Big O

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely don’t want to sell our best players and would love for something to come out of the club that intimated we were financially sound going forwards with MA at the helm….. but we are supposedly 70-90m in debt and our parachute payment is about to disappear if we don’t make it up. That coupled with the occasional crazy bid by desperate clubs in January might mean we’re in no place to refuse, hence me outline of what I would do in that scenario above.

It’s going to be an interesting window for sure. The club are on the verge of losing parachute payments but somehow are only 5 points off the playoffs despite looking very average so far. The run of games between now and the FA cup game could be quite telling. If we get 8-10 points I think we may think about investing and giving it a crack, however lose 3 of them and it’s pretty much over which I would think focus our attention to getting rid of high wage earners and potentially selling our best assets if any desperate clubs throw money our way. For me I would look to try and find the midfielder who you are going to base the next 2-3 years around. They need to be strong, defensively aware and able to play for a passing team. Even if there is investment required this seems like a no-brainer as on the assumption that Sara goes we can play them with Nunez or Kenny and have a better balance. I would also be looking for an emerging number 10 we may be able to take a punt on. It’s pretty clear to me that the Ashley Barnes experiment is only going to be short lived in that we might get another 12-18 months max from him,so bring in a youngster who can grow into the role and bed them in during the second half of the season with no pressure and regular rotation. in terms of loans for me, it would be a right back as I think fisher looks a good way short at this level just now and I think a loan would be great for his development. Centre half with Hanley and Gibson back gives us numbers (with hills, Warner allowed to continue their development) so the other loan I would bring in is a creative wide player so we could rotate Sainz and Rowe with Hernandez as a back up. if there is any chance of shifting players then for me it has to be Placheta, baath, Fassnacht, Sorensen and Springett. Just don’t see any of them in our future at all so let’s act now.

I’m not certain where people think we will magically come up with some cash without parachute payments to find 2 new left backs. i can’t imagine we will be able to offer Dimi the right package to stay and he will be in demand but otherwise would keep him for sure. McCallum will come down to the dimi decision and whether we have any young left backs coming through. Gibson a hard one as we do have Warner, hills etc coming through so he can move on but I would keep one of the keepers, Barden was decent when he stepped in before.

I have to admit I find myself pretty drawn on the Wagner issue at the moment. I’m never one for knee-jerk reactions and always like to give managers time and the current form in terms of results is pretty good. However, this current team and style is not in my opinion going to take the club forward, the football is slow and turgid at times, we look very frail and in all honesty we were a long way behind Ipsh*t yesterday (although very funny to get a point). The set up, style and tactics are down to Wagner although conversely the players are putting in a shift though so clearly he still has them behind him. I’m willing to give Knapper and Wagner the transfer window to start driving change and hopefully start to set a new direction, plus he probably deserves a few weeks with key players back but if we don’t see improvement in the second half of the season then I think we will have to act and be ruthless. praying I’m wrong but I just don’t see this team, style and tactics getting in the playoffs but would be delighted to be proved wrong

Agree, thought he was excellent. Kept control and let it flow - can’t remember an overly contentious decision

It would also make very few players want to join promoted teams

Matthias Sammer at Dortmund was damn good too

A win or bust selection from Wagner. I give him credit to have the boll*cks to pick a team he thinks is right as he must know he is in for pelters if that goes wrong. in fairness McClean has looked pretty good playing centre half but Hernandez remaining in is odd.

It’s the irony of it all that gets me. When we beat them at home with Farke vs Lambert it was high quality, quick passing football vs physical hoof ball. It is literally roles reversed, they have got Chaplin playing like Kaka, we’re happy that Barnes shouts and kicks a few!

Bet you a £5 they don’t lose 3-2

To be fair to him, Hernandez has always been a player (even when we were good) who needs good balls into his feet to isolate and stretch a full back, hence creating space for others when teams used to double up against him. Yes he was awful but name one single time in that game he was given the ball in that type of scenario with the ability to face up a full back. the truth is our style of play is beyond sh*t. We have to change coaching team now and get back to playing passing football and try and get a couple of loans into help. This team and style is taking us nowhere, the atmosphere is toxic. Knapper needs to be brave, state our philosophy, get in a progressive manager and accept it will take a time to rebuild.

