He's got a squad more threadbare than Mowbray's ever was. Positional changes are sometimes necessitated by not having many options.

This thread is only 5 posts in and it's all been said really. But I agree, the change in tactics and keeper priorities has been responsible for a serious downgrade on keepers' ability to keep the ball out the net. Both developmentally and in terms of who gets bought and picked. Pears staying ahead of Kaminski in last season's pecking order was a prime example of these distorted priorities. I don't know the stats, but I bet there are more goals per shot on target now than there were 10 years ago. I see the logic of these modern keepers in playing a bit further up the field, having another player capable with their feet to relieve the defence when under pressure, inviting the opposition on more to create space for counters, etc., but it just can't be worth the loss of so many goals on account of a keeper not being good enough at their main job (not to mention being wildly out of position if the passing goes wrong). I'm all for modern methods when they work, but if you don't have a keeper capable of both sides of the game at a high level, the one you should pick is actual goalkeeping. It's not far off where you might as well put an actual midfielder as your keeper. I agree defenders don't defend as well these days as a result too. You normally only get to see an old school style at CB now when you play 3 of them, then you can play the tippy tappy and have someone like JPVH burst through the line to crunch someone. Catching vs punching, I've never understood that one. It's almost never the best choice to punch it. I can't imagine the data shows it is. It always used to go wrong back in the day (my god, David fucking James) and it still routinely goes wrong now. I don't get it. It makes sense if you've over committed and you're stretching to reach the ball at all, or if you have a very clear sight of an unmarked player you know you can accurately punch it to for an immediate counter. It can potentially make sense if you think you're going to end up on the floor and aren't confident you'll keep hold of the ball. I can't think of any other scenario it makes sense. And yet it's the choice most modern keepers seem to make most of the time if there's a player anywhere near them. Why? I don't remember someone like big Brad ever catching the ball then dropping it without being fouled. I've certainly seen many punches into danger zones though, plenty resulting in goals. It's a trend that should have gone away by now, not become the norm. Much like short corners.

He's 20. Just for the sake of accuracy, not saying he should be the finished article at 20 either.

True, but I'd have thought Garrett was somebody who would have been brought on to shore it up.

LT said it seemed to take a deflection.

I wouldn't be anything else. And certainly not a Brum fan.

Annnnnnd breathe

It's insane that I follow a club where, at 3-0 up, I still didn't feel entirely comfortable the points were secured. And that I'm now predictably biting my nails with 5 mins of normal time remaining.

I'm unable to watch, but the stats imply we haven't learnt our lessons (winning away when we counter attack, losing at home when we try to control possession). 72% possession for us, yielding one shot on and one shot off target, to Brum's 2 on target, 3 off.

The average age of that bench must be crazily low.

Let's hope we're saying that at the end of the evening too.

Still not seen it described as a concussion yet.

Bad enough they took Phillips. They'd better be made to pay top dollar this time if they want him. But that's not their M.O.

(Moving this from the match thread where it would probably have sidetracked the discussion too much...I'm sure people are going to have a go at me, but here goes anyway) Wow, wasn't expecting that just yet. Still had a year and a half left, with a one year extension in our favour I think? I see it's basically 1 year longer now. Honestly, not entirely sure we needed to do that. With the existing deal, we could have kept him til age 30 (almost 31) before risking losing him on a free. Now we definitely will have him at that age if we don't sell, with an option for one year longer. With his age, and the physical intensity of his play (and the importance of it to his game), there's every danger he's nothing like the same player at that point. I love the player he is right now, and have no issue with having him contracted that long in principle. But my concern is it's probably come with a big pay rise too given he's now the league's top scorer. Not that his excellent performances haven't kinda deserved it (within the weird financial world that is football, where everyone earns more than they should already), more that we are really struggling to cut our own cloth these days, and it could be the difference between getting another player (or getting a good one rather than a crap/average one). I wonder if we might end up in a Bradley Dack kind of situation when deciding whether to use the one year option, where the player is no longer as good as he was when the terms were agreed, and is ageing, on wages we can no longer afford relative to what we're getting for them. Dack incidentally is only a year older, although the two serious ligament injuries make him equivalent to another 2-3 years physically perhaps. I know somebody is going to drag me for being negative or whatever, but I'm just thinking practically. Fantastic that he's willing to commit for longer though and I hope he keeps playing to these standards for the whole contract and proves my worry unfounded. It also might prove academic if we end up selling him in the summer say, in which case it would have only strengthened our bargaining position. So I'm not saying it's necessarily a bad idea. After all, so far he is our player of the season, and we've certainly come unstuck by not safeguarding contracts enough before. And maybe the pay rise isn't as big as I'm thinking.

