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***official lappinitup match thread V mad hatters***

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2 minutes ago, ron obvious said:

It's just not happening is it.

I think he's got to go.

He’s always had the feeling of being the rebound.

Loads have never took to him, but to be fair he’s done nothing to win anyone round.

I didn’t want us to be a Watford and knee jerk sack a clearly capable (from his record) manager, but at this point even if he does stamp something on this team and turn it round in terms of performances the fanbase feels too divided for it to make a difference.

Sometimes it just doesn’t work out. 

This feels inevitable so maybe someone should just get it over with.

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3 minutes ago, Creedence Clearwater Couto said:

A change was needed, to try and prevent us getting relegated. It didn’t work out… but it had to be tried. Farke was taking us down, and was past his sell by date. 

I disagree that a change was needed. Pep wouldn't have kept that squad up.

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9 minutes ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

I would agree that our time post-Farke has shown how good he was to get the best out of some players, and would agree that he was sacked prematurely in hindsight.

But we could have done a much better job of replacing Farke, Dean Smith should be managing Walsall.

I agree to an extent.

It's all about what fits at that moment in time. Look at Lambert, did ok at Villa until that little dream team was broken up with Karsa and Culverhouse and has never been the same since. Best football really was with us and he simply hasn't found that again anywhere else really. Even at a lower level.

Whether or not we could have done better at the time is immaterial, it's about now and whether he can do what is needed to now.

The same question was put of Farke, I'm not sure how premature it was really. We were just shy of being a 3rd of the way through the season and had 5pts which equates to around an eighth of the total needed. As I said at the time, it was a real stick or twist moment in that did we stick and 'hope' that he could find a way to turn it around or did we 'twist' and hope to find someone else who could.

Twist it was and hindsight brilliantly tells Smith ultimately wasn't able to keep 'that' team up. Could another manager done better? Could Farke done better? We won't ever know, though the latter is almost certainly doubtful and the only reason Farke's name is being mentioned is because of his championship success, so the argument then becomes, are we saying we would have taken a haul no better than his previous total as manager because we would be more hopeful Farke could get us to bounce back?

At which point, there is the question about being a yo-yo club. If we know Farke had two bites of the cherry, albeit the first being on a very tight budget, how long would we keep a manager on with that record? How long would we be happy to have a top championship team/manager, take the hit in the premier league but hang on to the manager because "at least he should give us a good run in the championship". 

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2 minutes ago, All the Germans said:

As much as I don't like Smith and would never have employed him (and I repeat this a lot), making a change is only good if the change is for the better. I am not particularly knowledgeable about available managers, who would come here. Unless there is someone better to come in, sacking him doesn't help.

I would however wait for that good looking chap at Forest to get sacked and then get him.

Ainsworth has performed miracles at Wycombe. Schumacher at Argyle has got them playing well and the chap in Suffolk is doing a decent job. And Darren Moore, sacked by WBA when they were 4th has Wednesday going very well.

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1 minute ago, TheGunnShow said:

I'm not in the "Smith Out" wagon yet, but I do think he needs a fully fit Hayden and Sara together for a bit - as well as a fully fit left-back. I really do suspect Smith has asked for those two to be brought in as his primary weapons to make us more robust, and in those two providing a base, provides greater creativity as then you'd expect the likes of Giannoulis and Aarons in particular to be able to bomb on more. As those two should create space by stretching play, it should enable more creative players like Cantwell, Ramsay, Dowell or Sinani to be a more consistent threat. Otherwise, this is a side that missed Skipp and Buendia from the Championship-winning side last time, and they were probably our best two players! 

What is worrying me is a seeming inability to have a decent plan B in place. By all means play slowly in possession, but back it up with a change of pace, or faster interplay now and again. At the moment we're so one-paced in attack that teams can get back, park the bus and probably fit the immobiliser on before we shoot.

this is a very interesting post that will probably be lost in teeth-gnashing tonight. I think there's a lot in it. Equally, injuries are part and parcel of football, we've got a lot of squad depth (not at DM, admittedly) and a decent coach ought to be able to do better with the players we have available than Smith is at the moment.

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11 minutes ago, cambridgeshire canary said:

Well on the plus side Webber is off soon, our average weekly player wages are almost 50 grand a week and we have an aging squad that are clearly just getting worse.. Wait, that's not a plus and it's quite a bad case of deja vu

You know that the accounts are for the year running up to the summer right? So the average wages in the annual report are from last season, not this season, and bar Pukki, all players had a relegation release clause. The wages won't be that high now.

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1 minute ago, chicken said:

I agree to an extent.

It's all about what fits at that moment in time. Look at Lambert, did ok at Villa until that little dream team was broken up with Karsa and Culverhouse and has never been the same since. Best football really was with us and he simply hasn't found that again anywhere else really. Even at a lower level.

Whether or not we could have done better at the time is immaterial, it's about now and whether he can do what is needed to now.

The same question was put of Farke, I'm not sure how premature it was really. We were just shy of being a 3rd of the way through the season and had 5pts which equates to around an eighth of the total needed. As I said at the time, it was a real stick or twist moment in that did we stick and 'hope' that he could find a way to turn it around or did we 'twist' and hope to find someone else who could.

