Davefevs

Great post @Merrick's Marvels?????? I really don’t want us to sell the “Crown Jewels” either, but if that is the only way to get closer to the squad Nige wants then so be it. Realistically (and some may see this as me being selective) he has 3 players of his own at the mo’: James - 3 year deal - the set the project going Tanner Atkinson Why aren’t I including: Simpson - temporary to hopefully buy us 12 months (failed - acted early with Tanner) King - one year deal to instill the basics (failed - unless he makes a speedy comeback) Klose - 5 month deal, he might stay next season, but he isn’t part of the 3 year project The other two: Weimann - good pro (a huge success) Baker - likes him, but been unlucky, Atkinson signed to be the long term Baker Luckily we have Pring, Scott, Semenyo, Massengo, Benarous and Conway, but we are well short of a squad in the mould of Nige. We either get rid of (most of) Wells, Palmer, O’Dowda, Moore, to create some wage budget (the wasted wage players) Or we try to get some wiggle room by selling Dasilva, Bentley, Kalas. Or we have to bite the bullet and sell one of our big 3!

Just felt tips these days!

Red Dave - Used to be able to see in member settings, but I think Tom said it was removed as part of a previous upgrade.

Incredibly frustrating. And I can be a big Pearson fan and still happily question him on this one, especially King. James has played 20+1 this season, so not all bad. I’d like to think he acknowledges this too, and we see a bit of movement away from this in the summer.

I agree….but just a counter to it….what if you’ve supported and cajoled them for weeks and weeks, not trying to deny their confidence, and they keep making the same mistakes? It’s a tough one. Maybe player x might respond to a bollocking, when we all thought they were an arms around the shoulder guy. I guess we will find out.

Close (or should that be Klose)

It appears that asking for back to back wins is a bit much (?), but how long between wins do we wait for the next “bus” (no pun) comes along. (home games in caps) The worst sequence is 3 games: after Peterborough after Barnsley after Derby after Cardiff Only one of those was 3 defeats, the one after Peterborough. Weve generally been able to pick up a win to keep us ticking over / head above water. Only once have we avoided a loss between one win and the next (red dotted after Cardiff (a). Only twice have we followed up a win with a draw. We are inconsistent. Do I see us going on a big winless run? No. Its a bit disappointing that we’ve not really been able to build any momentum this season…although we have won our last 3 at home. So, I rarely buy into the concept of “we need to get x points from our next 2/3 games”, especially when x > 3, because it’s proved the less likely outcome this season. Boring old “one game at a time for me”. Thoughts?

I was replying to him, as he was replying in your defence.

Correct.

Theres the DM offer, in black and white! If you want me to instigate the first DM, just let me know. Happy to do so. I’ll remove you from ignore, so I see it. Give me 5 mins to do so. I’ve never ignored DMs, just posts, so let me know how you want to engage. If you don’t want to, that’s fine also. edit. Removed ignore on posts.

Dave - Ian has wanted Pearson sacked for weeks / months, it was his opening gambit last Saturday. He frames all his views to that agenda. He goes over the same stuff every pod, he moves off the agenda to raise transfers yet again. It’s quite tiresome to hear him say the same thing every week. If he toned his views down and framed them as opinions rather than facts, because they aren’t facts, his views woukd come across much better. He does have decent points to make, but he comes across as so entitled. I don’t know why that is. I genuinely get the impression he is gutted when we win at the moment, because it means he can’t have a dig at Nige.

We are gonna have to be smart in moving players on. We can’t mutually terminate contracts willy-nilly. If we do, there has to be some clause about signing for someone else. We can’t just let players go on a free, unless signing club pick up the full contract, or player agrees to end any burden on City. It’s a really difficult situation. I’m not sure how it is going to play out. I guess we will get some feel over the next month or so when we see the outcome of contract discussions re Semenyo and Massengo.

Nope…

Agree….ultimately if we could get our best players on the pitch we’d do better in the main, regardless of formation. But I do think a back 4 foundation is better for our players than a back 3 / 5.

James is unknown. Tanner was meant to be 2 months, so end of this month (Nige said he’s doing well) Atkinson maybe a couple of weeks.

You suggesting a sort of “diamond” even if it’s a bit squashed? Massengo played for Monaco / France age-group in a diamond, predominantly on the left point.

