Petriix

Yes, I honestly believe that Rashica is no better than Onel Hernandez and Sargent is worse than Stiepermann (pre illness). I think people are being pretty deluded if they think these players will suddenly come good in the Championship.

If that's our first choice team then bottom half. There's absolutely no creativity or goal threat apart from Pukki, and he's not getting any younger. We need a complete overhaul in midfield. It's about £100m worse than our last Championship season - that's what it would cost to buy Buendia, Skipp and last season's Cantwell, plus Vrancic and Tettey.

I really wish they *would* get him out of our club. While I don't condone personal abuse, the fans are venting their feelings in the same way they do when a manager has gone past their sell by date. Gilmour is causing more damage each time he is picked. The is absolutely nothing to be gained from continuing to play him. We need to be getting our team sorted for an assault on the Championship. The absolute worst case scenario is that he actually becomes the best player in the team and contributes a bunch of assists on the remaining matches. Then we'd find it even harder to build a team without him. Skipp served a purpose because we may well not have been promoted without him. Gilmour does nothing for us. We aren't staying up.

Regardless of how politely (or not) you phrase it, I think Gilmour's presence in the team has been massively detrimental to our survival hopes. We have nothing to gain by playing him; we're just giving him more opportunities to learn from his mistakes so that he'll be a better player in the future. I would be more than happy if the loan was terminated. We need to be planning for the Championship next season so we should be looking to build a solid team (of our own players) to learn how to play together with a cohesive philosophy. It's time to ditch the loanees and journeymen. We'd be better off giving the opportunity to our own youth players.

I'm struggling to get my head around this post. They haven't been that bad, but they aren't good enough? The midfield has been out weakness all season and McLean has been picked more than anyone else. It's fair to say that none of our midfield have been much good, apart from Rupp maybe. They've all made numerous mistakes which have (directly or indirectly) led to goals conceded. The mistakes are nothing to do with ability with the ball. They're either positional errors or simple failure to track someone. I find Gilmour particularly infuriating in this regard because he consistently leaves huge gaps behind him and never recovers once someone gets goal side of him, but McLean is not massively better.

I was happy in the haze of the Championship, but heaven knows I'm miserable now. I was looking for promotion then I found promotion, but heaven knows I'm miserable now... In my life, why do I give valuable time, to people who don't care if we win or we lose?

None of those things matter if that player fails to occupy the correct positions when out of possession. You can have a 90% pass success rate and still be responsible for giving the ball away in your own half leading to a goal. You can run the length of the pitch without getting goal side of your man.

To be fair, I'd vote SNP if they stood a candidate in Norfolk. I still wouldn't select Gilmour though.

My point is that, rather than filling the squad with new dross at great expense, we should have just kept the dross we had as backup. Hugill ~ Sargent, Vrancic ~ Gilmour, Barden ~ Gunn, Hernandez ~ Tzolis, Martin ~ Lees Melou, McCallum ~ Williams. None of those signings actually improved the squad. Keeping those players would have allowed us to make four quality signings which actually did improve the first team.

It's pretty simple: Replace Buendia and Skipp at £20m apiece a £10m McLean upgrade a free or loan CB One from Sargent, Rashica and Tzolis Keep Vrancic, Hugill, Barden, Soto, Hernandez, Martin, McCallum. That's a net spend of about £30m

The problem is the things he does do which he should. To be a Premier League central midfielder requires more than just 'putting one's self about'. You have to read the game and take up the right position to be the fulcrum of the team in both attack and defence. If you think he had a good game then you missed his failure to do the basics at key moments in the first half. It's not about the general picture of the game overall, just the specific mistakes which leave us exposed. Most of this happens off the ball.

Is that you Billy?

You need to take a look at the highlights of all the goals we've conceded with Billy in the team. There's a consistent recurring theme where young Billy can be seen gently jogging back towards our goal as the opposition players break. In quite a few of them, Billy starts reasonably close to one of the key opponents in the scoring move but is nowhere near them by the end of it.

The summer was the worst transfer window in the club's history.

Wow, that's some optimism right there. This squad is far worse than last year's. No Skipp and no Buendia, Pukki two years older, Cantwell replaced by his apathetic and talentless evil twin. None of the dressing room motivators like Tettey. No Vrancic to pull out a moment of class. But, most of all, we don't have the consistent footballing philosophy running throughout the club. We don't have any identity anymore. When we were relegated last time we were able to pick up from where we were two seasons before. There's no possibility of doing the same thing again. It would cost £100m to assemble a team as good as last season. Then it would take time for them to gel. I can't see the current squad (minus loanees) finishing in the top six in the Championship.

Even Mrs Petriix agrees. She says "I mean, they're sh*t aren't they?".

Ok, 'moron' is a bit mean. But I can't stand listening to a man whose team have lost for the 5th time in a row after another abject performance insinuating that the scoreline somehow flattered the victors. If he'd held his hands up and given an honest appraisal then I'd give him more credit. His team selections have been poor and he's failing to get the players to perform.

You clearly have a very limited understanding of what a central midfielder is supposed to do. The crucial period was the first half in which we conceded 3 goals. If Gilmour did his job properly then we wouldn't be half as easy to slice through. He doesn't consistently track his man and he doesn't cover the passing angles so team can just pass through us. Once he gets the wrong side he literally never recovers. With those flaws, it simply doesn't matter if he has a few bright spells and picks some decent passes in the second half. The game was already lost. He's a liability and shouldn't be anywhere near our first 11.

The man is a moron. Didn't think it was a 3-0 game. What was he watching? It's tough listening to him saying 'we' referring to our club. We've gone backwards since he arrived.

I very much doubt we'll see another 'up' for a long time.

Which is why it was total madness to turn over so much of the squad all at once.

You must have missed all the goals we conceded when he left gaping holes in the midfield or simply passed the ball to the opposition. He was clearly the weakest player in our midfield. Plenty of effort but a real lack of footballing intelligence and ability.

Not to me. Farke had passion and a philosophy. Smith seems totally clueless and detached, a bit like a supply teacher who doesn't really know the subject they're supposed to be teaching.

I've been once out of the last three home games. It's too miserable to waste my energy on. I always felt I could get behind Farke, even if I disagreed with his choices. I simply can't relate to Dean Smith at all.

You misspelled 'average'.