Twist it was and hindsight brilliantly tells Smith ultimately wasn't able to keep 'that' team up. Could another manager done better? Could Farke done better? We won't ever know, though the latter is almost certainly doubtful and the only reason Farke's name is being mentioned is because of his championship success, so the argument then becomes, are we saying we would have taken a haul no better than his previous total as manager because we would be more hopeful Farke could get us to bounce back?

At which point, there is the question about being a yo-yo club. If we know Farke had two bites of the cherry, albeit the first being on a very tight budget, how long would we keep a manager on with that record? How long would we be happy to have a top championship team/manager, take the hit in the premier league but hang on to the manager because "at least he should give us a good run in the championship". 

Lambert wasn't great before us Chicken. But we took a punt rather than opt for the failures of old. We did the same punt with DF but returned to the tried and failed.

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2 minutes ago, keelansgrandad said:

Ainsworth has performed miracles at Wycombe. Schumacher at Argyle has got them playing well and the chap in Suffolk is doing a decent job. And Darren Moore, sacked by WBA when they were 4th has Wednesday going very well.

Dare I play devil's advocate and suggest Nathan Jones? 

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1 minute ago, chicken said:

You know that the accounts are for the year running up to the summer right? So the average wages in the annual report are from last season, not this season, and bar Pukki, all players had a relegation release clause. The wages won't be that high now.

We aren't an aging squad either.

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1 minute ago, chicken said:

You know that the accounts are for the year running up to the summer right? So the average wages in the annual report are from last season, not this season, and bar Pukki, all players had a relegation release clause. The wages won't be that high now.

Nor will the money coming in Chicken, or revenue will be around 70 million this year and the wage bill will be as high% as last year. We don’t have many saleable assets left!

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15 minutes ago, Creedence Clearwater Couto said:

But Cody and Becchio in, right?

With Matty Paterson, antione Sibieski, John Hartson and Jason Jarret 

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Just now, Ken Hairy said:

Dare I play devil's advocate and suggest Nathan Jones? 

That is below the belt. Tomorrow would be a better time. He didn't do well at Stoke did he. Maybe Luton is his home. Anyway, he is Michael Sheen's stunt double.

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Just now, GodlyOtsemobor said:

With Matty Paterson, antione Sibieski, John Hartson and Jason Jarret 

No room for Omar Koroma?

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1 minute ago, Indy said:

Nor will the money coming in Chicken, or revenue will be around 70 million this year and the wage bill will be as high% as last year. We don’t have many saleable assets left!

That is a big problem. There is no-one left to get big money for to bail us out.

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1 minute ago, keelansgrandad said:

That is a big problem. There is no-one left to get big money for to bail us out.

Sarge and Aarons must be £15m+ each

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10 minutes ago, Robert N. LiM said:

this is a very interesting post that will probably be lost in teeth-gnashing tonight. I think there's a lot in it. Equally, injuries are part and parcel of football, we've got a lot of squad depth (not at DM, admittedly) and a decent coach ought to be able to do better with the players we have available than Smith is at the moment.

Dunno, they're still all injured or not fully up to speed with Hayden and Lungi - and Gibbs is looking passable there but is clearly having the expected growing pains that promising youngsters have. The real issue is that if you can't keep the ball, it really highlights an imbalanced midfield, and we've all had our concerns about that for a long time.

If your midfield is unbalanced, it will inevitably ripple through other parts of the team. It's literally the core of the squad. Farke's solution to it was to keep the ball, and keep it for even longer. It also helped that in Buendia he had a attacking player with a quite stupendous workrate and willingness to tackle back, particularly in our second Championship-winning season under Farke as the penny dropped with Emi there. Gilmour was clearly brought in to act as a press-proof focus and help us advance the ball, but it failed as our players weren't physical enough for long enough against the better athletes of the PL, so he didn't have the options and wasn't good enough at winning the ball back himself to help resolve those matters.

And at the minute we're betwixt and between, and it's a grim watch.

Edited by TheGunnShow

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What a bag o' shíte.

I generally lean towards the positive & give everyone a fair crack of the whip. But there are more and more cracks appearing in the hull and this ship looks to be sinking. I think we know how this ends up.

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2 minutes ago, GodlyOtsemobor said:

Left back. 

Harsh for someone who scored 4 in 22 for Wealdstone

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3 minutes ago, kirku said:

Harsh for someone who scored 4 in 22 for Wealdstone

Yeah but James husband is away on holiday so he's filling in. I mean I could of asked papa diop to move across but then that would force me to put Alan gow into midfield to allow Andy Hughes to drop back while Dejan stefanovic is out injured and Simon Charlton is filling in in goal for Tony warner while he finds his gloves. 

Edited by GodlyOtsemobor
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16 minutes ago, Olano said:

Pukki is probably struggling for motivation, this was a risk when we did not let him go after all this years in Norwich. (we all can have motivation problems if we stay in the same job for many years)

 

My problem is that we have a manger that dont have a playing style that make it easy for the players to know what the other in the team are doing.

