IAmNick

Bakinson has been pretty wasteful up front, and hasn't tracked once or twice which is disappointing. He's also been available a lot, and seen a lot of the ball and done some good things. Not awful, not great imo. At least he's getting on the ball and trying to play with it!

I think Bakinson should have probably been tracking him, watching the replay

Birmingham goal: https://streamja.com/rdRbO

Basically a requirement to get enjoyment from watching us these days to be fair

While it's obviously a position and important role, it does make me laugh with some of the suggestions and analysis you see around where people have just glued about five positions/roles together. Firminio is a great example, as an off right false 9 defensive trequartista or whatever we're up to now. Usually mixed with randomly trying to play someone out of position because all you need to do is ask them to stand in a new spot on the pitch and away they go right?

At the ground I'm afraid! Back to away games only for the vids

That doesn't match what you said though does it? You said his next club will be league 1 in 1 or 3 years. I'll make a small bet (for charity) with you that if he leaves city in that timeframe it won't be for a league 1 club. Deal?

Why are you counting last season and this one together? He inherited an absolutely train wreck on a short term deal to keep us up as he did successfully. As far as I'm concerned the summer was a new start. I'm sure there are managers who could be sat on a better PPG but not be addressing any of the problems at the club, then in a year when they get fired we're back to square one. In less than a year we've lost our head coach, both first team coaches, CEO, COO, physio, and more. There's context here.

At what point do you think he'd have been sacked? He kept us up last season. Until the last few games we had one loss in seven and were in a very healthy position in the table. You think "virtually any other professional football club" would have sacked him for three losses on the bounce, one to the team in third and one to the team who are top? Maybe you're talking about coaching then? Well that's clearly been addressed recently with a fair few staff changes. Performances are poor, but I doubt most would be sacking based on that. Suggesting we try to win every game 4-3 is such a naive response to our problems.

Believe it's this: https://www.dailystar.co.uk/sport/football/jose-mourinho-reacts-video-him-21429812 (apologies for linking you that absolute trash)

@Hampshire reds casually browsing the forum when he sees his latest Pearson out post drop off the front page

Didn't we set the club record for consecutive losses? Eight defeats in a row, and losing 11 in 12 leaving us in 20th?

Yes you are. Or at least, I've never been stopped both bringing my own in or buying one from the concourse.

I don't care what it is, as long as they turn it down a bit so I don't have to shout my conversation at anyone nearby. It's ridiculous in the Lansdown

Interesting stuff. On the final graphic, I think it'd be good to normalise it by using minutes played or something. That way we could see (for example) if Williams 14 is actually pretty impressive for the time he was on the pitch. Also interested in the 6 passes he played to himself at a overall negative expected threat! Second comment is that while I do like pass maps, they look so chaotic to me. I've looked before at using k-means clustering to pick trends of passes, then overlay them on top. Is that something you've thought of? I think it looks decent and the info is much more readable and valuable.

Yeah that's fair. I think part of me just wants to make sure we protect our bright youngsters - I'm really excited by Scott but also think he's looked pretty lost/overwhelmed in a couple of games. If we go behind against a "must win" v Barnsley it could get pretty rough, that's all that's in my mind really. I'd be more excited taking my seat on Saturday if it was Scott behind Wells that's for sure. On reflection I think I'd probably play: Bentley Tanner / Kalas / Atkinson / Pring Massengo / James Weimann / Scott / O'Dowda Wells I'm also not a fan of O'Dowda but he fits as you said above. I'd be happy with Dasilva for Pring too, I really rate Jay - don't know enough about Barnsley to make a decision there as that's what it'd probably come down to for me. I'd love to see Massengo in Scott's position really, but I'm not that happy with anyone else to partner James with Williams out.

Of the 3 (Martin/Wells/Weimann) Martin was the most prolific at this level in his prime Weimann is the youngest of the three Conclusion: Start Wells! Not saying I disagree, just being awkward In fact I'd probably do the same, but with Weimann behind him.

