That's not feasible. The manager isn't in charge of transfers for starters, that's been made abundantly clear. The policy of buying young and using youngsters comes from elsewhere, and the primary reason is that the budget is dogshit. If we can barely afford (or sometimes can't afford) to buy inexperience, how are we supposed to buy experience? Switching managers to someone who wants experience will just leave us with a frustrated new manager, or perhaps an experienced League Two side.

It's not entirely clear yet whether Siggy would represent brilliant business or risky business, given the inconsistencies in what we've had out of him and his injury issues. That's why it's the perfect time to negotiate a deal in theory. I think he hasn't been properly fit for most of his time here, and if he had, and had been firing on all cylinders most weeks, we would already be utterly out of the race to sign him, let's face it. Hopefully if we do sign him, he's on the verge of full fitness and about to smash this league once the deal is done. My only reservation is his stock was considered quite high when we brought him in initially, which seems to be when the 'deal in principle' was arranged. So I wonder how high those wages are, for a club who can't afford many players on high wages. It's unlikely his agent will want to climb down much, if at all, from what was agreed initially. But if we get him on reasonable wages he could turn into an absolute bargain.

Tbf Khan was exceptional there too. It was close between them. Believe Khan won the award, but being in a better team will help that. Duff was the best LW in the world at that point too for me.

I'm not convinced that's true. I feel like most come from counter attacks and nicking the ball off opponents who are 'fucking around at the back'. But I'd have to review all our goals to be sure. Certainly last night's second didn't, and though the highlights don't go back far for the first, even if we initially had the ball at the back it looks more like fucking around in the middle that created it. Be interesting to review how many goals we score as a result of playing at the back vs how many we concede from it. But I can't be arsed. It's also a little tricky because how do you define it as actually created from fucking around at the back rather than just we had the ball at the back at some point because that's simply how we play? There's also the big intangible it creates in terms of teams pressing up on us because of it, or even falling back because they don't want to fall into the trap. Employing it as a tactic changes the way space is used on the pitch by the opposition. But again, I'm not convinced it is a direct feature of more than half of our goals.

I give the player in space the ball. Whether they're beckoning for it or not.

I think we are good at it, and confident at it, so we feel we can get away with passing to marked players rather than it being a strategy as such. That complacency will bite us in the ass sometimes though, like with this one.

I'd be beyond astonished if that's how it's discussed in training after the game. It doesn't make a lick of sense in that situation to choose Moran as the receiver. We can talk all we like about drawing players out of position with riskier passes to open up spaces, I get the logic behind all that, but when a player is already in a very good space, how can that remain the tactic? Giving it to a wide player who has space to maraud down the flank is also another way to move opposition players out of position. I'm confident Carter will be told he made the wrong choice. I wonder if he simply didn't see the player out wide. On the replay from behind the goal he doesn't seem to look in that direction at all. If he did see him, perhaps he thought the Bristol player that checked his run and came back inside was going to keep going out wide (still a bad call even if he had though).

If you're in acres of space, ahead of the play, and don't want the ball, you shouldn't be on the pitch. It shouldn't take waving your hands like a loon for your teammate to think you want it.

I didn't see the whole match to know how he was passing all night, but within that moment, whilst he was a little clumsy with it and could have done better, it was harder for him to come through that situation a winner than it was for Carter to just make the sensible pass to the player in space. I like Carter but that was brain dead.

It's definitely way more on Carter (think that's who it was) for choosing the suicide ball to him instead of the easy ball to the unmarked lad out to the right. I also thought Wahlstedt was slightly culpable, although it should never have come to that anyway.

The only reason one was a goal and the other wasn't, is because Wahlstedt pulled off a good save.

The players are acting on instructions. Their competence at playing tippy tappy shit in their own third can be questioned, but we can hardly say it's their fault for 'wanting' to do that.

13 against Leeds

CM

Only part of your post I disagree with. Wharton can much more reliably take the ball on the half-turn in our third, and could last year too. Morton getting picked ahead of him was nothing but a mistake. I don't know why it was done, but if that was a significant part of the rationale, it was wrong.

