Howay

Being linked to Scott Hogan now, the Brentford manager says he wants over 15m for him. Again as with the Callum Wilson link I'm not that arsed with the link, Rafa clearly likes 1 up top so I'm not too convinced that he'd go out and spend 15m getting a less prolific forward as backup when we have other needs (unless peoples assumptions about Mitro leaving are true). I'm still hoping for central midfielders, wingers, or an attacking midfielder, to increase the creativity in the side and give us options for when teams look to stifle (so basically every game now).

I don't know if he was mentioned earlier but it seems Axel Witsel is the latest to move to China, moving when his Zenit contract expires at the end of the season. £15.3m a year apparently, definitely don't blame him as he moved to Russia for a big pay day so he's just doing a more extreme version, going to be a hell of a lot wealthier than his far more talented Belgian teammates.

:lol: They've completely done you there!

It'll take a few years to get to a position where you can probably buy him but if anyone needs a CB Niklas Sule from Hoffenheim is unbelievable on this, he rarely makes any errors and has made my defence solid. Obviously he's not a hidden gem or owt I'm just highlighting him as he's one of those players you can splurge on that live up to the price tag. Ante Coric has finally broken into my team season 3 and he's quality, I think he was around 13m when I got him so if he's not moved to a top side by the time you get Newcastle promoted he's a good target for the AMC role if you need it.

I mentioned earlier that we generally win when we score first but lose when we concede first, if that's the post you're thinking of. I was making the point that getting plenty of goals isn't the problem for them it's getting the initial goal as when we get that teams open up and we (usually) go on to win by 2 or more, however if we concede teams sit deep or even deeper than they were and we can struggle. The problem we're facing is teams aren't playing us how they're playing each other (understandable mind) they're sitting deep and playing on the counter, even the higher sides are doing this, that's why I'd like to see us bring in some more creative players in this window to give us different options when we're hitting a wall in games.

Think we'll beat these 3-0, I don't think Zola is a good enough manager to figure out a way to set his side up to frustrate one with the best striker in the league. I'm not that arsed about winning this anyway as the better sides take the FA cup seriously so it's not one I see us having any chance winning currently.

The sticking point for us is that first goal, teams are setting up to spoil against us. When we score first we generally go on to win, usually by a couple of goals as the other team is forced to open up a bit more to chase the game. We've generally lost every game we didn't get the first goal and won every game in which we did (aside from the Notts Forest aberration and our only draw), our main issue imo is creating chances against teams looking to spoil and it's no shock at all that we've seen poor results and games in the matches Shelvey has missed over the xmas period. If we had scored first half against Blackburn we'd have went on to win by a healthy margin like we did against Forest, as naturally when our opponents open up a little we create more regular good scoring chances. That's why I think we'll go up as like Dickie says we're the best side in the league, the issue is trying to make sure we have more outlets and more options for creating good scoring chances against sides looking to stifle. We got a lot of shots today but we didn't really create many proper goal scoring chances and the keeper done a good job against the 3 he really faced. If teams played us like they played Reading and Brighton the table would look very different as games like today and Sheff Wed would have been comfortable wins. It's the problem Guardiola was moaning about in regards to Man City, you plan for a team to play a certain way and then they throw that right out the window put 10 men behind the ball and look to counter, of course it's Rafa and the teams responsibility to figure out how to break teams down and without Shelvey's creativity they've become fairly predictable, I don't blame sides for playing this way against us.

Still bitter as fuck that Colback left them mind.

Ritchie and Gouff tied on 4 in the league so it's not much better. Impressive that Mitro has 3 in the league considering his total lack of involvement (3 goals and 2 assists in 455 minutes).

I agree, I know the lad has doubters but he managed 8 in the Premier League at 21 year old in his first season abroad so surely he could be a threat in a lesser division which arguably suits a big man more. As I say I like Gayle and he deserves to start but I don't see any harm in playing Mitrovic at times or bringing him on when we're hitting a brick wall (like at half time today or half time against Wednesday).

Another positive is we're in a good place in the table with very easily identifiable areas to improve, if we can bring in a few players that can create chances or finish moves themselves we'll be comfortably promoted.

I think it's a fairly deceiving stat though, most of those shots were just hit and hopes from outside the box. We really only created 4 or so proper chances. I do think we need more scorers mind, someone (I think it was Trooper) mentioned the other day that Gouffran is our 2nd highest scorer with 4 after Gayle, it's not great really.

Aye, as SEW and others have mentioned in the past the disinterest in playing Mitro is odd. I understand that Gayle is doing well and I'm not saying Rafa should drop Gayle in favour of Mitro but he offers something different in a game we're hitting a brick wall in. Instead all we see is Perez come on against a defence that has successfully been defending against Gayle who is a fairly similar sort of threat to Perez and then Perez doesn't do anything. Lazaar has appeared once, if he's so shite that he genuinely looks far worse than Dummett then why the fuck did we buy him? It surely can't be that hard to improve on a player like Dummett. As you say surely he offers something different but we simply set up the same way every week with basically 3-4 positions that will rotate (usually 2 out of Gouff, Ritchie, Atsu, one out of Anita, Yedlin, and one out of Perez, Diame) the rest start every game.