Then why did you ask him where he'd been a few pages ago

Yeah I agree. I also (usually) disagree with the insinuation some players were lazy or whatever - I think they probably joined with good intentions then quickly found out the weird situation, and like any of us at a job where we feel unappreciated or unwanted morale dropped, and that doesn't take long to spread. Could certainly argue they could have been more professional etc. but I do have some sympathy with them. Yep, I really hope he can! Well, table wise we're roughly where I expected or a bit better until recently. I also expected some good bits, and some crap runs... so I'm not panicking about the last week or two (yet). What I want to see now though is this current little run come to an end, and the team to look a bit more cohesive. Saturday is really important for me, for squad morale as much as the 3 points. Overall results have been a bit better than I expected, but the "team" are now looking a bit worse I'd say. Squad is decent enough I agree and certainly good enough to stay up with the right person in charge.

I think there's a lot more to a player being good that just whether they're, well, good. Look at Torres. 65 goals in 100 for Liverpool, one of the best strikers in the world... then at Chelsea? Players suit teams, systems, and those around them. You need to sign players who fit in to your system, tactics, and how you want to play - not sign players then change your system/tactics to suit them. My guess is Luton did a better job at assessing where and how Lansbury fit into their system than us. Our problem imo has been that recruitment and system/tactics have been treated as two separate entities because we've had non football people in charge of one of those things - and we desperately need someone to bridge that gap. We sign lots of decent players, they get here, and they're crap... or rather, they look crap. They haven't become crap overnight, they're still good players, but they don't fit our team. At our level simply signing good players isn't enough. I think we kind of agree overall, but I come down on the side of saying that it's a recruitment issue, as it's a lot easier to change who you're signing than to change your footballing philosophy/system/tactics/whatever.

"Without a complaint in sight" - currently being investigated by UEFA. Many European countries also require fans submit applications for pyro displays and I believe they're actually quite controlled, in specific areas etc. Totally different from a random away concourse.

Hah. Yet if we hadn't done the above you can bet you'd be using it as an example of us not progressing. If you don't recognise the importance of those things (ground, training facilities) in moving forwards then I don't know what to tell you. Not realising potential isn't going backwards, it's not going forwards as quickly as you wanted. Second half is just waffle. Sorry, you think: Wolves (3rd in div 1) Leeds (5th in PL) Southampton (11th in PL) Were our peers when SL took over and historically? Hmm. Ok, not sure I really agree there. Barnsley and Brighton maybe - but we were also in the same division as Chesterfield, Northampton, Bury, Wrexham, Cambridge, Swindon, Port vale, Colshester. Some teams have definitely surpassed us, and we're surpassed some others as well. If you pick out all the winners and ignore the losers that's not a great argument for us "going backwards" though is it? Forest? Our peers? You can't be serious. Ok so if we ignore all the off the pitch progress, and ignore the on the pitch progress, we haven't made progress. Great argument! Lets remember you said we'd gone backwards. In reality we just haven't gone forwards as quickly as you wanted, or thought we should have - huge difference there, and I might even agree with you. What's that got to do with us making progress or not? Problem is you've started at your conclusion and are trying to work backwards.

So good enough on ability for our joint best season in the last 14 years? Hmm. Not convinced personally. Not even close. I'd say our squad is weaker now than the last few years, and we've only managed top 10 once since rejoining the Championship.

Out of interest where do you think an average season for our current squad would have us finishing?

I think Tanner, Atkinson, and James have all made the team better. Tanner and Atkinson are just the type of player I'd like us to be signing, and James is a better quality than we're used to imo. I'd say Massengo has markedly improved since Pearson has been here. I agree it's disappointing we haven't brought in a forward, but I'd also rather we concentrated on being solid before that - whether that's happened or not is another discussion, but I think it's the right approach. We weren't going to challenge at the right end of the table this year, and that's what a forward can do you for you. I'd be interested who or what you'd have sacrificed for that forward?