joey_big_nose

Much as I have liked him in previous appearances I would say Garrett's 20 mins was one of the worst midfield performances I have seen in a long time. The way we play asks a lot from our midfielders who are expected to turn and pass very quickly and very accurately with very little support, particularly in that central role that Wharton owns. When Garrett came on he couldn't do it all, to the point where you could see Hyam and Carter trying to avoid passing to him. What worried me was that we did not change the system when we obviously couldn't continue to play that way once Wharton went off. We just plugged away. We are going to need a plan B when Wharton is unavailable.

I think things both JDT and Broughton have said openly in the media (how Buckley left, the Spanish La Liga striker not coming in, his lack of endorsement of Semir) clearly show JDT might help draw up the lists of players but he does not select the players who come in from that list. What's interesting is that he doesn't really seem to mind that arrangement. A normal British manager would be going absolutely crazy, but JDT seems to go with the flow.

Think we have to play a bit more defensive in this one. I would make a few changes. Put in an extra holding midfielder - I would have said Garrett but he was absolutely shambolic last might so Tronstad to come in. Wahlstadt Brittain Hill Hyam Pickering Travis Wharton. Tronstad Moran Leonard Szmodics

I dont think we should significantly change how we start matches. First half of recent performances have been excellent. But we need to do two obvious things imo. 1) Until Ennis is fit give Leonard the 9 shirt. He did well last night - scored, and got into the right places. I don't think we've had a player get into central scoring positions so much for a long time. Hopefully as his confidence grows he will bag more. Chopping and changing between him and Semir wont help I think. Let Semir have the last 30 each game. 2) Figure out a good defensive shape. I know because we went behind and we were chasing we got more and more open. But.... I am not sure what our defensive shape is. Imo the back four is very good but in front of the defence are very porous. How do we solve that? And what do we do if Wharton has a poor game or gets injured.

Offensively we were brilliant today except for our finishing. We controlled the game. Had the most shots the most possession... but defensively when they did come at us we were poor. If we struggle to score easy chances but find it easy to concede rare chances from the other side it doesn't really matter how many chances we create or how much we control the game. The big positive for me was Moran who looks a real player. Doubt we will see much more of Dolan starting. Big negative is thats the first time I saw Wharton really rattled. If he goes off the boil we've got a big problem. He had a poor game today and we could have done with Buckley coming on.

That goal was really all down to garrett not being able to take the ball on the half turn. Since hes come on we can't pass through the middle at all. I like Garret but you can't expect him to play the Wharton role.

Generally weve played so well, can't believe we're behind. Wharton though has an absolute stinker. With him and Travis both on yellows we need to change something there.

Id say Wharton is the on whose really struggling with passing. Must have turned over the ball half a dozen times.

Moran is quality player

Well on the plus side weve got a lot of time to show we can win from behind

Fucking hell...

What an incredible performance so far. Top class. But no goal...

Looks okay, should have four hours to clear the pitch after rain stops between 3pm to 4pm. I presume they cover it during a big downpour like the last couple of days?

I remember Jason Roberts picked him in his greatest ever team mate XI on Sky Sports years ago. So baffling, they must have played a handful of games together?

Looking at the forecast it looks like rain from now until kick off... does feel like it could get called off?

Yeah, but while atrocious at finishing or linking up the play Gallagher is very good at pressing and running and physically disrupting the opposition back line with his power and pace. He's also very handy defensively at set pieces etc. My fear is when Leonard, Telalovic, Dolan etc come in we just lose the ability to put effective pressure on up front and we get pushed out. Ennis really looked handy to me is the games he has played. Physical, knows where the goals is. Seems much more of a proper striker than Gallagher or BBD. He's the one I am looking at thinking he could make the difference. While we wait for him we're just gong to have to hope whoever fills in can step up.

Is that this season or since JDT joined? Do you have a link to it as looks like a great site!

Plenty doubting him (including me) after one or two games as seen by the timestamps at the start of the thread. If it had been a few months I think thats fair enough. Reading through the thread think most fans was onboard with him being decent by mid October. Just saying the 7 new signings will need similar time to bed in. 6-10 games.

Well, they (including me amongst them) were wrong in terms of him being a poor or unnecessary player.

Hard to know who will play given the injuries on the weekend.... For what it's worth I would probably look to switch to 433 rather than 4231 as the two holding midfielders were getting overrrun on Saturday. Need an extra body in there. I am assuming Travis and Gallagher will sit it out due to their knocks. With Gallagher out and Ennis not fit leaves us with a choice of Telalovic or Leonard for number #9 which is not ideal. Pears Brittain Carter Hyam Pickering JRC Wharton Garret Hedges Telalovic Szmodics Subs : Wahlstedt, Hill, Wharton, Tronstad, Moran, Leonard, Dolan

Going back to the start of this thread is a great example of why not to judge new players too early..... Szmodics is fantastic for us, and while he nominally plays in Dack's number 10 role he is a totally different sort of player who is more reminiscent of Crag Bellamy in his style. If he had more pace (and he's not slow) Szmodics would be a premier league player. I like everything about him. Stepping back - the two main signings we got last year - Hyam and Szmodics - have turned out to be brilliant. Hoping that the signings this year are similar quality. But we do need to give them a couple of months to bed in.

Szmodics is much more mobile than Dack, covers a lot more ground and runs the channels etc, so I think he would make a much better fist of playing as a 9 imo than Dack . Still he's great at 10, we should leave him there. Need one of Gallagher, Ennis or Telalovic to make the number 9 role really work. Difference between mid table or playoffs for us.

Usually on by nowish on a Sunday. Defo by 5pm.

Yeah, compared to other debuts Telalovic didnt look too bad. Few players look world beaters out of the gate. Dont think we really should expect big things from him in the short term.

Is Szmodics actually better than a fully fit Dack? Im beginning to think so...