo, Elyounoussi? Of course he doesn't, he just has nobody else to turn to. You can blame him for tactics, in game management etc. if you want, but the real reason we are shit is because we have suffered from a chronic lack of investment in the first team for a number of years, and what little money we have spent has been wasted by the recruitment department on utter rubbish. On top of that he has to make room for the likes of Kelvin Davis on his coaching team, someone that we all know wouldn't get a first team coaching role at any other PL club. An overhaul of the playing squad is needed first

I find it very hard to believe that Kelvin Davis would get a 1st team coaching role at any other PL club. Jobs for the boys

I think that is a reflection on the lack of leaders in the squad rather than Ralph. We were in very good form in January and February, we then had an off day at Villa and suffered a bad defeat. That should have been a "bad day at the office" and if we had 6 or 7 really good leaders then I think it would have been. Instead we were incredibly flat a few days later against Newcastle and then followed up that with the worst performance of the season against Watford. Total capitulation and all confidence gone in the space of a week. If you were to name the leaders in this squad you'd say JWP, Romeu and maybe Theo at a push (I'm sure he's a very good influence in training even if we don't see him on the pitch much). That is nowhere near enough and needs to be corrected in the summer. We have plenty of young talent and potential to nurture over the next few years, but what this squad is crying out for is a few more Jose Fonte types who are going to ensure we are able to dig ourselves out of trouble when it's needed. GK, CB, AM, ST at a minimum need to be signed. All of them good enough to come into the team and be certain starters on day 1. If we do that then we can judge Ralph properly, rather than calling for him to go when he is working with such a weak and fragile group

I really don't understand why people think this. This is a very very poor squad with little to no quality aside from JWP's set pieces. The general consensus at the start of the season was that we would really struggle and if Broja hadn't had that spell of form then we would be right in the relegation battle. Major surgery is needed on the squad. Ralph knows this as well. Starting Long over AA is sending a very clear message to the recruitment team, and it's the right one to send

I'm not quite as negative about our chances of signing him as others are. I don't think Chelsea will be in a position to move on from Lukaku so quickly considering the financial outlay they have made on him, so I don't see a scenario where Lukaku isn't first choice striker there next season. Even if they wanted to sell him they'd have to take an enormous loss on him which I just don't think they'd be prepared to do. I also don't think they will sell Broja without a buy back clause, as they must see his potential and realise in 2 or 3 years time, when they can move on from Lukaku, he would be ready to lead the line for them. Any buy back clause rules out a lot of clubs IMO. Can anyone really see Arsenal or any other big clubs buying a player from Chelsea with a buy back clause included? The optics would be awful for them. The buy back will also help to bring the paying price down for him so I don't think we'll be priced out of it. 20/25 million with a buy back of 60 is realistic I think. Broja will have had 12 months on loan here playing week in week out, scoring goals and working under one of the best coaches in the league. He can carry that on and will very likely have the opportunity to go back to Chelsea in a few years if that is his ultimate goal. And in the meantime he gets a big pay rise by signing for us permanently. I see that as being a pretty good scenario for him

He just is very average. The 11 million on him and the 15 million on Armstrong just looks worse and worse by the game

Oh please. He's a prime example of just how shit our recruitment has been. Out of his depth.

Better side for the first 20 minutes until Bednarek decided to defend like a pub player. He is hopelessly out of his depth as are quite a few others. The recruitment department have absolutely decimated this squad over 5 or 6 years and it shows. Our bench today was so weak, there was nobody there who Ralph could turn to to try and change the game. He will continue to get blamed but it isn't his fault, the players just aren't good enough and depressingly so many of the have cost us decent money

This is a really good post and sums up my thoughts about this team too. In the vast majority of games this season we have dominated the first half and the game should have been dead and buried, and yet we go in level at half time or just with a 1 goal advantage. Because the opposition are still in the game, despite being outplayed, inevitably creates a momentum shift and results in them getting into the game more in the second half. Posters on here then blame Ralph for not changing things quickly enough, rather than crediting him for getting our set up right to start with, and don't call out the actual problem which is that our individual quality and decision making in the final third just isn't good enough, and that isn't Ralph's fault. He has nobody else in the squad that will really improve that. Ralph is not perfect and he has acknowledged that he got it wrong on Saturday, but in most games this season he has set us up well and has put the team in a position to win the game in the first half. The reason we aren't winning them is because key players just don't produce when they need to in the key moments. Armstrong has his fans on here for some reason but he has not shown anything yet to suggest he is going to score goals regularly at this level - it will take me a while to forget how bad his composure was in that Watford game, a prime example of us dominating a game and not killing it early. We got away with it that day (and against Villa) but we didn't at Norwich. Saturday was poor all round. Ralph got it wrong, but even then we had chances to get back into the game and couldn't convert them

You're right about our no.10s but this stat didn't look right to me having watched the game so I've just briefly looked at the 5 passes to check. For them to qualify as "chances created" is absurd. 3 of them are simple 5/10 yard passes for players to shoot from distance and another is a weak corner that bednarek barely can make contact with. The last one was a great cross in for Walcott's header at the end. This is a great example of how misleading stats can be, as only 1 of them can actually be described as creating a chance

