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Keep hearing that the squad is terrible, but is it really by Championship standards?
Our starting XI last night:
Button, Townsend, Bartley, O’Shea, Ajayi, Okay, Moloumby, Wallace, Swift, Diangana, Grant
Bench: Palmer, Furlong, Livermore, Zohore, Phillips, Reach, TGH
Injured/unavailable/fucked off bafflingly: Dike, Robinson, Mowatt, Kipre, Bryan,
Do people genuinely believe a playoff challenge at the very least shouldn’t be expected with that lot? I count at least 12 players who have played regularly in the PL, at least 9 full internationals.
Are we man for man worse than the Luton team who made the playoffs last year? Are we worse than Reading or Hull or Rotherham who currently sit above us? Call me arrogant or delusional but I would say we are not.
The key issue is management. There are teams with far less than us doing far more because they are organised, they are motivated, they have morale, they have a clear tactical plan that they all buy into, they all know their roles and responsibilities within their teams. I’ve said before that teams can become more than the sum of their parts through good management.
Under Bruce we have none of the attributes I’ve listed above. We are a club without an identity, without a defined style, without any cohesion on or off the pitch. And until that changes we’ll continue to go nowhere fast.
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(08-31-2022, 11:29 AM)Duffers Wrote: Keep hearing that the squad is terrible, but is it really by Championship standards?
Our starting XI last night:
Button, Townsend, Bartley, O’Shea, Ajayi, Okay, Moloumby, Wallace, Swift, Diangana, Grant
Bench: Palmer, Furlong, Livermore, Zohore, Phillips, Reach, TGH
Injured/unavailable/fucked off bafflingly: Dike, Robinson, Mowatt, Kipre, Bryan,
Do people genuinely believe a playoff challenge at the very least shouldn’t be expected with that lot? I count at least 12 players who have played regularly in the PL, at least 9 full internationals.
Are we man for man worse than the Luton team who made the playoffs last year? Are we worse than Reading or Hull or Rotherham who currently sit above us? Call me arrogant or delusional but I would say we are not.
The key issue is management. There are teams with far less than us doing far more because they are organised, they are motivated, they have morale, they have a clear tactical plan that they all buy into, they all know their roles and responsibilities within their teams. I’ve said before that teams can become more than the sum of their parts through good management.
Under Bruce we have none of the attributes I’ve listed above. We are a club without an identity, without a defined style, without any cohesion on or off the pitch. And until that changes we’ll continue to go nowhere fast.
Sadly very true
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(08-31-2022, 11:29 AM)Duffers Wrote: Keep hearing that the squad is terrible, but is it really by Championship standards?
Our starting XI last night:
Button, Townsend, Bartley, O’Shea, Ajayi, Okay, Moloumby, Wallace, Swift, Diangana, Grant
Bench: Palmer, Furlong, Livermore, Zohore, Phillips, Reach, TGH
Injured/unavailable/fucked off bafflingly: Dike, Robinson, Mowatt, Kipre, Bryan,
Do people genuinely believe a playoff challenge at the very least shouldn’t be expected with that lot? I count at least 12 players who have played regularly in the PL, at least 9 full internationals.
Are we man for man worse than the Luton team who made the playoffs last year? Are we worse than Reading or Hull or Rotherham who currently sit above us? Call me arrogant or delusional but I would say we are not.
The key issue is management. There are teams with far less than us doing far more because they are organised, they are motivated, they have morale, they have a clear tactical plan that they all buy into, they all know their roles and responsibilities within their teams. I’ve said before that teams can become more than the sum of their parts through good management.
Under Bruce we have none of the attributes I’ve listed above. We are a club without an identity, without a defined style, without any cohesion on or off the pitch. And until that changes we’ll continue to go nowhere fast.
Agree. Said the same in another post a minute ago. We need more energy and desire from younger, hungrier players and Bruce seems to only want old pro's. This aligned with swapping tactics and formations.
Bruce needs to adapt but unfortunately, as we have found out with previous managers, managers of a certain age just stick to what they know.
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(08-31-2022, 11:29 AM)Duffers Wrote: Keep hearing that the squad is terrible, but is it really by Championship standards?
Our starting XI last night:
Button, Townsend, Bartley, O’Shea, Ajayi, Okay, Moloumby, Wallace, Swift, Diangana, Grant
Bench: Palmer, Furlong, Livermore, Zohore, Phillips, Reach, TGH
Injured/unavailable/fucked off bafflingly: Dike, Robinson, Mowatt, Kipre, Bryan,
Do people genuinely believe a playoff challenge at the very least shouldn’t be expected with that lot? I count at least 12 players who have played regularly in the PL, at least 9 full internationals.