Transfermrkt says he did indeed mostly play RW, scoring 6 in 21 from there, and 3 from 5 up front. Looks ok, decent finishes. Hard to say if his all round game is up to it from that, but on our budget and with him being a freebie, a low wage offer might not be the worst idea.

I think the truth lies somewhere between both your posts tbh. The points total was high, and for the most part he massively rejuvenated the form of a highly demoralised and failing team. He's not really responsible for the form of other sides. That said, he was alarmingly defensive in games we should have been able to take by the throat, and that conservatism cost us some points, any one of which would have kept us up. He made a decent fist of keeping us up in difficult circumstances, but also made some costly mistakes. For me, he is only about 10-20% responsible for our relegation. And he did get us straight back up to repair the damage. It's more what followed after that first season back up that bothers me.

Marcus Antonsson. Was only a loan but actually played twice as many games for us as for them. Currently plying his trade for Western Sydney Wanderers btw.

I think they'll do no such thing unless they appoint a terrible manager. They've been in and around the playoffs with an average one. Mowbray's departure certainly didn't do us any harm, and we're terribly ran. Sunderland used to be terribly ran but seem to have got it together.

Has Brittain done anything of note since he started playing wide? Genuine question, I've not been able to watch games lately just highlights.

No surprise to see another club wasn't willing to entertain his death spirals. Although, it's really not all that bad compared to the ones he had here. That check list above though, he did pretty much all of that here too (although playing Dack wasn't a bad thing here).

Funny, I took the opposite view. Very little chance with the first one, extremely unfair to blame him for that one, and badly sighted for the second (lots of bodies), but thought he went down too easily for the third. If he'd pretty much stood his ground he'd have likely stopped it. However the real culprit for that one is whoever it was that was supposed to be the last defender but was too far up the pitch when that lucky bounce fell Sheff W's way. Utterly exposed us, that's why Szmodics was going nuts at him after the goal. Once a player goes one on one, anything can happen. I don't know if it's unrealistic standards or people having it in for Wahlstedt (generally seems to be people who effusively defended Pears in his shit patches) but he's getting far too much stick IMO. He's not shown to be good enough yet, but I'm definitely more confident than with Pears in goal. Plus he's still new to English football, the club and the country. He may improve once he's more settled. We miss Kaminski though, for me, far better than either of our current keepers have shown.

The LT gave him a 6 😆

Scouts may see something that stats don't show, but I don't see any reason to attempt to sign a lad (Al-Hamadi) who has 8 goals in League Two (half the total of the first player you suggest) and sits joint 11th in the League Two top scorers list. Hard to see why us and Leeds would have any particular interest based on that. Frankly I'd have trepidation about signing any League Two striker for any sort of fee, I'd want to know they can hack it in the league between here and there first. Young only scored 2 goals in League Two last season, every chance he's flash in the pan. I wouldn't be asking him to make a 2 league jump unless it was for peanuts.

Don't think he's gonna make it here. But the better he does in League One, the more chance someone throws us a small amount of money for him (probably no more than 100k given the financial clout of League One). Under contract until summer 2025, so this summer would be a good time to sell. He'll by 23 by then. In the league, he has 1 goal and 2 assists in 295 minutes. So slightly better than a goal contribution every 100 minutes. In the cups he's played 93 mins total, and scored against League Two Notts County (whilst playing RW apparently). Reasonable figures if he can maintain or improve them, but the most he has played a match is 70 minutes, and apart from his three 60-70 minute appearances in the league he hasn't played more than 26 mins in the rest, so he's hardly broken into a 9th placed League One side. All but three other teams in the league have played 1 or in many cases 2 less games than Lincoln. Incidentally, at this time last season he had played 303 minutes in the league for us, and 254 in the cup, so it's not like he's earned more game time a league below. Didn't score or assist for us all season in the league (542 minutes). Couple of cup goals (Norwich, West Ham) and a cup assist (Bradford). Personally it was his lack of apparent effort most of the time which bothered me.