vonwright

We desperately need a half-competitive under 21 team for the good of all our youngsters - it's no good for anyone's development if you are getting battered every week.

I guess also this pair are on the fringe on Arsenal's U21 set-up and at the age they are, they are quite likely to become available to other clubs. So it's a good chance to have a look (not that we'd be able to pay a fee for them any time soon!)

14 minutes ago, Dan_Ram said:

Now that the window is closed, do we think that Warne will dip in to the free transfer market given his comments on not disrupting the great atmosphere in the dressing room?

I would guess not but obviously we weren't able to get a senior striker in so we may still be looking in that area. Having said that, I had a look at the free agents still out there according to Transfermarkt and there isn't one I'd take, personally. Few familiar names on there though:

Sturridge's career is an absolutely tragedy given how much promise he had.

Surprised Wisdom's been without a club for so long - has he been injured? 

48 minutes ago, B4ev6is said:

Tell you how because they are in the premiership and they have higher thrash hold on losses and been in european football if champions league or UEFA cup or now conforance league.

Yes and I think this money was loaned slowly over a number of seasons. It's pretty standard for owners to subsidise clubs with "loans" which they know full well are unlikely ever to be repaid (but they might be able to cash in if they sell the club on). Morris did the same with us, many owners have done similar. Providing the rolling three-year losses meet relevant limits, you can just keep doing it over and over again without penalty. (You will of course have the personal financial "penalty" of having pumped tens or hundreds of millions of pounds into an unprofitable club.)

What strikes me about this is that Leicester didn't just get promoted, they won the Premier League (an impossible achievement!), qualified for the Champions League, have performed well in the top flight for a number of seasons. As far as I'm aware they haven't exactly broken the bank with new signings during that time. How have they lost so much money?

Martin better than no third striker? Maybe, if he'd sign a short-term deal for very little money.

But I imagine other free agents will become available now.

17 minutes ago, jimtastic56 said:

These restrictions were are under are so disheartening. It makes you wonder if it is worth going up This season. As we would be hamstrung in the Championship and put straight into a relegation fight.

Yes and they don't really make sense other than that as a disincentive to other clubs to go into administration.

They don't make sense as a punishment (the person who did wrong is long gone), and they don't make sense as some sort of necessary precaution (Clowes is not Morris, why should he need more hand-holding than any other football club owner)?

So it's really to send a message: if you let a club go into administration it will continue to suffer even after you are gone.

56 minutes ago, inter politics said:

I think we will be left with the nubends. Scum really do have a stupid amount of players.

It's probably for another thread but it's incredible how much they have spent just to give themselves a chance of staying up. Even the worst teams in the Prem are stacked with internationals.

It seems like financial madness, but I can't help looking back to 'Earnshaw, Kenny Miller, Claude Davis, Eddie Lewis and we are set' and understand why fans are all for it. 

2 minutes ago, TuffLuff said:

If I’m being critical, based on tonight I’m not sure ‘Warneball’ suits playing higher league opposition because you aren’t positionally disciplined enough. Not that I don’t like his ideas and how he sees football, I’m just not sure it works against a better opposition

Alternatively: the same system with better (in some cases younger) players could work at a higher level very well. But with these players, against a decent Premier League team with a lot of pace and guile... it might be a struggle. 

Just now, RoyMac5 said:

You're kidding?

No, I'm really not. They are all young and have plenty of room to develop but watching that I'd say they are all going to end up playing Premier League football. 

Just now, vonwright said:

If you play a pressing game, and the other team is good enough to play through you, sometimes you are going to come unstuck. If you get players forward and the other team is fast and fit and organised enough to put pressure of your midfield and defense and steal the ball, you are going to come unstuck.

Honestly all tonight says to me is that at a lot of our players aren't cut out for the higher leagues, which we knew anyway. I don't mind that Warne didn't put everyone behind the ball. It was a cup game, a free hit, and he (and the players) will have learned something useful. 

Flip side: Knight and Cashin (and Roberts and Dobbin) didn't look at all out of place among their tens-of-millions players 

4 minutes ago, Kernow said:

They’re quicker on the ball, quicker off the ball, more technical… pretty much every area of the pitch and every area of the game, they’re superior. It’s quite clearly indicated in the league standing and the budgets of the sides.

We’ve “been poor” because we aren’t used to playing sides of this quality.

If you play a pressing game, and the other team is good enough to play through you, sometimes you are going to come unstuck. If you get players forward and the other team is fast and fit and organised enough to put pressure of your midfield and defense and steal the ball, you are going to come unstuck.

Honestly all tonight says to me is that at a lot of our players aren't cut out for the higher leagues, which we knew anyway. I don't mind that Warne didn't put everyone behind the ball. It was a cup game, a free hit, and he (and the players) will have learned something useful. 

Games like this make you realise the gulf between being a (very) good League One team and being competitive at a higher level. We've not played particularly well but they have got a lot more quality in pretty much every position. 

It's going to be a long journey back. 

1 minute ago, Millenniumram said:

Joe Cole absolutely rinsing us at half time

I don't think he was completely wrong though. He was saying we were inviting trouble by losing the ball in midfield when we had players ahead of the ball. And he's right, we did. And I think he's right that it's because we are used to playing teams that are a lot less sharp and well organised. 

For me Davies has looked a shadow of his former self and it's a shame to see him struggle. 

