Merrick's Marvels

Yeah for the best young player in the world, give or take. Scott's got some way to go to be in that bracket.

The wages and transfer fees we were paying - from the time we started shopping at Chelsea onwards - were completely unsustainable for a club our size. Unless every year we made massive profits on transfers by selling our best players. Again, completely unsustainable and complete madness. That's the main reason for our financial problems. Covid just accelerated the time it took for the shit to hit the fan, for our day of reckoning to arrive. Mark Ashton has a lot to answer for, as do the people who let him get away with it.

Indeed, it is quite something - and illustrates just how piss poorly we were run in the last few years by Ashton. As you also point out, Gould has said we must see the value on the pitch - Pearson is seeing to that, will make sure of that - given the time to clear up Ashton's piss poor mess.

Yep. De Laet = Tanner Konchesky = Pring Keane = Kalas Morgan = (we haven't got one yet) James = James! Drinkwater = Scott Marshall = who he? Knockaert would = Khadra Nugent = Weimann/Conway/Wells/takeyerpick Wood = (we haven't got one yet) But we're getting there. Apart from a Schmeichel. One of those always helps. And obvs the shape needs tweaking as 4-4-2 is soooo yesterday. Apparently.

Exactly. So if we want to win the Champions League, rather than get to the final and blow it, we need high flying full backs on both sides ? As if.

Completely agree, offensively. Worried how that leaves us defensively, with just 5 players behind the ball - and probably only 4, as you know Tanner would most likely be higher up the pitch, leaving us with - not a flat back 4 plus James but a 3 plus James. And James being useless when exposed to this extent, basically a back 3. It would take a brave manager to play like this in the Championship, even one as assured and self-confident as Pearson. So, whilst I respect your theory (sincerely), I thinks it's just that.

Ah, you're basing it on your preferred 4-3-3. Can't see Pearson going with that though.

Yeah, I get it. Just that's not how teams are coached to play these days - all about making the pitch as wide as possible. On both sides. You're talking theoretically. And no-one's expecting Nige to re-invent current trends. If our players absorb his knowledge about the required levels of physical and mental commitment, the rest will take care of itself - we can look up and not worry about down. Tactics and formations be damned.

Yes Weimann and Khadra behind a front two would be tasty. But surely these days teams play with both full backs/wing backs pushed high - not one up and the other dropping and tucking in? If Trent has it on the Right, Robertson is high on the Left? If Walker has it, Cancelo isn't sat in with his CBs, he's high up too. Etc etc. And - on a tangent - where Pep goes, the rest of football has followed - even if they haven't got the players to do so! Starting with most teams not having a keeper with the skills of Glenn Hoddle, yet asking him to play like a quarter back. Madness but often funny when watching the EFL highlights of a Saturday evening. Anyway, back to the point, where did Blackburn use Khadra?

And if Mark Aizlewood had got the job, we might all be in jail. Boom, boom. Joking, Mark, joking! One of my favourite players from that period. Especially that time in Ayr or Largs or Clydebank or wherever it was - went out of his way to say hello and chat. Bug Joe couldnae be bother'd!

He just seems wasted starting from so deep and if he bombed on when we're in possession - as well as Weimann - and you played with wing backs high and wide, you're left exposed when we turn over the ball with just James and 3 CBs for cover = scary/wide open. Any idea how Blackburn used him last season? I hope we get him, he's just what we're missing attacking wise - someone unpredictable with a bit of x-factor, magic in their daps. Trouble is, Brighton included a clause that Sheffield had to buy. Would we agree to a similar clause I wonder?

Think he'd be wasted there, Spud. Pacy, quick feet, can beat a man, got goals and assists in him. Think we'd need to rip it up and start again, formation wise, if he arrived - you might even get to see your 4-3-3. Or how about a 4-2-3-1? Vyner - Atkinson - Naismith - Pring Scott - James Conway - Weimann - Khadra Wells At any rate, we know Pearson tried to get him here in the summer. Therefore, unlike so many times in the past, I trust our current manager to have a clear idea how he'd utilise the player - even if we're not sure. That's why Nige is sat in the dugout earning the big bucks and I'm sat in the Hen and Chicken none the wiser. "Dugout"!

Admirable from Pearson, protecting a young player, but Klose, or anyone else for that matter, could not have stopped Low dallying in possession, falling on his arse, and gifting Lincoln their 2nd goal, I'm afraid. The lad has much potential and much to learn, good luck to him.

