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Exactly, our best bet is to control games as we did v WBA, Hull and Sunderland. Looking at the team sheet, it looks like 5-3-2 with Sakamoto WB.

There’s also a risk you get penned in as we had Sheff W and Blackburn (1st half) so it’s not a perfect solution. But it also hinges on you having your best players in their best positions and having some who has played a handful of games at RWB and no minutes since Feb (?) isn’t a good idea.

So 4-2-3-1 with extra steps?

This is getting silly now! 😂 The sooner people pushing 5-3-2 accept the personnel for that system isn’t available, the better.

He’s had some good games as well as some average/poor games. Asking him to play that position after a significant spell on the sidelines is just not a sensible idea. Whichever you try to sell it. After Wright and Rudoni, Sakamoto has 9 goal contributions… which is the most in the team...

Exactly, so why bother playing 5-3-2 in the first place when your RWB is not in their natural position and you take off a top goal contributor to facilitate that. Square pegs in round holes and all that. It isn’t worth the experiment at this stage of the season in a game this important.

Who’s playing CBs? If you’re playing 5-3-2 that’s Lati, Binks and Kitching with no senior CB on the bench.

Lati is supposed to be a RB and CB. I touched on it in preseason, it’s fine that he can cover both positions until we have MVE and a CB injured… 5-3-2 just isn’t viable and playing Eccles and Burroughs over Sakamoto shouldn’t appeal to anyone.

Or just play 4-2-3-1…

Is he fit to play 90 minutes? If not, it’s not viable because there isn’t a sub to bring on.

Unless Sakamoto plays WB, we don’t actually have the personnel available to play that formation…

The club have a one year extension they can trigger that’s in our favour. So we can be relaxed about his contract situation until Jan/June 2026.

He’s effectively contracted till 2027 so there’s no rush to make a decision this off-season. Next season is a different story and if we’re still a Championship club and he is in good form, we’ll have to cash in.

Comparing the narratives around Sakamoto and Simms, you wouldn’t have thought Simms has the same amount of goal contributions in less minutes. 9 goal contributions for a winger isn’t amazing (certainly not top end) and there are games where he is ineffectual. A brilliant role player and...

Comparing them is apples and pears. Sheaf was a top performer in his categories last season as was Grimes and going into next season, both players will complement the other very well imo. The reason I used Grimes as a benchmark was because he’s slightly older and cost £4m so Sheaf is worth...

Kyprianou, yes. Poku, no. Sakamoto is a nice player, but we need better regardless of what league we’re in because the goals and assists from all our forwards could be better, barring Haji.

Grimes was older and we signed him for £4m, you’ve definitely undervalued Sheaf here. Sheaf won’t leave this summer imo, the window of opportunity for him and us to maximise his value has been and gone. A Premiership almost definitely won’t move for Sheaf this offseason so what’s the point in...

It hasn’t been done for a while but if you look at this season, our form is identical to Sheffield United and Sunderland are below us and Bristol in the 2nd half of the season. In short, Sheff U are trending downwards at the wrong time (compare to Luton in 22/23) and Sunderland’s rapid start has...

The rumour is that there’s strong interest in Eccles and assuming he’s 3rd or 4th choice, there may be a temptation to cash in on him and take the profit for FFP purposes down the line.

As lucky as we’ve been with stoppage time winners, there does seem to have been a run of bad decisions against us, to name a few: - Plymouth red card not given - Derby’s second being out of play - PNE’s goal being offside - Stoke’s goal being offside - a couple of stonewall penalties not been...