Christoph Stiepermann

The only reason I'm guessing he's a free agent is because of his past injury issues so we'll have to hope he stays fit. I've had a quick look at some other forums at clubs he's played for and they all rate him as a good hard working technical player. Nobody's nailed down that no.10 spot yet so he looks a good signing to hopefully do a job until Forson/Schwartau hopefully develop more and get used to the league.

He's fine for a backup at Championship level. Most teams in the Championship would suffer badly if they lost their first choice GK, it's rare that an experienced backup at this level isn't a significant step down from first choice. Gunn hasn't ever had any significant injuries so it's not like we should expect that Long will play much anyway. I know people will say give one of the younger GK's a chance but they really should be out playing on loan and I expect Mair and Reyes are waiting for a lower league team to offer an emergency loan, if they're not getting any offers then they're probably not as good as Long anyway.

I think he's in that nice level of being good enough to be a key player for a top Championship side but maybe not quite good enough for a PL club to spend a lot of money on him so I don't see him quickly out-growing us in the same way Sara/Buendia etc did. He's 24 soon too so it's not like he has loads of development left either. If he improves his consistency he could play for a lower PL club but he wouldn't be a stand-out so I can't see anyone offering more than he's worth to us. La Liga interest might come though and I could see him being tempted but I'd imagine a lot of clubs in that sort of mid to upper part of La Liga might struggle to afford what we'd be asking. Same could be said for Nunez and Sargent as well who are also at that sort of top end Championship maybe PL if they develop more level so there's a realistic hope we can hang on to them for a while. My main worry is if a Leeds/Burnley or whoever comes down this year wants top quality proven Championship players because they could make tempting offers for the club and players.

if you ignore the quality of your players v the opposition team on paper the system to counteract a high pressing possession based football is to defend deep with numbers, play long balls and win the second ball and try to win set pieces. That usually beats a possession based team of roughly the same quality as we found when we went up last time in 2019. The reason it doesn't work against Pep's Man City is the same reason any other style of football doesn't work against them, they're just too good. To be honest though I don't see many teams trying to copy his football even though it's lauded as the way every team wants to play. Us under Farke and Southampton under Martin are/were very similar but I think most PL teams are more like Klopp's Liverpool where it's more about quick transitions and playing at a really high intensity with a bit of Allardyce like discipline off the ball. I do wonder if people who say it's all about possession football nowadays actually watch many PL games? There are very few possession based sides up there outside of the top 6. Brighton and Bournemouth play something resembling what you'd see from a Guardiola team but the rest are all counter attacking teams who are all extremely well organised so I don't think that tactic has completely taken over here like so many people like to think it has.

I wouldn't say we're doing anything particularly unique or innovate by modern standards we're just trying to keep pace with what other successful clubs. In terms of tactics you don't get a job in high level football anymore unless you're tactically astute and pretty much every system and way of playing has been tried at some point. You get little unique innovations here or there like Wilders overlapping cb's or De Zerbi's rope-a-dope playing out style but teams figure out how to counter than sooner rather than later. I think because tactically football has reached a bit of a plateau in the PL teams then instead prioritised physicality and athleticism nowadays to keep being competitive. In the past you tended to get either a passing team with smaller players or physical sides but now all the passing sides are full of big, fast super athletes too with coaches who are tactically astute so it then becomes about who can do the best with recruitment. We're going down that route too trying to be a passing side with physically strong players but it's not anything unique so we've got to really get the recruitment right.

Shame there's La Liga interest in him already. He looks to me like one of those players who is great at Championship level but there would never be any PL interest because he's just not at that level and doesn't have the pace or strength to play in the league above so a good player who we wouldn't ever have to worry about moving on and could be a key player here for years but I forgot that there are other top level leagues that might interest him. Depends what he wants to do really. At his age he isn't going to develop that much further. To me he looks like one of those players that will always be great at Championship level but will never make the step up in this country so he can either be a star for a really good club in the English second division or be a bit part player/super sub in La Liga/Serie A/Ligue 1 etc. I just don't see him ever being a regular for any top flight team in any league due to his disciplinary issues, his weakness defending off the ball and how he drifts in and out of games and still has a really bad game in him every now and then. I think he's worth more to us than any club would be willing to pay and if he's not being promised a contract where he's a first team starter he won't earn that much more than he could be on here as a key player for us.

I enjoy the old fashioned grounds with atmosphere. I bet loads of people would say Selhurst Park would be one of their worst but I've always enjoyed it when I've gone there, same with Loftus Road. The worst two for me were Reading at the Madjeski in 2014 ish and when I went with a couple of my Coventry supporting friends to Portman Road a few years ago when they were both in L1. Reading was awful, getting there was such a hassle, the stadium was just so soulless and bland and the atmosphere was flat, didn't help that we lost either. Most of you wouldn't have been to Portman Road for any occasion other than a derby game so you probably haven't seen it as quiet and lifeless as I've seen it. You could hear a pin drop at the game I went to, even when it's been bad at CR you at least hear a bit of a roar when we were attacking or some gallows humour chants but it was dead silent the whole game, I could actually hear Lambert yelling from the other side of the pitch from the away end it was that quiet. It wasn't a great game even though Coventry won 1-0. I'm pretty sure that when I tried to start a chant of you're f****** sh** after Ipswich kicked a few balls out of play the whole ground could hear me. Never been to any game as flat, quiet and depressing as that game was, I almost felt sorry for them. Makes me laugh now seeing their ground full. We still filled out our ground before we kicked on in L1, half of the current PR crowd disowned their team only a couple of years ago.