He's getting good chances and failing to take them. You don't think that suggests he's just a poor finisher? Why will he suddenly start scoring for fun? His attempts at Watford were terrible - no composure at all. From what we've seen so far his approach to finishing seems to be to just hit the ball as hard as he can. I don't think that will translate to a lot of goals in this league. Hopefully that goal on Friday calms him down significantly and he starts showing better composure in crucial moments, as without it he will continue to struggle. He has pace but his all round game is nowhere near as good as Che's, so if he isn't scoring goals he isn't going to be contributing much apart from pressing. I think Broja is a better player already and undoubtedly has far greater potential. He will be a 60 million+ player in a couple of seasons scoring 20+ a season, whilst Armstrong will still be with us struggling to hit double figures

No argument on his set pieces and I don't see anyone else disputing that. But you previously said he was more of a goal threat from open play as well From open play last season per game: Shot creating actions: JWP 1.03, Diallo 1.33 Goal creating actions: JWP 0.11, Diallo 0.09 "Far better"

You're entitled to your opinion but the data doesn't support a lot of this. He isn't a better tackler. He isn't "far" better at creating chances from open play. I think he scored just 1 goal from open play last year (are we really calling that a goal threat?). Diallo's defensive stats are better

Those attacking stats include set pieces though don't they? My initial point was take them away and what is left? For example, shot creating actions from open play - JWP last of the 3 Completed passes into the penalty area from open play: Romeu has more. Progressive ball carries - JWP last Your tackles won and interceptions data for Diallo doesn't match up to the fbref site either: JWP last of the 3 again by distance These are the key qualities of a no. 6 right? Winning the ball, pressing, moving the team up the pitch, using the ball effectively. The only metric he is topping significantly is passes into the final 1/3, but the fact his passing into the penalty area then drops off so significantly tells another story itself doesn't it? What are his actual strengths? He is a free kick specialist - a bloody good one at that, and people may believe he is worth his place in the side based on that alone and can make that argument, but people saying he is our best player, talisman etc. are seeing a different player than my eyes and the data indicates. There is a strong argument that he isn't even our best midfielder

He had a quiet game, but he always does if he isn't scoring a free kick. Even for those that like data, I looked at last season's and Romeu outperformed JWP in most of the relevant open play metrics (tackles and interceptions, pressing, ball carrying, progressive passes, passes leading to shots etc). Diallo was better than him for a lot of these as well. I think it's pretty obvious to most by now that JWP's only real strength is set pieces, and he offers very little else. His free kicks are probably the best in the league though, so I guess you have to decide how valuable that is for a team like us and if it compensates enough for his mediocrity in open play

I think there's a lot of wishful thinking going on with A.Armstrong based on the fact we've spent a lot of money on him. Still early days but so far he's looked a very limited player. He needs to improve significantly

Who is to say the current approach doesn't get the best out of them? I'd love to know what different approach fans think is going to suddenly get the likes of Walcott, Redmond, Djenepo and Elyounoussi creating chances and scoring goals. Same for Armstrong who has been completely anonymous in most games and is showing he has very little else to contribute if he isn't getting chances put on a plate for him. Our season is going to rely on S.Armstrong's form and fitness and hopefully Broja forcing his way in to the team and scoring a few goals

I'll repeat what was said on the thread before the wolves game where some posters were talking about winning 5 out of the next 7 - if you have attacking players as poor as ours then you will struggle to win games in this league, no matter how poor the opposition might be.

Little man syndrome- he can't help himself

You have massively underestimated the loss of Ings to this team. He was capable of scoring goals out of nothing, in games where we were struggling or behind in and he single handedly got us out of it. It was always going to be very difficult to replace his ability (Armstrong isn't fit to lace his boots), which means we needed to significantly upgrade in other areas to make up for it. We haven't done enough. We still have Bednarek as a starting CB and the likes of Redmond and Djenepo starting as no.10s. The quality of the first 11 is lower than last season as we lost our best player, and the squad, whilst bigger, is only bigger because it is full of shit players that are nowhere near good enough for this league. You need quality to win games in this league and I don't see any left

Why? Because he runs around a lot? So does Redmond, so does Elyounoussi, so does Djenepo. They're all shit

Based on what? He missed two absolute sitters against Man Utd so I don't know where that confidence is coming from. It's too early to judge him but all he has shown so far is that he is good at pressing. Hopefully over the next few weeks in slightly easier looking games he shows us he has a lot more than that to offer. On the game overall, I thought tactically we were excellent and defensively we were really strong. It's unfortunate that our attacking play is poor as otherwise we would have won I think. The number of times we got Redmond, Elyounoussi, Armstrong and Adams into great positions and failed to do anything with it was infuriating. Can't fault the effort of the players or Ralph's tactical set up, we just have very poor attacking players (specifically redmond, djenepo and elyounoussi) and no longer have Ings to bail us out

Teams as poor as we are in the final third of the pitch will always struggle to win games. Our options in attacking areas are considerably weaker than most of those teams

I think the opposite. This is one of the weakest squads quality wise I can remember us having in the PL and Ralph set us up accordingly - protect the fragile CBs and be quite defensive. Djenepo, Redmond, Elyounoussi, A. Armstrong is a championship level front 4 and that's what Ralph is dealing with. All 4 were terrible, as was JWP. It was an awful game until Broja came on and livened it up a bit. He looks very useful. It will be a long season

For progressive passes, when you take out the anomalies (those who have played fewer than 10 games) JWP still doesn't even make the top 50 players in the league, and is behind Romeu. The chances created stats I can access show a similar story