Aye he had a run at the start of the season as teams were a little more open against us (I think they saw weakness after the opening two losses) but recently teams have just been happy to sit deep and if we don't catch them early we soon run out of ideas. The over reliance on Shelvey is really worrying especially as he can go missing himself. Teams are comfortable just sitting deep against us which completely nullifies what Gayle wants to do and the worrying thing is Rafa isn't doing anything to change that up or try and get people into different areas, he's even saying how we were doing all the right things against Blackburn. I'm not pissing my pants about promotion but seven losses in just over half a season isn't good at all especially when many are under fairly consistent circumstances, Forest even tried the same thing Wednesday and Blackburn have done we just caught them early. We need a winger and a creative attacking midfielder as Diame and Gouffran don't offer enough on any consistent basis.

The Forest game was that for me as we deserved to win just got fucked over by the ref. I'm not sure why Rafa is so confused mind, they set up the same way Sheffield Wednesday did. It reminded me a lot of Swansea a few seasons back when we beat them 2-0 (or 2-1), they had all the ball but didn't really create an awful lot of clear cut chances and we clipped them on the break. For all our possession we only really created 2 proper chances for Gayle, and one for Ritchie (iirc), the Diame chance was out of nothing and would have been a spectacular goal if it had went in.. The Blackburn defence generally looked calm under pressure as we never stretched them with our passing or overloaded a flank or did anything through the middle, meanwhile anytime Blackburn went forward our lot looked panicky, Colback gave away a corner when he should have put it out for a throw and then conceded a free kick in a ridiculous position. Both in similar fashion to Anita gifting the Wednesday winger 30 yards which led to a corner, them getting 3 headers in our box before putting it in.

I think there's definitely a degree of complacency that has crept in recently, we had a decent gap at the top but now we're looking like we'll be 5 points behind. Carrying a load of players that are either too shit to do anything or are putting in pedestrian performances, like Quiff said there's no one in the side that is stepping up and taking the game by the scruff of the neck when we need it. Teams are just looking to sit back and catch us on the break and our lot are often playing like we're 3-0 up at 0-0 just calmly passing back and forth across the midfield which suits the opposition all day, then when the ball breaks and they attack you can put your money on a foul being committed in a dangerous area as our panicking back line struggle to stop 2 attackers between the 4 or 5 of them.

In 14 appearances in the league this season Colback has managed 0 goals, 0 assists, 2 shots, 1 on target, committed 21 fouls, 6 yellow cards, 87% pass completion rate from an average of 37 passes per game. SHITE.

That's always a positive.

Aye if the right player is available we could buy but I'm sure we could get a loan for a decent CM. I'd like to see us get Loftus-Cheek and another one from the bunch mentioned on loan, I really think we need a winger now as well, if Rafa doesn't think Atsu is a starter (plus we lose him to AFCoN anyway) we need a creative winger asap as Gouffran is dropping off his early season spell of being a football player.

Aye, the cup counts as well right? so at least it's only 1 more League game.

It's hard to disagree mind, for all the money we've spent we're generally seeing the worst players from the last few seasons still playing. I absolutely refuse to believe that Gamez, Lazaar, and Yedlin (100% know in the latters case) are worse than Dummett and Anita and if they're not 'match fit' or 'adjusted' 6 months into being here (again the latter played a full Premier League season last season) what the fuck is going on? If there is absolutely nothing in our reserves or youth better than Jack Colback we may as well scrap the academy. I don't understand the Murphy signing now at all, I first thought he was going to play Mitro and had Murphy as a backup big man but he clearly doesn't like that type of forward at all. Hayden could turn out to be okay, Clark is looking as bad as we feared recently (he seems as terrified as Lascelles and is just as big a tart in the air) and there's no way he'd make the step up to the PL.

That's about the best reasoning I've heard on the matter, but I still come back to the fact that surely it would be the first place you'd look to improve I mean even in those struggling sides all the fans picked him out as either the worst or one of the worst performers, it's not like one of those things where he was one of the better performers on shite sides so looked better than he was. Like we got that Saivet lad, identified he was dogshit in about 4 games and had him out the door yet we're still seeing Jack Colback feature in the first team for coming up on 80 appearances now.

Agreed, we need to focus on automatic promotion and our lot looked toothless enough (with Shelvey) against one of the worst PL sides so I struggle to imagine they'd do much against one of the higher sides that will be taking the FA cup seriously.

Agreed, we're carrying far too many players in this side. Honestly the only ones worth owt that play regularly are Shelvey, Ritchie and Gayle, the rest are either looking around hoping someone else does something, benefiting from those three doing something or being a liability. I don't include Hayden as he looks raw and really only seems to perform alongside Shelvey, although I'm sure most would find playing alongside Colback challenging. I can't stomach watching Anita anymore either, we've seen him for years and he's another one that isn't good at anything, after him helping Sheff Wed out massively the other week I think Yedlin is better than him defensively as well.