While I agree that he's been poor since his injury and I think he's only good enough to be backup now why do so many seem to actually be enjoying the fact that he's struggling? He's now 4th choice here despite being captain and he's not thrown his toys out of the pram or acted in any way unprofessionally so I don't get the vitriol. He isn't good enough to start for us anymore but he's still really good backup by Championship standards and better than Batth who was our 4th choice CB last year.

I agree with most of your picks but I've not seen enough from any of the new signings yet apart from Doyle to make my mind up. Cordoba has barely featured, Slimani has had one very good half just like Schwartau, Crnac hasn't looked up to speed, Forson has had one good half v Oxford, a good game against Stevenage and one brilliant assist but has otherwise looked off the pace and Crisene has been decent and has impressed me for his age but again it's early days. If I was the manager and it was my neck on the line in the next game I'd go for Gunn Stacey Duffy Doyle Crisene Nunez Mclean Slimani Forson Sargent Sainz I wouldn't want to throw Schwartau on from the start eventhough he's looked good and Forson has played wide before and I wouldn't mind him giving the ball away as much if he's higher up the pitch, plus with Slimani coming in with more experience and Nunez and McLean being obvious starters I think we should try him there instead of dropping him to the bench. At the moment I'd say the only places up for grabs is wide right and one in CM. Slimani should take the CM role if his performance last week wasn't a flash in the pan and it's between 4 of the new guys to nail down that wide right position. Cordoba's going to have to fight his way in now because Duffy and Doyle have been excellent so far and neither deserve to be dropped.

Think my win % on football manager must be sub 10% over the years, I always really like the idea of getting into it but I'm so bad at it 😂.

There's nothing inherently flawed by that playing style itself, all playing styles have their advantages and disadvantages and you could argue that positional possession based play is in theory the most likely to produce results over a longer term if you take players making any mistakes out. The reason why people say teams who have been promoted or are very weak quality-wise for their league shouldn't play it is much more about the types of players you can afford. Man City can afford technically superb footballers with elite level athleticism, fitness and pace and tactical awareness. If we want to play that way in the PL then we'll need players who are at least technically very good but to get players of that level with our budget we're sacrificing on the physical and mental side which makes us incredibly easy to play against and makes the system look more flawed than it would be on an even playing field. This is exacerbated by what the teams from 7th to 17th are doing where most play counter attacking football with technically good but physically and mentally exceptional players and the ones that don't have done extremely well at recruitment with budgets that dwarf ours and that of other promoted teams. What we need to do is what we're doing now. Trying to employ a possession centred but still in some ways flexible playing style with bigger more physically dominant players who can just about play this style technically and hope we unearth a couple of young players in important positions who will develop into good PL players and get lucky one season if we go up. If we try the Farke route again of going all in on technical quality and possession at all costs it'll fail, if we go the other route like Luton/ Sheff Utd did and try to play on the counter with bigger faster players who are strong off the ball not only will it make it harder to get promoted in the first place we'll still be at a disadvantage because other teams could afford better players in that style, the fans would also be unhappy and it would make bouncing back from a relegation harder. I think given all the options the approach we're taking now on paper at least looks like the best option but the odds of us staying up when we get promoted again are still fairly remote and would be no matter how we play.

Yeah. What managers don't and should never do is publicly blame players for a result but saying they aren't up to their usual standard on the day is fine in most cases. Also it's a bit more acceptable when both the players are 20 and probably not big characters in the group yet. I know you get some managers like Ferguson or Wenger who would never blame players for anything but the situation is a bit different there, if Ferguson took Ryan Giggs off when they lost and said he wasn't happy with his performance it would be all over the sports pages and the player would be under so much scrutiny, it's much better to just blame the ref or say he picked up a minor injury and deal with it privately. If the Norwich manager says in a press conference that only a few thousand people watch that a couple of 20 year olds weren't playing well enough today no one notices or cares and the player doesn't have to deal with any outside noise around that.

Yeah definitely. Also Doyle and Duffy is a horrible CB pairing to play against, they're both really strong, physical players who like to leave a bit on the player in challenges and seem to have a good understanding already. helps that Stacey and Crisene are quick as well so can make up a bit for their lack of speed. I really like the pairing and with Doyle being so good on the ball teams are having to close him down which is giving Duffy loads of time and space on the ball so even he's looking good playing out. Does make me wonder how Cordoba's going to force his way in though.

Early days but I think we've got this one right, Throup just feels like a perfect fit for us. Generally the fans want passing football but the the crowd tends to get annoyed when it's too tippy tappy and slow and passive off the ball and Thorups style is more passing-attacking football than pure possesion based and we do get back in numbers to defend and put tackles in. The players are working really hard too so he must have something about him in terms of man management. Fans also tend to prefer managers who twist instead of stick with what he's got with substitutions, whether that leads to better outcomes is debateable but having a manager who makes changes is something our fans seem to like. Plus he's good with young players, speaks well in the media and isn't tainted by any previous failure that fans can point to as evidence that he's not going to get it right here. We are struggling to create clear cut chances but I think we can all see that it's probably more about how the players haven't really gelled yet and a lot of them are young and new to the league. In terms of attack it's only really Sargent and Sainz who were here last year and they've never had much of a relationship on the pitch they're not really assist makers they're both players who like to score themselves so hopefully Forson, Schwartau and Crnac can start building that connection with them both soon. We've also now gone 3 Championship halves without conceding and looking too troubled at the back. Good stuff so far and we were unlucky not to win the Blackburn and Sheff Utd games. Hope we keep the levels up after the international break. Only thing to worry about is when our yearly injury crisis rears it's ugly head

There's a reason why new signings are often eased in slowly by most managers particularly if they're young, stepping up a level and not played in the country before. I know were short on options but I don't think Crnac is ready and Forson's struggling with the speed of physicality in the last few games and is giving the ball away constantly.