Are we man for man worse than the Luton team who made the playoffs last year? Are we worse than Reading or Hull or Rotherham who currently sit above us? Call me arrogant or delusional but I would say we are not.
The key issue is management. There are teams with far less than us doing far more because they are organised, they are motivated, they have morale, they have a clear tactical plan that they all buy into, they all know their roles and responsibilities within their teams. I’ve said before that teams can become more than the sum of their parts through good management.
Under Bruce we have none of the attributes I’ve listed above. We are a club without an identity, without a defined style, without any cohesion on or off the pitch. And until that changes we’ll continue to go nowhere fast. Without going down the Val vs Bruce wormhole, which is absolutely neither my intention, nor point. Val did prove this early in his tenure. He had a lot of these players and they did buy in at the beginning and the results were clear to see. It was only when the system got found out and certain players took umbridge to their personal lot and what was expected of them, combined with Val trying to tweak his own system, that things collapsed.
The upshot is though that neither managed to get a, long term, tune out of them. One for the nature of his style and one for the complete absence of one. It's safe to assume therefore, that neither were right for the job.
Question now is do we stick with Bruce and accept that we are probably a midtable club, or twist again, and try and find someone who can get more out of this group?
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08-31-2022, 11:46 AM
(This post was last modified: 08-31-2022, 11:47 AM by Big Daddy Cool.)
I see a top 6 Championship midfield, that's it. Poor goalkeeper, poor defence and no center forward.
Playing in the PL doesn't mean much when most of these players were massively out of their depth at that level.
We have footballers that are on the decline such as Phillips, Bartley and Livermore. We have Furlong and Townsend who have been mostly poor for a long while, long before Bruce arrived. Button is the worst goalkeeper we've had for a long while.
I really don't see this good squad others are seeing. Some of these players are not in their prime anymore. I feel we have to stop viewing these players on past reputations to judge the squad. For example Dele Alli was a very good player a few years ago but is now really poor. Our own Matty Phillips is nowhere near the player he was a few years ago. We've been struggling in the past few years for a reason. That's why a rebuild is required but it's going to take a while until we can shift these big earners. That's why I sympathise with Bruce. I think it's a tougher job than some realise.
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08-31-2022, 11:48 AM
(This post was last modified: 08-31-2022, 11:51 AM by KratosBaggie.)
Not sure anyone can truly compare squads with each other, unless you're telling me you know the ins and outs of the other 23 squads in the league, and watch a good percentage of all matches (an impossible feat!). Or are we basing judgements of opposition quality on 30 second weekly highlights? (More likely the case!).
Do we have a god given right to be above the likes of Luton or Rotherham (arrogance if you genuinely believe that), and are we seriously comparing our performance using the league standing after seven games (delusional and stupid).
Yes, we're getting too many draws, but it's still early season, teams are still finding their feet. The main positive is we're not losing games, and we've had a number of tough fixtures to begin with.
Finally, I'm not sure you can say we've got a good squad, when 1/4 of our match day squad contains Bartley, Livermore, Phillips, and Zohore. They're no where near good enough.
In short, it's still far too early to make any reasoned conclusions. Some of the knee jerk posting on here has been utterly embarrassing.
Clarnet v2.0
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(08-31-2022, 11:48 AM)KratosBaggie Wrote: Not sure anyone can truly compare squads with each other, unless you're telling me you know the ins and outs of the other 23 squads in the league, and watch a good percentage of all matches (an impossible feat!). Or are we basing Judgements of opposition quality on 30 second highlights? (More likely the case!).
Do we have a god given right to be above the likes of Luton or Rotherham (arrogance if you genuinely believe that), and are we seriously comparing our performance using the league standing after seven games (delusional and stupid).
Yes, we're getting too many draws, but it's still early season, teams are still finding their feet. The main positive is we're not losing games, and we've had a number of tough fixtures to begin with.
Finally, I'm sure you can say we've got a good squad, when 1/4 of our match day squad contains Bartley, Livermore, Phillips, and Zohore. They're no where near good enough.
In short, it's still far too early to make any reasoned conclusions. Some of the knee jerk posting on here has been utterly embarrassing.
It's not knee jerk, we've been watching this shit show for the last three and a half seasons.
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Nailed it Duffers.
At the same time, the squads of some of the teams you've mentioned have players with the desire to earn more money, so many of our players don't, they have the best contracts they are ever going to get.
Furlong, Bartley, Livermore, Button, Phillips, Reach, Zohere, Okay - they've had their peak, they are not getting better paid anywhere else and they are not going to play for a bigger clubs than us now and they have earned well out of the game. There is no hunger for these players to even get promoted.
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