Petriix

"David... You must play Onel every week." "David... You don't need a defensive midfielder."

His driving is a perfect indication of his (lack of) intellect, as anyone who has seen him (attempting) to drive or park (usually diagonally across two disabled bays) will attest to.

Last time I encountered him he was in a Mercedes G-class (with a very distinctive number plate) holding a mobile phone while badly negotiating a roundabout at great speed.

You've obviously never encountered him on the road.

The problem with Idah (as anyone who's encountered him driving or parking will testify) is that he's quite simply stupid. There's no amount of coaching that could teach him how, when and where to run. He's got great physical attributes and a reasonable level of skill but he has no idea how to turn those things into success on the pitch. He virtually never gets assists because he can't work out how to play the simple passes in the final third. He might score 10 goals in the season but he's never going to improve the team.

No one is going to buy any of the players we don't want. The wages we pay are far higher than anyone at these players' level could realistically afford. If we want to offload anyone it's going to be mutual agreement or free transfers, often the 'selling' club still has to subsidise the wages for the remainder of the original contract term. The long contracts given to Hernandez, Idah and McLean come with a significant commitment to pay those high wages for the term. It's very difficult to rebuild against the backdrop of the recent mismanagement of the playing squad. Our best hope surely lies in making the most of what we have with just one or two shrewd acquisitions (CDM anyone?).

It's almost like people want to forget how good we were last time we won the Championship. It wasn't all Buendia and Pukki; Cantwell and Dowell were 2/3 of our first choice attacking midfielders and both are vastly superior to anyone we still have on our books. We're playing Hernandez and Fassnacht FFS. Anyone who would genuinely prefer the current incumbents has a very short memory.

Which would be ideal because there would now be another midfielder doing the actual defensive work that he doesn't; that DM would also free McLean to play more box-to-box. Obviously this would be at the expense of having the second striker, but it's what most properly organised teams do in practice. Let's face it: we have had a huge hole in central midfield all season (well, actually since Skipp went back to Spurs). We're conceding goals as a direct result of our flawed tactical setup. Sara is one of our few attacking threats so it kills two birds to (ostensibly) move him forwards: it plugs the hole he already leaves and it affords him more time in an attacking position from where he can create and score goals. Win-win!

It's not just a personnel thing though; much as I think Hernandez is not at the required level, having our wingers pressing high up the pitch and pushing our fullbacks on too leaves a huge amount of space for our opponents to exploit. Sara and McLean aren't able to cover everyone so we're regularly left with overloads and players arriving unmarked into the box. The tactics are pretty flawed.

He's obviously not the 'worst ever player' but I absolutely agree that he's nowhere near good enough. The problem is that he's actually very good at some aspects of the game; good enough to get a new contract and a regular starting spot, but then so awful at picking a pass under pressure that he negates everything positive. If he was genuinely rubbish then it would be far better for the club because he could simply be dropped and forgotten. People love to throw around the 'scapegoat' thing but it's actually true that carrying certain players in certain positions is undermining the whole team. With Rowe in for Hernandez, Sara behind Sargent and McLean at 8 along side a decent 6, I think we'd have a decent enough team ( kamikaze pressing aside). With Hernandez in the team many of our attacking transitions simply break down.

A 10 can drop deep and generally has more space (than an 8 ) when doing so. Sara is more of a Modric than a Rice/Skipp etc. so ideally shouldn't be playing as a 6. The main issue, however, is playing wingers who are so poor that only 1 out of every 10 touches results in a completed pass. We need players who can reliably turn openings into chances. Sara is pretty good at that but he's pretty much the only one, especially while Rowe is out.

The problem with Sara is his off the ball work. I think he's our best player, but he is positionally poor and lacks defensive awareness. He was tracking the Watford player who scored their first goal and put in a very half-hearted attempt to block the shot where any decent midfielder would be throwing their body in the way. I don't think we can carry a player like that without serious defensive cover. Either play him at 10 behind the striker or put a proper defensive midfielder behind him.

