Millenniumram

Even a free transfer was too expensive for Joe Ward

That’s absolutely pathetic. Knocked out of two cups to lower league opposition. Once is a mistake, twice is unacceptable.
No effort or heart on display at all. We’d better win promotion now. 

He’s s**** 

Even a free transfer was too expensive for Joe Ward

He’s s**** 

Even a free transfer was too expensive for Joe Ward

Is Vickers on spice?!! 

Think he heard me, that was much better 😂

Think he heard me, that was much better 😂

Fornah is actually a forest spy

Horrific start so far
Fornah looks like he’s 7 pints deep 

Horrific start so far
Fornah looks like he’s 7 pints deep 

You'll be fine. Everyone puts a few pounds on over Xmas. Just lay off the biscuits in January. 😉

Doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page, he must be s****. Even Mel Morris has one of them

Loach 
Bartlett Bradley Cox 
Ward Fepatu Robinson Thompson 
Weston Brown Wheeldon 

Yeah I did think Thompson’s injury came at an unfortunate time for him - he’d just broken into the team and was performing well, I think he’ll struggle to get back in now. In terms of Fornah, he hasn’t had much of a chance to start - but his performances have been so ineffective off the bench, he’s not really pushing for one. As I say, for me neither of those two are the answer - Sibley or a new player is, to bring some creativity and spark to our midfield.

The trouble is, it’s a competition that absolutely nobody outside these two divisions gives a s*** about. So the prize money is never going to be worthwhile. 
A much better idea that I’ve been pushing for years would be to combine the EFL Cup and EFL Trophy into one competition - containing all 72 EFL clubs, and excluding the Premier League teams. That way all EFL clubs get a genuine chance of winning a trophy (and hopefully there would be more interest with bigger Championship teams involved), and the Premier League teams get the reduced fixture schedule that they’ve been harping on about for years.
Whilst we’re in the competition though, why on earth would you do anything but try to win it?! It might not be a major honour, but a trophy is a trophy at the end of the day, and this club has been so starved for success in my lifetime that I’d take anything! We should have as good a chance as any team of lifting the trophy at this point.
Cup games like this provide a great chance to get minutes into squad players as well. That doesn’t mean throw our U21s out to the slaughter, it means giving players who normally start on the bench the chance to start a game - and should have more than enough to see off Bradford.

The trouble is, it’s a competition that absolutely nobody outside these two divisions gives a s*** about. So the prize money is never going to be worthwhile. 
A much better idea that I’ve been pushing for years would be to combine the EFL Cup and EFL Trophy into one competition - containing all 72 EFL clubs, and excluding the Premier League teams. That way all EFL clubs get a genuine chance of winning a trophy (and hopefully there would be more interest with bigger Championship teams involved), and the Premier League teams get the reduced fixture schedule that they’ve been harping on about for years.
Whilst we’re in the competition though, why on earth would you do anything but try to win it?! It might not be a major honour, but a trophy is a trophy at the end of the day, and this club has been so starved for success in my lifetime that I’d take anything! We should have as good a chance as any team of lifting the trophy at this point.
Cup games like this provide a great chance to get minutes into squad players as well. That doesn’t mean throw our U21s out to the slaughter, it means giving players who normally start on the bench the chance to start a game - and should have more than enough to see off Bradford.

I mean to be fair he’s been flip flopping around formations like mad this season, so there definitely have been lots of tactical changes in there. However, the style of play remains the same - a focus on athleticism over football, with runners preferred to those with technical ability.
Now, whilst I’m well known not to be a fan of this (or Warne himself for that matter), this is fine so long as it delivers results. My concern is that there remain 2 main limitations with this idea of simply “out working” the opposition:
1. You run the risk of becoming “flat track bullies” - able to batter the poorer teams in the league, but come unstuck against those who simply outplay you in possession. We saw this quite clearly last season, and there is some evidence of it this time around too - with the game against Peterborough on Monday a fine example of when we simply can’t compete with an opponent who focuses on passing the ball well. That said, the league is weaker this season so it’s not quite as evident (and it also feels like we’ve dropped more silly points this season compared with last year).
2. This is my main concern - it kind of lends itself to a pattern of starting slowly while players build up fitness, hitting form and going on a massive run mid season, the running out of steam and collapsing at the end. This is exactly what happened last season, and seems to also be pattern with Warne’s teams in general. Our squad depth is better this season, but we are still an aging team overall, so I do still worry this will come to the fore in the coming months. 
The acid test for me will be how we contend with the next couple of months. We have a run of games against quite lowly opposition which we absolutely MUST capitalise on - can we deal with the relentless winter schedule and avoid our annual New Year collapse? We really need to establish ourselves a commanding position at the summit of the table - COYR

Looked an outstanding talent in the game against Port Vale, if I’m remembering the right player, and there was a lot of hype around him. Can’t see us signing a centre mid this window though, Warne loves Hourihane too much.
The injury probably puts pay to any potential move for him anyway, very much doubt he’d pass a medical - other than maybe right at the end of the window, so guess it could be one to watch if we lose anyone in midfield.

Much of this is true, I’ll give you that. I’d still argue that his hand has been rather “forced” to play more technical players though, because they’re what he mainly inherited from Rosenior.
His recruitment has mainly been of workhorses like Washington, Waghorn, Fornah, Ward etc - which suggests to me those are the sort of players he prefers, and would build a team around them given the chance. He did even try to at the start of this season, before it became evident that it wouldn’t work, and (to his credit) he’s changed tack a bit since. 
It still feels to me though (and it is only a feeling) that he’s itching to return to his 3-5-2 workhorse team as soon as he has the players to.
 

I don’t disagree - my personal opinion is a midfield two of Bird and Hourihane is too slow, and results in our midfield being overrun by any decent team.
But I’m not convinced Warne sees it that way. And even if he did, we can’t really justify signing any more midfielders unless some leave imo. We will see on that count.

Did you not see how easily Peterborough’s midfield ran round ours? Or at Stevenage? We have to be more mobile and aggressive there.
Even yesterday there was a spell when we looked vulnerable through the middle.
We have numbers but not the variety we need. We have players that are okay but not top two.
If we’re ambitious, we’ll strengthen.

That should be the team since we don't play Burton till the following Monday. Reward Ryan Bartley (under 21 CB) with a bench spot since he's won PL2 player of the month.

Good team selection. Spot on.