This is where Weimann might have to occasionally play as a conventional midfielder, or Benarous comes in to take the burden off those 3, at least until James is back.

offered to discuss via DMs after one provocative attack on me, but poster never took me up on it tried reporting swearing / attacking posts to mods from this poster, no idea whether it worked, whether the poster received anything from mods so I ended up using ignore button, although the poster seems offended that I do I am quite surprised by the pot and kettle view though when unfortunately I see other people quote the posts I’ve ignored. Hey-ho. ?? I expect I’ll get a shirt reaction post back as a result of this post, but just letting other posters know I’ve tried to do the things he / she suggested above, but it appears it was all lip service. I think he / she creates a toxic environment on this forum. Mods: is there some forum functionality that blocks “quotes” for posters you’ve ignored?

You have my support Shuffs! Even with Vyner at RB in a Vyner / Kalas / Klose / Pring back 4 feels more solid. How you play the “forward 6” is open to debate. Kalas and Klose have played in back 4s the majority of their careers. If Nige really feels that a back 4 (in probably a 433) is the way he really wants to go, I’d suggest doing that now. Youd hope Williams can start on Saturday, and hopefully Massengo too with 6 days between games. Front 6 of: Scott / Williams / Massengo Weimann / Semenyo / Wells Not necessarily as a 433 but those 6.

Warne played him RB, and in fairness he did get better over the season. With what we can all see our weaknesses at CB, that’s why I was advocating RB this season. I actually think he was fine there. But a switch to a back 3 has meant he’s had to play RCB again. Nige said a few weeks ago that Zak needs to be a defender first, to me it appears clear he’s tried to work on that with him, but maybe yesterday was the final straw. Yep, that’s how I see it. I guess as you approach 25 you either ought to have become more than a squad player or find a club where you can be a regular. It’s no disgrace to have got as far as he has, and played 100+ games at this level. But I think the rest of his career is gonna be defined in the next month or so. I see it more as concentration than confidence - hence why I think we took a wrong turn into the world of motivation. Concentration avoids you have to react. Some of it could be physical tiredness leading to mental fatigue? It could be sheer volume of pressure-made decisions finally taking their toll? Lets hope he works through it with Nige and Curtis’s help.

Big bugbear of mine Joe. At least one of them needs to drop in a bit, if only to close the gap between a retreating defensive line and attack…but hopefully to get the ball from blocks or half-clearances. I think it allows our opponents to recycle attacks. It’s why it feels harum scarem (sic) so often. I’d prefer it if it was CM who dropped in (assuming Weimann already has), as Antoine can be explosive further forward, and will occupy more opponents theoretically. We saw what he did to Tim Ream if left 1v1.

The defence needs a revamp. Whether that includes Kalas or not I don’t know. I’m v.happy with Atkinson, based on what he showed earlier this season. Shame suspected covid and now a calf injury have left us w/o his services. We have Tanner for RB, Pring for LB. So we will need competition for them too. I don’t think the priority is a striker, but if we manage to move on Wells then we have scope depending on whether we use that money in other positions. Still a lot of unknowns though. Contract decisions will drive much of it.

Sensible post.

Don’t take this as a criticism of Weimann, but the 3412 formation epitomises the yin and yang of formations. It really gives us attacking edge, but defensive frailty….it really gives Weimann threat, but it exposes us defensively. Some of that is down to the players behind him. It’s not all their fault. We aren’t anywhere near our best 11(ish) players and that too gets exposed. There are definitely areas to improve, and in several recent games we’ve shown that. We’ve shown the other side too. Think we have to roll with it and see what difference we see if James, Atkinson, Tanner come back with Williams too.

I look at lines down the pitch as a very simplistic way of pros and cons. Where are your players concentrated, where do teams who like to play centrally gonna expose you, same for those who play down the sides. It of course far too simplistic. There are merits of the 5212 / 3412, you have 8 players in the central (yellow) part of the pitch, it is very easy to get overloaded wide. First half we did a great job of Weimann, Semenyo and Martin picking up their 3 CBs and making Swansea play with the keeper as the spare man…we pretty much went man for man everywhere else. If Downes or Grimes tried to get it off of the keeper, Massengo or Scott tracked them, and we pinched a lot of ball high up. Second half they managed to out-manoeuvre us and got it into midfield and wide positions. At that point Massengo and Scott start getting dragged around. They aren’t experienced enough to handle that. We probably needed to go 541 for 5 minutes, weather it, and then try to re-impose ourselves. Make them think they’re failing, get their fans on their back that they can’t play through us…they then start hitting risky passes, and we pick them off. Frustrating.