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Not really the same is it? Our goal was poor defending from your defender whereas your winner at our place was from an unforced error. MVE’s back pass was should have been routine but was underpowered which left the GK in no man’s land. Credit to your players for chasing the ball and punishing...

The same was said about Haji Wright and when he’s fully fit and firing, he’s a league leading player in his positions.

Seems like a storm in a teapot to be honest because it only impacts about 6k supports split roughly evenly between the away supporters and Cov walk ups. I have a bit more empathy for away supporters because they don’t get to choose to get a ST or not. Our ST prices remain v cheap, and that’s...

You might want to keep them. Would they be willing to stay if they were pushed further down the pecking order? It’s apparent that both players want to be starters. How do you improve the CM / CB positions without letting players go? I’m relaxed about changing the CM department as long as we...

Both Eccles and Lati have played outside their primary position a handful of times over the last 2 seasons. Eccles is a solid player who’d start for every team outside the Top 8 comfortably. On Lati, it’s telling that he started off first choice for Robins and Lampard to end up losing that...

In practice, Lati has played almost exclusively as a CB last season. I don’t think he It’s the same with Eccles, he’s filled in admirably a few times at RWB, AM and RM but is not a specialist in any of those positions.

Why did the tie go to extra time in the first place? We gifted you a goal at our own place and you took the win to 2nd leg. It’s the defence that is in need of improving and whether or not that’s tactical, personnel or a bit of both… it’s something that’s holding us back. Having that solid...

Brau has filled in at LW for 2 halves in preseason, it’s probably not going to be a permanent thing. Considering we have 3 wingers on the books, we can’t field 2 sets of wingers for a first and second half eleven.

He filled in at LWB for a 14 game stretch last season and a handful of games throughout his career. He’s a young player who is perhaps building versatility, but more likely there was a need for him to fill in there. Given the noise around MVE in Jan and his suspiciously timed change in...

For Haji, if he takes longer on the recover and comes back with a bang, he’ll make the squad. If he comes back not quite fit and he ambles around as he did in the playoffs… he won’t. Quality of games is key imo.

Agreed. Difficult to get to, nothing much to do pre-match and it’s a soulless bowl. Oxford is probably the runner up. Watford serves no booze which is a gripe but tbh, I don’t tend to drink at the games. The location is great and there’s a lot of amenities so is a good away day!

We need more goals, not less. It would be v surprising to see Brau play LW come the start of the season. Brau playing LW is v much in the same vein Howley played CB for a few preseason games in 2023 before we signed the CBs.

It’s possible. Torp is a £2m signing and hasn’t ever been considered a first choice yet in 1.5 seasons. We also spent 2.5m on Bassette. On top of £7.7m for Wright and £3m initial for Simms. We’ve spent £15-16m on strikers and we’ve predominantly played a formation with 1 striker. Before...

Frankly, I don’t know anything about Pereira and his style of play so have no idea where he fits in. With Torp and Sheaf, they almost definitely will miss a portion of the season so there is a real need to have 4-5 options at CM. I don’t think we’ll sell Sheaf and there’s supposedly...

Squad harmony is a consideration that’s being overlooked here. How many minutes will a 5th choice CM actually make? Particularly when Grimes has barely missed a game in 5-6 seasons. Eccles is too good to be a 5th choice but not good enough to start with the options we have. If there’s concrete...

The bench was far too weak for forward players. BTA is not a winger. The way we play, you need 4-5 wingers capable of making an impact. We have 2.

It would be a Lampard signing… he will always have the final say on any signing. Its like on Football Manager when a scouts gives you a long list of duds and you pick out the gems, it wasn’t ’head scout X’ who made the signing! They identify talent and analytics people and manager will make an...

What did that table look post-Lampard? A general trend was that we created a slightly higher xG under Robins but under Lampard, the xG was lower but the ‘per shot xG’ was slightly higher. Which means we created less chances post-Robins but they were better quality.

Yes because not only have we just renewed Allen’s contract, why would Eccles want to be 4-5th choice when he can be a starter elsewhere? With Allen, he isn’t going to be a starter at many championship clubs (if any) so will be happy being a bit part player for us. If someone wanted to buy...

Is Haji Wright not a top striker?! For me, it’s out wide that we need more goals and assists. EMC needs to have a 10+ goal season and Sakamoto needs close to 10 assists (or improve his goal scoring) if he is going to be the starting RW. Saka scored 4 goals with an xG of 3.11 last season which...