Christoph Stiepermann

With the different rules that apply when Sainz is involved in anything I honestly wouldn't be surprised. Can't help but feel something happened at some point between Sainz and a ref because they've all clearly got it in for him.

Yeah but Dunne's arm to Sainz's face that gave him a nosebleed is totally fine though...

The system is playing a part in how many chances we concede but looking at a lot of the goals we let in I can't help but think a lot of it is caused by our inexperience at the back. There's a reason defenders usually develop later and it's because it takes them a while to develop that game sense for positioning, when to commit and when not to, how to react to frantic situations etc. Most of our goals conceded for me have come from us not dealing with balls into the box either from crosses or set pieces and GK errors which is not something the manager can do much about. The set piece coach has to up his game in terms of getting the players organised but I honestly think it's mostly down to a lack of experience in the backline. We've got Duffy but he can't get to every ball, Doyle is mediocre in the air which is why I think coaches see him as a FB, Fisher is very raw and Stacey has never been great defending balls into the box either. Hopefully Cordoba can come back in, stay fit and assert himself and Gunn's form improves as he gets more game time back from injury. Doyle moving to left back again should help us a bit defending in the box as well. We're going to give up chances playing the way we do but the way I see it it looks more like individual errors that's costing us more. Not many teams play with two 20 year olds in defence, particularly two playing technically out of position. They'll both be really good players but we need a bit of experience, Cordoba's still young and new to the league but he's played loads more games at CB than Doyle in his career so hopefully him coming back will shore things up a bit.

This is my big argument for it, unless a significant chunk of the PL money was shared with all Championship clubs which is never, ever going to happen it would make the Championship more competitive but survival in the PL almost impossible and relegation from there absolutely catastrophic. Every team who went up would just end up doing what we did in 2019 and bank the money to spend on infrastructure and the established PL clubs would become even more pragmatic in their play than they are already making it worse to watch and all the stuff we hate to see like play acting, diving, time wasting etc would be so much worse because results would be even more vital than they are now. There needs to be a change, but scrapping the relegation safety net would be an awful decision. the best I can think of is to have something like somewhat reduced parachute payments and some rules around how much you're allowed to spend on new players relative to your wage bill so that money goes on softening the financial blow instead of buying even more top players for the Championship. So you could only spend what you would be allowed to spend according to PSR if you didn't have parachute payments and all that money would go on keeping the club out of debt or some kind of restriction like that. You would still have an advantage because you'd get to keep a lot of good players from being in the PL, but there has to be some sort of reward for getting promoted aside from a soul destroying stint in the PL winning 5 games all year. For me it's also much easier for a non-parachute payment Championship club to get promoted than it is for a promoted PL club to stay up so the balance should be skewed towards helping clubs compete in the PL if possible. Nothing would be completely fair though and even in the olden days some clubs had richer owners/more fans/in a more attractive area etc than others which gave them bigger budgets. We don't want an American style draft system that rewards failure so clubs are going to have to put up with some unfairness it's just the way it is.

I was one of those who thought he was a bit rubbish in his first couple of seasons here and I still think he was to be honest but he's improved as a player every year he's been here and last season and in some games this year he's been exceptional. The fact he's now so combative and wins so many duels is the main difference, I remember watching him for Aberdeen when Maddison was there and he was one of those players who might as well have been a ghost when they didn't have the ball, it was the same in his first few seasons here when he was thought of as more of an attacking midfielder but he's improved his game so much now that he's probably one of the best CM's in the division. I've thought he's been excellent for a few seasons now overall but his inconsistency is still a bit annoying, he has one game in 5 or so where he looks absolutely brilliant, he's everywhere, completely running the midfield and I wish at his age he was capable of pulling out that type of performance more often. He's still good in one of his more average games but it would be nice if he could pull out some of those top performances more often. The main thing with him though as others have noted is that you really notice when he's not in the team, the last two games haven't been his best but the whole team has just functioned better and we look so much more comfortable playing the way we want to.

Their pitch looks shocking for a PL ground and the ball is running really slowly and bobbling a lot. Good leveller to be fair wonder if it's on purpose or if the ground staff are just useless.