And he don't sign player for a style. It so much easier if you sign players for a stile like 4-3-3. 

And he don't know his best starting 11. 

 

 

Hi Olano

Is Kjetil Knutsen still an option I wonder, albeit a year too late? Could he be prised away from the Arctic Circle?

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Just now, GodlyOtsemobor said:

Yeah but James husband is away on holiday so he's filling in. I mean I could of asked papa diop to move across but then that would force me to put Alan gow into midfield to allow Andy Hughes to drop back while Dejan stefanovic is out injured and Simon Charlton is filling in in goal for Tony warner while he finds his gloves. 

Just get Theoklitos back in goal. Or have an open net. Same sorta thing.

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10 minutes ago, keelansgrandad said:

We have seen the standard of this league. Its poor. And we might not have as good a squad as we think. But we have 16 players all with EPL experience. And yet we cannot even pass to each other. Or cross a ball. We have a striker who is clearly not interested. These players should just be set up properly and told to go out and play the opposition off the park.

It all comes down to the coach. What went on before him is irrelevant. Our board thought Smith was better than DF. He obviously thought he was. Yet we get relegated and he has to bring in a set piece coach. Give me strength. Everybody wonders why Sarge is given the short straw up front. Why does Sinani start tonights game ahead of Todd?

And to see the absolute shocking attitude of players just playing into the hands of Luton, while the coach argues with the 4th official on the touchline sums it up. I hate the phrase he has lost the dressing room but he certainly cannot motivate this squad.

No, we need to stop saying stuff like this to be honest. It's disingenuous.

It is fair to say some teams are poor in terms of individual quality, that doesn't mean they are poor to play against. Some teams will play knowing that they are only good enough to create 2-3 chances from open play and the rest will come from set pieces. Just as Sam Allardice knew of his Bolton sides, Pullis knew of his Stoke sides, both in the premier league.

We saw tonight that a well organised side, playing as a team, well drilled and looking for a scalp can be better than being described as a "poor" side.

First of all, you can't argue what went on before him is irrelevant and then follow that up by making an argument about what went before him. I actually agree with the first part. It doesn't matter what happened last season, right now, because the time for that to matter was the end of last season. Additionally, the "board" didn't think Smith was better than Farke, the decision was made that Farke wasn't convincing enough to keep and that having amounted 5 out of the 40pts needed in just shy of 1/3rd of the season, there is plenty of evidence to support that.

To bring it back on point, the only real argument to have Farke now is because of his success in the championship, and at some point, a decision still has to be made about how long you keep a manager just to be good in the division below?

TVB has a point in saying that right now, as it looks after three games, Smith is struggling to get anything out of the players available. @TheGunnShow also has the point that Smith has also been unable to field what could be his preferred side this season, which has largely been played without a left back or a physical DM (I see Gibbs more as a holding midfielder which is slightly difference to a DM). I think that's fair, but I also think it's fair to expect a bit more than has been served up in the last few games even from the players available. The caveat being that I also think people have gotten a little carried away with how good they think some players are. 

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3 minutes ago, TheGunnShow said:

Just get Theoklitos back in goal. Or have an open net. Same sorta thing.

I mean Paul Crichton is loitering around but we only really like to have him around to warm up the younger lads like Ben Alnwick

Edited by GodlyOtsemobor

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17 minutes ago, Monty13 said:

He’s always had the feeling of being the rebound.

Loads have never took to him, but to be fair he’s done nothing to win anyone round.

I didn’t want us to be a Watford and knee jerk sack a clearly capable (from his record) manager, but at this point even if he does stamp something on this team and turn it round in terms of performances the fanbase feels too divided for it to make a difference.

Sometimes it just doesn’t work out. 

This feels inevitable so maybe someone should just get it over with.

I think it's the fact he's getting really, really angry that says the writing's on the wall. 

It's like he's in the process of losing the dressing room.

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1 minute ago, GodlyOtsemobor said:

I mean Paul Crichton is loitering around but we like to just have him around to warm up the younger lads like Ben Alnwick

Just go full Scandi with a back four of Fuglestad, Berthel Askou, Hareide and Nedergaard (or the lesser-spotted Thomas Helveg).

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3 minutes ago, paddycanary said:

Hi Olano

Is Kjetil Knutsen still an option I wonder, albeit a year too late? Could he be prised away from the Arctic Circle?

We don't have the players for his 4-3-3. And he is turning town clubs from all over the world.

 

On the other hand he want a project. But can't see it when we don't have money to sign his type of players (the new signing are not his type of players) 

 

Sargent is

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Once again Crafty calls it correcly.. Pre-season prediction of finishing 8th to 12th looking good. Only concern is that that might be a tad optimistic.

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We have done well with managers on the up. Lambert , Neil, Farke even back to Martin O’Neill . I’d even say Worthington . And Ron Saunders . 
 

Managers that have been sacked are not on the up. We needed to get a manager who was enjoying success. Not one that a then relegation rival had just booted out . 

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