Darragh MacAnthony - a man who knows what he likes and likes what he knows. There's plenty like that, up Peterborough way.

Possibly for Merrick, they like a classy player - O'Leary and Merrick at centre half would have been as classy as they come. Not for Ritchie though. Tom is a home bird, one year in Sunderland was too much (insert cheap gag here), even allowing for the injuries he had up there. He just didn't settle and I suspect the same would have been true in London. Tom's heart rules his head and his heart belongs to Glasgow and Bristol.

I've never believed he's a Pearson type player - just look at the teams he's built. To pick the obvious example, his Leicester team who won the Championship - imo he sees Cam Pring as Paul Konchesky, having similar attributes - good physique, doesn't shirk a tackle, decent in the air, defensively sound but got a good engine, good left peg and can do a bit going forward. And he can fill in at LCB in an emergency. That's a far more rounded player than Dasilva. (George Tanner has all the same attributes to play the same role on the Right hand side, just needs to improve going forward or, perhaps, become more confident doing so at this level. Then he'll be Ritchie de Laet. As we already have Matty James, we'll then only need a Michael Keane, a Wes Morgan, a Danny Drinkwater, a Ben Marshall (who he?), an Anthony Knockaert, a David Nugent and a Chris Wood.) And don't forget this from the fan Q&A which was not long after the Millwall home defeat: Q: "Nige, why do we always struggle against big, physical teams?" A: "Because they're bigger and more physical than us" Q: "OK, do you want a big, physical team?" A: "Yes" So there's your answer.

Good knowledge but will they have it in Tescos?!

I get there are ways of letting the player know what sort of terms you're offering as a buying club - via the agent, nothing official that could be deemed as "tapping up" But if it's a player we don't want to sell at all or, in Semenyo's case, one for whom we appear to have a clear fee in mind and which the buying club are not prepared to meet, why would we allow the player to discuss personal terms? So if we take the article at face value - a big If in my book - and accept Bournemouth have been allowed to officially talk to the player, this can only mean we think a deal with Bournemouth can be done even though we've rejected their £12M, i.e. it's only a matter of time before a transfer fee is agreed. As I say, big If that one - who the hell are sahara football??? What's Nixon or someone we've actually heard of got to say?

According to that, Bournemouth also couldn't agree personal terms with the player. But seeing as they can't talk to the player until the club have agreed to sell to Bournemouth, I think we can dismiss this as a work of fiction.

I see your logic but am hoping other bits of the family silver can be flogged in January to raise the funds to keep us in this division. But it's only a matter of time before the lad departs, that's for sure.

We need to strengthen midfield, not weaken it. So Scott goes nowhere, until the summer at least. Semenyo made his debut 3 and a half years ago, since when he's given us 6 months worth of decent form. Since changing agents in the summer he's been way off it, even allowing for injuries - against League 1 Lincoln he failed to hit a barn door from 10 yards under no pressure, in between shandying out of every challenge going. So I don't give a stuff if he turns into a world beater for someone else, what we need between now and May is a mobile, physical presence up front that has a few goals in them. And if Martin and Semenyo have to leave to facilitate that, the sooner the better.

"I got there as quick as I could, ref"

Yep, we all know how this usually ends. Don't know the actual stats but would guess that 8, or even 9, out of 10 times an owner sells up to someone wealthier in an attempt to move a club forward... ...it goes tits up. Whatever the actual stats, the odds are still that SL will pass the baton to someone who fails, quite possibly disastrously, rather than someone who turns out to be a roaring success. Given he chose so many unsuitable managers, at the very least I'm praying he's asked someone else to find us a suitable new owner rather than do it himself. Or ask Jonboy. It's going to be a massive roll of the dice either way.

Perhaps he did give him a bell? Then uncle Steve explained * Bristol Sport to him * our FFP position * that, unlike Bmouth, we're not actually in the Premier League, in fact years off it * and young Jon boy would need a job. At which point, the yank put the phone down. Personally, I'd be delighted if he found additional investment to share the load with him and he also brought back a proper board of directors but pigs don't fly. It's my way or the highway with Guernsey, so his legacy looks like being nice seats and crap football, when most of us would happily settle for the opposite. Happy new year! In Nige we trust, the only bloke round here who actually knows what he's doing, even if present circumstances mean that's not immediately obvious.

A debate for another day ? When I've stopped seething about the performance!