The worry for me here is that we aren't a team who really play crosses. That could be for good reason, as we lack anybody who is particularly adept at getting on the end of them. Dack reads them best, but unless they're low he won't win many. Last season when we got Giles in, someone that could really cross, who put in something like 30-odd crosses in his first game. But the idea was quickly abandoned and our genius manager decided he was better cutting in from the right (which he wasn't). Incompetence was probably a factor in that move, but I think our lack of an effective recipient for crosses was probably an element in the thinking. We are trying it again, under a different manager with largely the same personnel. If he plays on the left, perhaps we are thinking of putting BBD in the middle. He is probably the player on our books most capable of fulfilling that role, but it remains to be seen if he will use certain elements of his game that make him dangerous, by playing him there. If he is coming as a winger to put crosses in, this is either going to be a waste of time again, or it will unlock a different part of our game to capitalise on. Perhaps it could make us more effective when we do have the possession and need to break a team down, good crosses can shake things up. We will need much better movement in the box though. Another possibility is he will spend at least some of the time as a LWB to give Pickering competition.

Tbf, somebody dropped the name in here yesterday, and today it's in the news. The LT says the deal moved quickly, so not sure how much sooner an ITK could really have broken it.

The last player to do so was Giles. But we had nobody to effectively get on the end of them, and he was soon shunted onto the right side of the attack where his left foot was hindered.

Seems a bit premature on the back of someone's tweet.

Surely you're not talking about Szmodics! He's alright, but, c'mon!

We always used to hear that Venkys would provide extra funding if we were in a position midseason to launch a real promotion challenge. Until we were in that position, and nobody at the club has mentioned it since.

Indeed, and that's actually the only reason he is allowed to sign a pre contract on a free in the first place.

I assume you're aware you're also leaving an acre of space under your posts? For both problems, maybe using a different browser will help you. Though normally when everything is highlighted you can just click (or tap) pretty much anywhere and it clears. If that isn't working I'd really try a different web browser.

That doesn't sound too likely, as we signed Kalinic for 6 million not long later. Why do your posts all have a shit-ton of spaces below them now? Took me half a minute to delete them from the quote.

Again that only seems like a great achievement because of the loser managers we had before and after him. At the time we appointed Ince, merely surviving didn't seem like an achievement, I saw us as a steady mid-table side with the potential to push for Europe occasionally. That's what we had been. Ince made a right hash of it though, and suddenly survival became a main objective. He did well to get us out of the relegation zone, credit where it's due, but it wasn't a miraculous escape for a team who shouldn't have been in it in the first place. We had finished 7th the season before I think? Then the season after we finished 10th in his first full season. Yes, purse strings were getting a little tight, hence as I keep saying he did a good job, but really nothing special. I suspect he could have had us gradually grind a bit higher over time, as I do think he's a manager who can get results, but I really can't class him as one of our most successful. Like many, my issue wasn't with the fact he was sacked, it was with the timing and the quality of the replacement. Any sensible new owners would have left it at least til the season's end to let Williams and Allardyce do their thing whilst they felt out the new business (and Williams for longer still), but we didn't have sensible new owners, we had arrogant idiots who were 'badly advised', and the rest is tragic history.

No. Nor is there one where he says he definitely would have.

I nearly commented on that too! I was thinking bollocks ago sounds like the bollocks was in the past, but I'm fairly sure we're still living in the Bollocks Era.

In the first halves of the last two seasons, it has. Formations don't lose form and fitness, players do. I don't believe the formations per se have been a problem, so much as the mentality, fitness and consistency of the playing staff. And to a degree, the poor decision-making of the managers. I would say it's not a good formation for a possession game that JDT supposedly wants to play, you can't afford to lose the midfield battle then. But when you can send it long to fairly quick attackers on the counter, as has been our most successful approach, it's not as important. Weren't we playing 4-3-3 for a lot of Mowbray's possession-obsessed phase?

That's pushing it. He did a decent if dull job, but the absolute best he could rank during just my time is 4th. Across the club's grand history, he's an afterthought. He shouldn't have been fired when he was, but I think he gets a bit too much credit on account of the total charlatan managers either side of him, Ince and Kean.

Pedantic would be me correcting you by saying 'being' and 'my'. Correcting someone with incorrect information is failed pedantry.

It's more of a 4-2-3-1 and we've been playing it quite a lot for years.

There was another interview where he said his mind was basically made up already, and that whilst he would have given us fair consideration if he got to come over, he doubts it was going to sway him.

What do you mean? What's the holdup in knowing they can press go on multiple deals? Do you mean we can't sign players until players are sold/loaned out?

😬

Has it actually been reliably confirmed that our bid was accepted? If not, another possibility is just that our bid isn't what they're looking for to sell now. Since this isn't a signing we really need to make immediately, I'd have gone straight to the player for negotiations, and only gone to Hibs with a bid once a pre-contract was signed. Stronger barganing position.

He had confidence early doors, banging in a couple of lovely goals. Personally I suspect some minor injuries have slowed him down and/or he has increasingly been asked to play the tippy tappy bollocks and doesn't feel comfortable with it, throwing off his whole game. Either way some time out of the team may actually be just what's needed to return to form, a la Dack.

You've got it wrong there. We didn't fall away after winning the league because we had 'grown too fast'. We fell away because Jack pulled the purse strings back together, and allegedly started asking Kenny to justify why he wanted players, which led to Kenny stepping down. This ultimately led to Jack having to plough even more money into the club under a manager who wasn't up to it. Failure to invest from a position of strength, and ensuring the right people are in charge. Possibly also the dangers of too much owner interference. Those are the lessons to be learned from what happened after 1995, and funnily enough they can be applied to recent times.

You're right - the tables before games are played will show us in 2nd I believe 🤣

Absolutely, such an annoying argument that keeps coming up. It's not the 1980's. If you have a Championship-level first team career in this day and age, and you end up penniless when you retire, then you've almost certainly misspent your money or been extremely unlucky. It's also not like there aren't other career avenues open to footballers when they retire. Punditry, coaching, agent work, etc. That's just some of the football-related ones, and they also will have enough money to get whatever qualifications they'd like (and still be eligible for student loans I believe). If you were a fairly high-level footballer in England and you end up penniless, you fucked up, or perhaps just thought that a few years of kicking a ball around should enable you and yours to live a lavish lifestyle forever.

A CB isn't going to make it sufficient though. Short-term, which I suspect is where you're focused, we don't really have a pressing need for a CB once Hyam is back in what, 2-3 weeks? An attacker on loan, a sub keeper, and a CB doesn't sound sufficient to me and doesn't solve the main problems.