S-Clarke

Not directly, nope. But he hasn't been given much game time. The thing with SAA is that it looked like he 'could' impact games, he just wasn't given the chance to show. We'll see what happens, I assume it's part of the deal to get their CB - but I'd be disappointed if we give them our player and don't have any form of option on their CB.

I guess it's not just Juric who has come to that conclusion, as Martin was very reluctant to use him either. There must be something we're not privy to, i.e how he trains or there are some flaws in his game which make him a risk in a certain system. No idea. Trying to make some logic out of it!

I'm quite sad for Armstrong personally at how it's turned out this year. After last season he'd had a reset at Saints, understanding the players around him, fans appreciating him, scoring bags of goals etc. I think he and we all thought he'd deserved another crack at the PL and would hopefully fare a little better as he's come up with momentum, although you have to appreciate he is pretty limited. But the fact it's gone even worse this time round in the PL is really sad. I'd keep him for next year as I think he's a Champ player, but he may feel that he now needs a change of scenery personally.

I did hope so, but this summer was a mess. Fernandes was a good pick, but they've let themselves down with the likes of BBD, Suguwara, Lallana, Taylor, Cornet etc. It seems for every good addition there is another 3 or 4 crap ones.

This is true, but then you just have to be ruthless upon promotion. We bought Billy Sharp to get us promoted in the Champ, then almost immediately discarded him in the Prem. Same went for guys like Hammond, Harding, Richardson, Barnard, Connolly etc - mainstays from our promotion teams but with a realisation that they weren't good enough, so we evolved from them. Building a Championship team full of players who can make the step up is impossible and financially irresponsible I'd say. They wouldn't be cheap and would want $$$. Build a team for where you are today, with an eye on players who could evolve.

And with our recruitment you have to worry... I don't have an issue with some of these guys leaving on loan and getting game time per-say, like Charles, but it's our insistence on adding 'obligations to buy' which is confusing me. Like you say, they'd be assets next year but we seem prepared to give them up. Maybe we're a bit up the creek financially?

I find the SAA really frustrating too, he's been sitting there crying out for a chance both last season and this. What are we not seeing that coaches are? Last season you had Sulemana struggling to get a place, and even Manning deployed as a winger before we even touched SAA. Granted, we have a couple more options this year, but I'd still have expected to see more of him. He never looked out of place when he played. The only logic I can apply to this is that he won't sign a new deal, he's out of contract in 2026 and we don't want to get into a situation where he's running his contract down and we lose value. We need to sort out our pathway though as it's not really there anymore. From SR's perspective, they're about to pocket £20m for two players they bought for £1.5m. (Meghoma and SAA). From a business POV it makes sense, but it's a shame it's more about business these days.

What is this odd feeling I have? I'm not sure what to do. I've not felt like this after 5 on a Saturday for some time. Looking at it objectively, I thought that was a showing of two pretty poor teams. The second half became more of a slog and I think that suited Juric a bit more. I'm still not keen on the 3 at the back, and I think it's confusing THB. He was charging forward so much and leaving the other two (or usually Bednarek) totally exposed, and that's why we let Delap run through free. I really enjoyed Wellingtons performance though, he reminded me of Bertrand in his style. It'll be interesting to see how he gets on over the coming weeks. Nice to finally get closer to that Derby point total though, maybe, just maybe, we'll end up getting enough points to avoid that embarrassment now.

As soon as the media started interviewing their CEO and proclaiming how much 'profit' they've made, you just knew it was over.

The 'groin tweak' for Archer is quite obviously bull. Leeds pushing hard for him.

I feel like Brighton have lost their way this year, it was always likely though - clubs of that size cannot continue to compete at the top end, one bad transfer window and it's curtains (as we found out). They had a disaster of a window last time out, and they spent £200m - of all that, I'd say only Rutter has been a regular for them. They dumped all their scouts as well. Their manager choice has been questionable too, I'd say a good chunk of their fans want him gone and have done for a while.

He's not moving now, in the summer yeah - as he screams $$$$ for SR. We're at the very least going to be flush with cash in the Championship again the next time round, Dibling has been an unexpected success of this season.

I remember that Championship game against them (back in 2011). It was early in the season but that was the game where I thought, hang on, we've got something unbelievable brewing here. We absolutley tore them to pieces.

MB is one of the best posters on here, stop trying to cause problems where there aren't any. If they're valid or not, who cares - they're posted for the right reasons, not just to get reactions.

