Lighthouse

I wish I could have been a fly on the wall for the absolutely mental conversation that some of you seem to think took place when we hired Still. Spors: "So, Will, you're a promising young manager with a decent record in French football, we think you're the right man to take us forward in the Championship." Still: "Okay, I'm interested, tell me more." Spors: "Well first of all, we're going to decide what formation the team plays, not you." Still: "Errrr.... why." Spors: "Well, even though we got promoted two years ago playing a back four for the majority of the season, including our longest unbeaten run for a century, we absolutely insist on playing a back five this time." Still: "Well, if you say so." Spors: "Also, even though we signed Amo-Ameyaw, Lis, Bella-Kotchap, Mara, Caleta-Car, Edozie, Larios, Orsic, Alcaraz, Bree, Onuachu, Sulemana, Taylor, Sugawara and Brereton Diaz, then binned them off when they were deemed not good enough, for some reason we're going to insist that you absolutely must play the worst goalkeeper in Championship history at all times." Still: "Why?" Spors: "Because profits. Once every scout in Europe has seen that he's the worst goalkeeper in England, clubs will be queueing up to sign him for £30m." Still: "Anything else?" Spors: "Yes, we're going to sign some of the leagues best and most expensive AM players from last year. You're going to say they suit your prefered formation, then hardly play them, just to troll the fans." Still: "Okay, that sounds sane and reasonable, sign me up." Spors: "Great, also sign this NDA saying that when it all goes tits up, we sack you and everyone thinks you're useless, you have to stay completely silent and pretend it was all your fault the whole time." Still; "Ah, awesome, this sounds like a great idea and definitely wont be the end of my managerial career at the age of 33. .... .... Still: "BTW FU, I'm sometimes going to play McCarthy and a 4-2-3-1, just for teh lolz!!"

I know some people love a good conspiracy but that’s quite obviously not what’s going on. Five at the back is a legit formation, used by a lot of managers, Bazunu is being picked ahead of Alex McCarthy, not Lev Yashin. Still would not have accepted the job under those stipulations, which he’s spent half the season ‘ignoring’ anyway.

We reverted to a four at half time but it looked like nobody had a clue what they were doing second half, so not surprising that we’ve stuck with the formation we’ve started with since Hull. Like I said, the interim manager was never likely to make significant changes. He’s here to keep things ticking over.

He’s the interim manager, he was never going to reinvent the way we play for two games, so hardly surprising he’s sticking to a back five. Sounds like Leo is not a concern, which is encouraging.

Best: Ramsdale Jelert THB Wood Welly Lavia Downes Brooks Fernandes Scienza Archer Worst: Lumley Sugawara ABK Holgate Larios AMN Lallana Orsic Cornet Groenbaek Mara I feel it’s too early to be too harsh on some of this season’s signings and putting Archer in a ‘best’ XI is taking the p*ss a bit, but that’s where we are.

I was actually referring to La Liga but your answer is also correct.

Sounds like a fun hobby. I have huge respect for Romeu and his attitude and I’d love it if he can bring a bit of that to the current team. However, there was way no getting away from the fact that he looked well off the pace in his last third of a season in 2022. We got the best years out of him, he left and found a new lease of life in a less intense league.

Can’t see much change in formation or personnel coming, so I’ll assume more of the same. The million dollar question being how bad Leo’s injury is.

I think you may need to temper your expectations somewhat. He last played as a 73rd minute substitute in May.

Why would a lack of fitness make him a good option to play CB? We're stocked with plenty of better options at CB anyway, Rom will mostly play limited sub appearances as a DM when we need a calm head to see out games.

Clearly a team very low on confidence and cohesion but they dug deep and saw it out, so fair play to them for that. It's about as good as you can hope for with an interim manager in charge and should keep us within reach of the playoffs by the time the new bloke is appointed. My main worry is that Leo's injury will keep him out for a while. Why aren't we allowed to have nice things?

I never said either was better, but to pretend McCarthy has done nothing wrong this season is just plain weird.

Apart from an absolute howler against Liverpool, both goals against Blackburn and one against Bristol?

Get in boys!

What exactly were you expecting to happen when we sacked Still?