Edit - I've put it in the Sammie Szmodics thread instead, to avoid derailing this one.

Scott Wharton ruled out. Shame, I was hoping that goal would renew his confidence and performances, was a belting header. Hopefully he still kicks on when he's back. Szmodics and Travis will get a one match suspension if they pick up a yellow. Could do without that, especially for Sammie.

He chose other clubs over Manure twice, but sadly he never told Fergie to fuck off. I think I'm right in remembering that some poor followup from Manure, dawdling on pulling the trigger, is part of why he ended up here. Then he was all set to sign for them from us until his boyhood club came in. Jack Walker quite possibly wasn't going to let it happen anyway, but according to Martin Edwards a contract was already agreed and Shearer was happy to go there. He deserves to be lauded as a legend here for many reasons, but his refusals of Manure's advances are frequently overstated.

Yeh that's what I was getting at.

We did, we had Patrick Gamble on the bench. At the time he got the knock we were only one up, so I admit it would have been a gamble (eyyy) at that time, but after the 2nd or even 3rd goal, surely he would have been brought on for Carter if we had any doubt about Carter's knock. Even a few minutes of being taken off can make a difference.

If we made 3 of our subs after Carter took his knock, and after we went 3-nil up, and he wasn't one of them, I'm going to assume he will be playing on Wednesday.

This seems to have been handled shambolically by the club as many things have been lately. Apologies if I've missed it, but I don't think they sent an email about this? I saw a post on FB about it from the club account, but that's not going to reach everyone. They would have saved themselves and a lot of fans a lot of hassle by just sending a mass email to everyone explaining what was happening and how to sort it.

I was referring to Carter btw, with that first part about him staying on, and asking if we had made our 5 subs at the time he got injured.

We could do to rotate occasionally though, think not doing could be why we pick up so many injuries. It's a thin squad, so options are limited, but I feel like Garrett has done enough this season to warrant some starts. Great exploits in the cup, uncompromising tackler, lovely assist for the third on Saturday and what I like to call a semi-assist for the second. Causes problems for opposition at both ends. I know he may need to work on his decision-making at times, but that's what senior games can do. I see he came on for Dolan, where did he play?

Thanks, I didn't get to see the game, ironically because I was working a gig 6 miles away from the stadium! So I wasn't aware that happened. He stayed on though, had we already made our 5 subs when this happened? Interesting, I knew we got one, but I didn't know the other team got an extra sub too if we used a concussion sub. I suppose he could still be concussed, and because we weren't sure if he was at the time, we didn't use the concussion sub, to avoid having to follow the full concussion protocol if it turned out he wasn't. Which I assume you still need to do even if on later inspection there are no signs of concussion, since it bought you an extra sub. Now, if it turns out we do think it was concussion, I don't know if the protocols are enforced but we would probably be careful with him anyway and maybe follow them out of a sense of duty to the player's safety.

Might be worth mentioning too that 'club-trained players' probably applies to the players who have trained at a club for 3 years between the ages of 16 and 21, which last I knew was the rule for club-grown players in European competition. This might mean players bought at 18 who were essentially Championship-ready would count, if they've been there 3 years, even if they cost a lot. I could imagine that might be the case for some players at Leeds and Boro, but I don't know. I suppose to a lesser degree, that would also include Dolan though, albeit he wasn't seen as breaking into the squad right away like he did.