Expectations for the rest of the season

Didn't he drop Dykes though? Which allowed him to use that 3 up top.

Only brought him back when injuries kicked in. And our descent duly began.

You could say we're stuck with our worst player and haven't replaced our best.

Either way we need to move the ball a bit quicker, press in an organised way, and find someone who can deliver at the sharp end.

Remind me Hal what was our most attacking three, or was one in advance of the other two? And were these attacking midfielders/ false 9s/ whatever you want to call them all scoring consistently or were the goals coming from elsewhere? For some strange reason I can't remember this (maybe its because it seems so long ago).

Good discussion Stan.

He definitely tried Ilias and Chrissy W up top + 1, with and without Dykes. Can't remember who played up there when Dykes was absent.

What's interesting about that is that CW started scoring on a regular basis and Ilias backed it up. Even Dykes got in on the act from time to time.

Our worst results under Beale was when we played Dykes on his own up top, that was after a few injuries. At which point Beale didnt have a lot of choice.

That's been a constant worry, our lack of squad depth, and it hasn't changed.


    

To be blunt none

Took me a while to figure out that typo. Was racking my brain "What the hell does he mean by parleys" 😅

If he can get us scoring goals we should be ok. Big IF.

Our customary 16th for me.
We were doomed under GA (love him, but that was a poor appointment)
The improvements in such a short time are clear to see. Plenty of time to get out of this.

Dieng, Laird and Iroegbunam were significant upgrades on the likes of Begovic, Cannon and Colback imo.

Roberts and Balogun were obviously very injury prone but were all far better footballers than either Cook, Fox or Smyth for me too.

The January window will determine our final league position and it seems highly likely that Marti will be un-prepared for what dross Belk and co come up with.

Compare the quality of leagues that Roberts and Smyth have played most of their careers is a huge clue of both talents, Smyth is a headless chicken and is more likely league 2.

Cannon has played in 3 games and has yet to show any of Laird obvious qualities, remind me how many clubs did we fight off to sign him?

paal started off pretty slowly too last season but look at him now. can't judge a player from 3 games unless its jan mlakar.

tbh i rate begovic as a shot stopper and commander far more than i do with dieng. dieng would suit the team more than begovic due to his ability with the ball at his feet but i don't see dieng leaving as a huge blow. he had declined over the past year and a half or so for us.

cook is an upgrade on balogun for sure imo. cook is an all round better player than balogun and has had a far better career than he has too.
roberts was always injured and off the top of my head had maybe 2 games at most where i was impressed with him.

imo the whole team is and was rotten really. we largely have much of the same players and of the players we lost iro is the only one i'd love to have back in the team.
not saying that the players we have here now are better, christ no, but they're not really any worse given the shit we went through last year.

we certainly need to bring in some new players like a fucking striker if we're to have any guarantee of staying up.
as a whole though we do have a much better team on paper than the table suggests, chair, willock, dunne, JCS, paal and field at least are good enough on their day to get into most sides in the league. dozzell deserves a mention too as he's stepped it up and finally looks like a championship player.

Ground is generally heavy this time of year.

Relegation. Nailed on.

Tell us you know how shit these bastards are, Marti.

Going down if we don’t bring in a couple.