Yep, something which has always irked me. Like you say, we still seem obsessed with the fact we got Mane/Tadic/Lovren/Wanyama etc for around that £10-15m ballpark. Yep, amazing that we did - but the same level of quality now, if we take Matt O'Reilly as a 'current' Wanyama player in terms of rep and stature at Celtic.....they're double the price, if not more. £30-40m There may be examples of getting high potential players in that 10-15m if they are into their final year of contract, sure, but if we really want to find the Tadic/Mane etc of tomorrow we're going to need to spend upwards of £30m on single players. It's just fact. Bournemouth, Brentford, Brighton, Fulham have all joined that club - we have to, or you'll see continuation of what we see now. Don't get me wrong, Dragan has spent money but as you say it's been on quantity rather than outright quality buys that lift our team. At best it just allows us to standstill, and you can't stand still in the PL. We've got to re-approach that.

We all know Jack is pretty limited and he really should have been replaced, but I don't like reading the personal vitriol and hate he gets all over social media to be honest. He's an honest lad and clearly cares about the club, he's not a Sulemana waiting for the next exit. Yeah for sure he's not going to be taking us to the next level, but I think he deserves a bit more respect from the fanbase than he gets. The very least you want is someone who cares, and he does.

I guess the lack of rumours around him suggests there is very little interest? If he's still here in Feb it probably tells you how other coaches see him! We've pretty much said to anyone he's available, I read that we were willing to cover 100% wages as well just to ensure he got a club.

I don't think so, Dibling is a one of a kind really. Ballard was just there in the kids teams to finish off all the chances! Sadly the injury didn't help him, bit of a bummer really as it was a bad one. If I'm totally honest with you I see another Josh Sims/Jamie White type career with him, some promise, bags and bags of goals at underage, fans clamouring for him to play, but never quite good enough to make the step up to pro football consistently.

I think there are two ways you can make it work. Do what we did under Adkins, and buy players who improve and take the same journey of improvement as the club. This requires an element of luck and very careful planning. The scouting needs to be top notch and so does the coaching. A lot needs to click and we were very lucky with how well it did back in 2010. The other way is to come up and break our transfer record a few times on players who walk straight into the 11, not just focusing on squad fillers - but actual starters who push existing starters out of the way. But both approaches require good scouting which we simply don't have. Step 1 is to overhaul that entire football department, analysts, scouts, dof etc and start again. Once that is in place and all joined up with an approach, we can start building. It's not going to happen overnight though as they've made such a mess of it that we have a lot to unpick. At least Dragan has somewhat acknowledged the glaring issue, but time will tell if they're just words.

But we really need to focus on our average possession percentage over those 6 defeats, that will tell the true story of how good we actually are. The only stat which matters.

Here are a few snippets: - Juric is an ambitious manager, here for the longer term. He WILL be our manager next season, there is no situation where we break in the summer and the plan is to continue. Appreciates we don't have the right squad for his style and we will continue to remould so it fits him better. - We have had no football structure since Jason Wilcox left (no shit) and we are working on building an entirely new football department to oversee things and make us competitive. Then the usual about how he loves the club, wants to make it work, passionate etc. Let's see where the next 18 months lead us... It does once again raise massive alarms around SR's flip flopping between philosophies, we've basically gone backwards to needing a team similar to the one we had under Ralph, after we've spent 18 months taking that apart to build a 'passing' team. A very confused club, it has to be said - hopefully with Dragan at the helm he can now direct his frustration into making things right, fully hands on, rather than waiting for Kraft or Rasmus to do the work.

It's weird reading this thread, reading that in any normal teams forum you'd think we were still debating a chance of staying up and wins against those teams will be huge etc etc. But no, we're actually not debating staying up - we're debating making sure we get more than 11 points. It's incredible how this season has been allowed to happen.

I think it's best we just draw a line under this debacle. Let him go in the summer, we might be able to get some insurance claim out on him. I feel sorry for him as a person, but from a club point of view he's stolen a wage for 2 years here. Time to get ruthless and stop being someone's rehab home.

This is certainly one of the rare situations in that it makes some sense to cash in on one of our best players mid-season. Like you say, he's not staying next season and will leave for free, and keeping him for the rest of this season is going to make absolutley no difference to how we do - so we might as well take what little cash we can. He's put his shift in over the years, has been one of our better players, so even though he's associated with our worst ever team I'd say he's one of the 'few' who can still leave with their head high.

Yep, agree. Although I think Leicester are a bit batshit and probably as unstable as we are ownership wise. Be interesting to see what they have to sell in the summer given their financial constraints as it is. (EFL is primed to dock them points apparently). Depressingly though, even in their predicament, they're still better than us (As they proved emphatically last season, and also at home this season)