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As I said in another thread, a key reason why Watford and Brentford have started far better is they essentially had more settled teams going up, whereas Farke has had to reshuffle his deck after losing his two most effective men from last season. In their case it was adding to settled units, whereas in our case it was somewhat reshaping ours.

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3 minutes ago, TheGunnShow said:

As I said in another thread, a key reason why Watford and Brentford have started far better is they essentially had more settled teams going up, whereas Farke has had to reshuffle his deck after losing his two most effective men from last season. In their case it was adding to settled units, whereas in our case it was somewhat reshaping ours.

Nope, can't accept what you say there.......far too sensible for this forum.

 

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8 minutes ago, TheGunnShow said:

As I said in another thread, a key reason why Watford and Brentford have started far better is they essentially had more settled teams going up, whereas Farke has had to reshuffle his deck after losing his two most effective men from last season. In their case it was adding to settled units, whereas in our case it was somewhat reshaping ours.

Though surely losing both was entirely predictable and expected? Planning to replace and securing those replacements early enough to have them integrated in the squad ought to have been manageable even with a covid-disrupted preseason. Having secured promotion with a few weeks to spare it would have been possible to have experimented with some formation/role changes even omitting those players (cf Huddersfield where Wagner used the end of the season before they went up as a chance to test out players and formation in anticipation of the season to come- losing 5-1 at home to us last game meant nothing). 

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This is turning into a sensible conversation. Not sure I like it but I will join in. The one point I have to add is looking at Watford (my friend is a Watford fan so I have some insight) who had only one new player less than us on Saturday. The main difference for me is almost all of them have played in this country and in this league. They also kept their talisman. Sarr did not have an amazing game but still got 2 goals. We have too many players trying to settle in a foreign country and a new league to be up and ready. We signed young promise they signed battle hardened. When we are up to speed things might change but it can take players a whole season to get used to a new league. Do we have the time. 

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2 minutes ago, Canaries north said:

This is turning into a sensible conversation. Not sure I like it but I will join in. The one point I have to add is looking at Watford (my friend is a Watford fan so I have some insight) who had only one new player less than us on Saturday. The main difference for me is almost all of them have played in this country and in this league. They also kept their talisman. Sarr did not have an amazing game but still got 2 goals. We have too many players trying to settle in a foreign country and a new league to be up and ready. We signed young promise they signed battle hardened. When we are up to speed things might change but it can take players a whole season to get used to a new league. Do we have the time. 

I was almost going to post exactly the same thing. It's rare fans complain that their club has bought too many players and that brings problems. Surely - to steal a phrase was to 'Buy less, but buy well' ? 

If you remember Liverpool in the 70's and 80's, they only used to buy one or two players a season so the overall team didn't really change too much. 

I would like to think Webber knows what he is doing, but I'm sure he always thinks he does whether he is or isn't. 

The short answer to your question is probably 'no'. We are never the club that makes things easy for itself, that's for sure. 

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Our biggest issue two years ago is still our biggest issue now - the system Farke plays in the Championship doesn't work in the Premier League. That system needs to be adapted. We needed one or possibly two more defensively minded midfielders and defenders who can play football rather than hoofball. Brentford and Watford already had those players - and if they didn't they bought them (Ajer, Onyeka for Brentford; Sissoko, Rose for Watford).

On paper our summer recruitment looked good (and most on here were happy), but we recruited Normann and Kabak (the two most crucial additions) very late. We just about have the players; they just aren't yet being played in the right team yet.

None of us know why that is - perhaps Farke is being too loyal to the squad who got us up (again). Perhaps the new players are really not fit or aware enough yet - they certainly don't look very aware positionally at the moment. On Saturday there were many times when it was painfully obvious that we had been caught out of position again when Watford turned over the ball.

Allowing crosses in from both sides has been a weakness of Farke's set up since he came here. In the PL, the quality of delivery is so much better that we get caught almost every game. Our full backs HAVE to do more to stop crosses.

Our centre backs are dragged out of position by fast, strong attackers our lack of CDMs means they get no cover so our middle is wide open on counters.

This is pretty basic stuff which I am sure Farke's coaching team are addressing. But if players don't do what they are supposed to, either because they don't understand/aren't fit enough then we will inevitably lose games. Fine margins at this level - at 1-1 in the games against both Leicester and Watford we should have gone on to win them, but errors in strategy (not in physicality or ability) effectively gave away goals. People who say things like Gilmour/Williams/Maclean etc aren't good enough are missing the point - it's the system which isn't yet good enough, and the players actually understanding and carrying out the plan correctly.

Will we work it out? Probably. Will it be too late, like Fulham last year? Also probably.

In the meantime, we should be playing for clean sheets to get a bit of confidence back. But Farke won't do that. So I think it's going to be a tough season.

 

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48 minutes ago, TheGunnShow said:

As I said in another thread, a key reason why Watford and Brentford have started far better is they essentially had more settled teams going up, whereas Farke has had to reshuffle his deck after losing his two most effective men from last season. In their case it was adding to settled units, whereas in our case it was somewhat reshaping ours.

Watford had 5 players in their starting line up on Saturday who joined this season.

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33 minutes ago, Mr Angry said:

Watford had 5 players in their starting line up on Saturday who joined this season.

Exactly what i said but my point was most of them had Premier league experience. We have signed young promise but they looked like they have signed ready made. 

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1 hour ago, aBee said:

Though surely losing both was entirely predictable and expected? Planning to replace and securing those replacements early enough to have them integrated in the squad ought to have been manageable even with a covid-disrupted preseason. Having secured promotion with a few weeks to spare it would have been possible to have experimented with some formation/role changes even omitting those players (cf Huddersfield where Wagner used the end of the season before they went up as a chance to test out players and formation in anticipation of the season to come- losing 5-1 at home to us last game meant nothing). 

Sure, but it's not always possible to get the targets in you want in the priority you expect. It looked like we were after Ajer but Celtic strung it out for as long as they could, which was a very brave move considering it was the last window before he could theoretically sign a pre-contact deal, and fair play to you guys as you put in a higher bid. Plenty of us were surprised Sörensen wasn't given more of a run in defensive midfield when we'd got promotion sorted out as a Skipp replacement, but I also suspect (but readily admit to guessing) Skipp's injury and then Mourinho going probably put the kibosh on that one, as Nuno coming in with a greater focus on youth means Skipp's got his start at Spurs now.

Rashica did come very early though - literally a matter of days after Buendia went at the start of June and Lees-Melou wasn't overly long after that. The ones that were really drawn out were Normann and Tzolis, Kabak sort of came up late on the rails.

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