I'd really like a small club at home for once, those games are usually fun, we get to play a team we don't normally face and put out a second strong side to rest players for the league. unlikely though given our recent history in draws. if recent form is anything to go by my guess would be a really boring draw like Preston away and then if we get through someone like Fulham or Brentford away in the 4th round. If we scrape through that Arsenal or Chelsea...away of course.

Completely nullified Moses threat today when he came on who was getting forward a lot before hand. When Onel came on suddenly Moses was pinned back and we regained control of the game purely because they were worried about him, it's not like Onel started marking him, it was his threat that changed their approach and the pattern of the game. He's such a useful player to have at this level.

Nunez back in midfield and Marcondes wide right imo i don't see any other option. Nunez is back and should play every game he's fit, same with McLean eventhough he hasn't been amazing these last two games, Slimani has been really good as well and gives us some bite in midfield and I wouldn't want to drop him or Marcondes and I'd rather stick Marcondes wide right and Slimane in the Marcondes role. Dropping Slimane for Nunez in a straight swap and keeping Forson in would be a mistake in an away game for me.

Looks back to his best this season. I thought he'd lost a bit of pace after the last two years but somehow he's regained that explosiveness he had in his early years here. Might help that he's coming off the bench instead of starting and is playing higher up the pitch than he did under Smith and Wagner but it's good to see him doing what he does best. You want him getting on the ball 25-30 yards outside of goal with space to run into which he's getting in this system. Under Wagner and Smith he was often starting from our own half and had too much to do and under Farke often getting the ball too late up against a packed defence, this system suits him really well but I still wouldn't start him next game, he's most effective from the bench and a tired fullback will absolutely dread seeing him come on.

It's not as easy to do as it looks but I've never understood why we haven't ever told Hernandez and Stacy to just get to the byline and cut it back low 9 times out of 10. it's really hard to defend and often results in a last ditch block that could lead to a corner or second ball. Both are pretty hopeless at high crosses and shooting and we never score many headed goals even with Sarge in the team. It just makes so much sense to me and takes the guess work out of it for them. In theory it could become predictable but like I said it's hard to defend against even if defenders know what they're gonna do.

That's the sort of category I would have put Sainz's in after watching him all last season, I don't think anyone could have predicated that he would have kicked on the way he has. In don't think when we signed him we expected to get a player who would be scoring 15 goals before December from the wing, everything I saw of him last season suggested a good Championship player who might develop into someone who could play in the PL when he hits 26/27 or his peak so within that category you are talking about. I know what you mean though about signing players who can develop into key players for us and not outgrow us after 2 seasons but I think with Crisene, Forson, Crnac etc we have a few that look like they fit into that category...unless they really kick on like Sainz has but it wouldn't be a bad thing so long as we can keep signing good young players to replace them.

I have a lot of sympathy for ref's who officiate lower down the pyramid and even in the lower end of the football league. They aren't paid a lot and the reason they aren't reffing top clubs is because they don't always make the correct decision and aren't always going to get everything spot on and the abuse they get a lot of the time is shocking. But the top ref's in the country should be held to a higher standard, they're paid pretty well and the odds of a fan assaulting a ref during a PL or Championship game are astronomically low so I don't think it's the same thing. If you're a premier league ref you shouldn't be so weak that you feel the need to protect your mates by manipulating VAR decisions to make them look better, caving to the pressure while officiating bigger clubs or getting yourself in trouble by getting involved in any type of betting on games. What some ref's go through reffing non league football is not the same as people online rightly complaining about the embarrassing and poor state of officiating in the premier league.

Been fun so far but Plymouth are desperately poor. By far the worst side I've seen is face in quite a few years and I include cup ties v lower league opposition and in that. We've been in second gear and quite careless at times and it should be 4-0 already

Really enjoying this so far. On balance I'd say the game should be 4-3 to us if Sainz and Crnac did better with their chances, don't think West Broms goal should have been disallowed either. Fisher is looking exposed but he's getting no help and I'm actually surprised people are criticising him on here, i think he's going well because he's having to cover a massive area of the pitch all by himself against a dangerous winger and I think he's doing well given the circumstances. We've got to sharpen up reacting to second balls when defending as well, if we can keep the attacking momentum going and sharpen up in defence we can win this.