Hernandez has had 23 touches tonight but only attempted 6 passes. Of those, literally two of them have been successful. He shouldn't be anywhere near our starting 11.

We simply lack the required passing ability to perform at this level. There's literally no point in Hernandez being on the pitch because he can't ever play a successful attacking pass. We can't hit teams on the break because we can't play the two or three quick passes to cut teams open. There's been so much emphasis on physical attributes and workrate, they entirely forgot to sign players who can actually kick the ball in the right direction. This squad is going nowhere until we find a way to get some skillful players into the midfield.

He hit it so hard he pulled something. Now he'll be injured until March.

Whole midfield are a shambles (again). Sara is so poor when out of possession. At least Hwang is starting to show some ability... Oh, now he's injured. Lol.

I have to say Saturday was probably the least interesting game I've witnessed for ages. Normally there's a gory post-mortem to pick over the carcass of what went wrong, otherwise there's the highlights of what went right. Saturday was one moment of quality then an entirely sensible (but highly boring) defensive slog. We got the three points, didn't do much wrong (or right) and don't have much of an indication as to what's going to come. Meh.

That's exactly what happened as far as I can ascertain. First Webber bought players that Farke didn't want, then dictated a change in system. I'm fairly sure Farke knew he was being sacked and, as a final fingers up to Webber, he reverted to the 4-2-3-1 and finally won against Brentford. Webber arrogantly thought a different manager would be able to make his awful squad work and doubled down on the system he wanted to play. If the head coach was dictating the tactics then why is it that Smith played the exact same system that Farke had switched to (and failed)? I sincerely *hope* that much of the problem has left with Webber. Now it requires time and patience for the players and coach to regain confidence and find a more balanced way of playing. Going more defensive is a pragmatic start.

I thought it was more the never playing thing that he disliked. He wanted to be believed in but was only given fleeting moments and never had the opportunity to find his feet. He was totally mismanaged here. It would be funny if it wasn't so tragic but it's a pretty messed up state of affairs when Tzolis is shipped out on loan while Onel is starting every week.

This is objectively untrue. Yes, we made some errors which allowed a few chances but we were generally more compact and mostly very difficult to break down. We basically shut up shop after scoring aside from a few brief forays forward towards the end. It wasn't pretty but it was reasonably pragmatic from a team low on confidence and lacking ability in the final third. Sadly it's quite telling of our current predicament, scrapping around for 1-0 wins against a bottom 3 team. But it beats the previous three home games. Going more defensive is definitely the right move for now. Swap Hernandez for Rowe and we might be a little more threatening on the break.

I really feel like the last transfer window took the squad further away from where we want it to be. The issue is that we won't be able to sign players like the ones we sold. We didn't get great value and we're looking weak in those areas.

Yet, with 2 goals and 2 assists, he's 4 times as useful as Onel Hernandez (0 goals, 1 assist), albeit from a less attacking position in a supposedly weaker team. I know which one I would have preferred to keep and which to ship out.

Ok, own up: which one of you signed some kind of a blood pact with a demon in the summer of 2021, trading untold personal riches for perpetual sporting misery?

Day 739 (it actually is, was your number just a spooky coincidence?) since Farke was sacked and the club's position is still getting progressively worse. Maybe people will stop thinking back once (if) things start improving again...

I've been holding fire on saying this because I don't want to pi$$ on the parade but there's a real disparity between the noises coming from the club and the feeling amongst the fans. Knapper's interview really surprised me, and not really in a good way. I get the impression that the club view Webber's departure as a setback rather than a positive change and Knapper seems to have been brought in to continue the work rather than do anything differently. Hopefully I'm getting the wrong end of the stick but I've got a nagging feeling that things will continue to get worse before they get better. There's just something about the way Webber left with a guard of honour then wrote his leaving statement like an Oscar acceptance speech. Now the tone of this interview feeds the same narrative. Reassure me that I'm reading it wrong!