Collins is Collins, he's doing a job in League One but he definitely has his limitations. It's a shame we weren't able to bring in a replacement for Osula - we really could do with a dynamic striker

Warne has done really well - I'd be the first to admit much better and more flexible than I thought from what I knew about him and what I saw in the first few weeks (eg the insistence on five at the back when we couldn't play it).

Equally it was Rosenior (and Flowers) who put this squad together extremely early in the summer. That really shouldn't be forgotten. McGoldrick, Barkhuizen, NML... much better than we could have expected. 

Personally I couldn't be happier that I underestimated Warne and will always be grateful to LR. 

19 hours ago, Carl Sagan said:

So many of those Billy Davies buys. I despised them and him for breaking up such an excellent team. As well as Fagan there was Teale, McEveley, Davies, Mears, Lewis, Earnshaw, Currie. 

But for where we were at the time, Beck was (even) worse than any of them. 

Earnshaw was such a strange one. Club record fee, barely got a start, and scored what? One goal? Didn't want to be here and the manager didn't seem to want him here. 

15 minutes ago, Jimbo Ram said:

Good is he ?

He has "fallen out of favour" with Shamrock Rovers, which doesn't sound great.

(I should probably agree with the point that it would be nice to spend _some_ money & have access to more younger players, players for the future etc.)

If we don't need the cash, and if we can't spend cash, and if there is time left on his contract, and if he's happy to stay... then we'd be mad to sell him right now. His price is only going to go up, and in any case (as mentioned above) his value to the team right now is higher than anyone would pay.

2 hours ago, rammieib said:

One of my criticisms at the beginning when Warne came in is we all knew his style was direct and get the ball into the other half as fast as we can and try and win second balls and play from there. I think the team originally struggled with what that meant and how to execute it.

One of the key differences for me in this run is that Warne is allowing his defensive players to actually work the ball and pass it between us. It’s not as frequent as the LR style but it’s a definite shift from early Warne days.

We are constantly now in the 50-60% possession stat. Wildsmith gives a lot more short goal kicks and we definitely allow CF and EC more freedoms on the ball. 

I for one am really enjoying it now because it isn’t hoofball for 90 minutes. A lot of our better goals come from the passing passages of play - Hourihane header today for instance was a nice move with the EC diagonal after some passing in the defence. If you look back over the recent goals since December a lot more are worked plays. Hourihane against Accrington, McGoldrick first goal against Forest Green. All were excellent team moves.

I feel that Warne now trusts them and he’s striking the correct balance between ball retention, long balls, direct balls into Collins and playing the triangles of play to create space. There is a decent mix in there so we are not too one dimensional.

Well done Warne and his team. This is starting to get fun.

Yep it's very impressive. I think quite a lot of us were worried he might only have one (very rigid) way to play that didn't fit the players he had. Seems like he does have certain 'bottom lines' - in terms of fitness, work rare etc - but they have been good for the squad and beyond that he's much more flexible & sophisticated than people (me for example) thought.

Very happy to be wrong.

4 minutes ago, Poynton ram said:

No leaks as I suspect nothing happening. 

I tend to agree. Be interesting to know whether transfer rumours usually come via leaks from the "buying" club, rather than leaks from agents or even "selling" clubs (who have a much more vested interest in drumming up trade).

No point having an unhappy player around but part of me does think a) he'd be really useful to us just now and plug a few gaps, b) he has experience at this level, c) we were understanding about letting him go to Birmingham so he could play in the World Cup, and d) we have supported him throughout two long rehabilitations. 

The reality is that he's playing well in the Championship and won't want to come back - he will want to be playing at that level or higher from now on. But it's a shame: would playing half a season in League One really have such a negative effect on his future prospects? 

Could never figure out what Holmes was. I mean he wasn't a winger, or a number 10, or a traditional midfielder. Or at least not a convincing winger/number 10/midfielder. He'd just sort of pop up every now and again and do something that made you thing maybe he was better that you'd given him credit for. Then he'd mess up the final ball. Then he'd disappear again. 

I mean he's... okay. But I'm not sure he's better than we already have.

7 hours ago, Animal is a Ram said:

And that response was

 

One of the things I hate about modern journalism is that editors and advertisers get very excited if readers scroll down the page, because that apparently means they are 'engaged'.

So you get these overly long stories where you have to scroll past ten long pointless paragraphs of background and history and nonsense before you finally get to the response, which was all you actually wanted to read. 

And when you do it is 'I wouldn't have thought so, no'

1 hour ago, angieram said:

An additional thought on all this, Middlesbrough are surely in the same position as us here, because if Steve Gibson ever decides to walk away, they are just as insolvent as we were? 

Yeah it all feels a bit familiar. I wonder if a potential buyer might see their "external" debts as a bit more manageable (ie their HMRC bill is a fair bit lower). But any sale would require Gibson to write off a nine-figure sum (just like Morris) and the underlying economics seem to be that building a decent-but-not-promotion-worthy Championship team means losing £20m a year.

Think I'm saying this every game now but I'm going to say it again: please play four at the back. We don't have any wing backs, and in any case it isn't a formation that brings the best out of the squad that we have. I like Warne but he's being ridiculously stubborn on this point. 

What this season has taught me is that every League One side has a player who thinks he's Jack Grealish

He really likes his wing backs, doesn't he? Even when we don't have a single natural wing back on the pitch.