Surely there can be no way Wagner can stay in charge. Zero knappers ideally opportunity to show some backbone and lead

No one looks great, we are all over the place.

The worrying thing is that it isn’t a surprise! Need to dig deep now

Usually with you Hogesar on the optimism front but fear for us a little tomorrow. They are a bit of a bogey team for us (although we did win with the Sarge flick the other year). Don’t fancy us getting much tomorrow but would be overjoyed to be made to eat humble pie.

I think it was pretty obvious we were looking at cheap options in the summer and thought Duffy and Barnes would add some leadership. Stacey was a must so we could cash in on Aaron’s. Having this many 30+ in a team is not ideal but we do have some youngsters with talent coming through like Warner, Hills, fisher, Gibbs, Nunez, Rowe. The summer will be massive as we will have to try and shift the deadwood like Gibson, Placheta, Hernandez and we won’t get much for them, so we will continue shopping in the bargain bucket for a while.

As has been discussed on other threads, knapper has a massive amount of work on his hands to help drive up standards, instill a way of playing back through the club and frankly find a way of getting rid of the deadwood and bringing in hungry players. It is always easier to do this when you are winning games, it was turgid, hardworking, low quality but a win all the same. If we can get something from the game Tuesday we have something that might start to lift confidence of the players.

I think the answer to that question has to be yes. It would be nice to sustain it for a couple of seasons but invariably pretty much most clubs will come back down at some point.

I agree with the sentiment of this and the original post but it does slightly walk past the fact that virtually every other championship club is in exactly the same boat. We are all effectively feeder clubs for the premier league, it’s not just happened. When historically tiny clubs like Bournemouth can spend £27-£30m on defensive midfielders like Tyler Adam’s from traditionally bigger clubs like Leeds then it should ring alarm bells. We are not unique to not having the ability to compete at the highest level either through playing ability or financially and this won’t change until wider changes are made in football such as capping the amount of players that clubs can sign to stop the practice of hoovering up young talents from everywhere with no intention of every plying them or heaven forbid closing the financial gap. This for me is one area of optimism, we have proven once already that a good philosophy, brave management and some good youth development and sage player purchases can take you to be competitive. We just have to find a way to get back to it and accept that one or two players a year will continue to move. Ipswich have rebuilt from being a mess so it can be done. We are not In a great position I agree but we will have to find a way as we always do and the fans will have to understand the reality of the situation. secretly I am hoping that @Parma Ham's gone mouldy is a secret billlionaire who wants to take over the club but failing that it’s going to be hard and steady progress again

He absolutely did, as I used to sit about 10 rows behind him. He was absolutely mocking Andy Hughes all of the time as well. Don’t get me wrong he was very very poor for Norwich and we have all expressed frustration in the direction of our players at times but it was the constant, permanent hammering that wound me up. Anyway, as I said earlier, he is fully welcome to his views and I’m not quite certain how this turned into “are you for or against the club” thread but my point remains that it’s very odd we give people like this a platform.

I’m not certain I’ve ever shouted down club dissenters on here (or atleast not consistently) but you’re free to check. I have just personally watched him boo and laugh at our players which made me question the level of his support and there is quite clearly a heavy level of narcissistic behaviour there, I mean would a usual person feel the need to publish themselves giving up a season ticket on social media? Nope we would give it up, maybe mention it to our mates in the pub and crack on. So that’s the basis of me not giving him much credence but I do agree that he is entitled to air his opinion. Mr brown nose. 😂

Why do we give these people a platform? I mean he’s an awful fan who I’ve witnessed booing and taking the mick out of our own players on several occasions and his columns were utter dross. Very odd.

Think we should draw a line now in the Webber era. Some great times, some hard times. People will have differing views overall. What is most important now is that we use the Knapper appointment to reset the club. There is no point looking backwards anymore with a coulda, shoulda mindset. We are where we are and he has a big job on his hands and the fans are going to have to be patient and support him

That would require us to have better midfielders.