Bruce

Given that Engel can't defend and Jones was successfully reinvented as a wingback, then Jones at wingback and Forss up top with Latte Lath feels like it puts two of our best players in their best positions while allowing Engel to focus on what he is best at.

Sometimes you get a stroke of luck when you need it. At that point you thank your lucky stars, take advantage of and move on. We got lucky but crucially, we took advantage of it. As the game went on you could see us grow in confidence and start to play the type of football you know that Carrick wants us to. It may not have solved anything. The players who aren't good enough still aren't good enough but with a little confidence they'll see us through to the end of the season. Something I did go and take a look at is where O'Brien played at Huddersfield under Corberan. The answer was

If true, it's around about what I would go with. Hard to tell whether McGree is dropping into a midfield three or playing further forward. Hard on Azaz who has looked our only really creative force. Zero pace out wide and no way that Ayling & Engel can cross the half way line and be expected to get back to cover in time. Also, no one to hold onto the ball up front. Real risk that it just bounces straight back every time it goes forward. For all that I think it's a reasonable selection, you can see that there are multiple, unsolvable problems.

I thought we might sneak into the playoffs if we had a good start but it always seemed like we would be taking a couple of steps back this year. Really didn't expect it to go this badly. To be honest, your lot did better than I expected for longer than I expected. Your summer window was a disaster but somehow Mowbray kept them defying gravity. Maybe the plan is for your board to spend big next season.

True but I'm not sure we really had a chance. I used to think we could afford to hold onto Chuba but looking at the accounts and given that when Ajax made a firm offer Chuba really had to go for it, it was probably never happening. It *could* have worked. Thinking back to the start of the season Greenwood and Rogers felt like they could be top class Championship #10s. Greenwood had played at a higher level. Rogers was more of punt and was one of those odd players where you didn't really know what his best position was. Latte Lath, Bangura and Silvera all have pace to burn. Latte

Started 9 games under Carrick. Sent off twice, conceded a penalty, substituted once at half-time for being atrocious and it takes a lot to make Carrick act that early.

Mixed to say the least. Payero looks to be back out of the team. Feels a bit like their version of Barlaser. He definitely wasn't suitable for the Championship nor did he show any signs of being so. Not sure that a £10m rated striker in Strand-Larsen counts as data driven. He's having a good second season at Celta Vigo. Muniz is having his first good spell. He's a likable player so I hope it continues but it's not nailed on. He wasn't bad for us and Carrick's refusal to play him even when he could was strange. We've had some oddities recently. You look at Payero, Sporar, Balogun

I think if, after Easter we are in serious relegation trouble, e.g. 3 points or less off the relegation zone, Gibson acts. I don't see that happening. We're on a horrendous run but I think we will pull out of it in time.

This is interesting. Right now there must be a good 30 English clubs outside the top 6 who are all fishing in the same water and trying to do the same thing: find overlooked players who can improve a team and be sold in 2 years for a hefty profit, rinse and repeat. These days there is so much data available that there are no secrets out there. Instead it comes down to how good you are at extracting a signal from the noise. The premier league clubs can afford to spend a LOT more on analysis. Leads to the obvious question of what is our secret sauce when it comes to analysis. The obvious an

How excited are you for the game? More dreading than excited. What would your team and formation be? Carrick doesn't have a lot of options to change things around. People do keep saying that we won when we went 3 at the back and defensive against Villa, Chelsea and Leicester. Unpopular opinion but we were *very* lucky against Leicester and Chelsea. I think the only really good, strong defensive match was against Villa but 4 of those starting players (Jones, Bangura, Coburn, Hackney) are injured while one (Rogers) has been sold. For all that I am sceptical about Carrick's ability

And Gibson put his money where his mouth is. The problem is that he gave the keys to the treasure chest to Monk who completely blew it then appointed possibly the worst option to manage a squad of attacking, flair players in Pulis. Gibson's problem, and this is true ever since he appointed Southgate is that his decision making has been awful. Even when he got it right for a while, under Mowbray then AK he then blew it. Gibson has great intentions and with things like the academy he has done a lot of good for kids growing up around the area who want a chance to get into football. Th

Exactly this. If you play rush goalie, you concede more goals than if you don't regardless of how good your defenders are. Carrick has set us up to play a certain way which is fine when it works: some of the football last season was breathtaking. But it's awful when it doesn't work. For it to work you need forwards that are a class above the defenders they will face and can hold onto the ball under pressure. You need central midfielders who can break a press and are savvy enough to snuff out a counter when it starts. You need pace out wide and a massive goal threat from multiple aven

From Burnley vs Bournemouth. Sounds familiar.

I don't think so. Akpom scores goals for Ajax whenever they let him play. Giles looks to have picked up where he left off at Hull. I agree that Carrick's system makes attacking players look better I the same way that AK's system makes defenders look better. I think Giles is a classic case of too good for the Championship but not good enough for the Premier. Akpom is caught in limbo. Archer is good enough for the Premier but playing in the wrong team. Ramsey is made of glass. Personally, I think the attacking 4231/325 that De Zerbi pioneered and Carrick copied has been rumble

Wednesday was a worse first half and some individually worse performances but at least we turned it around, partially, in the second half. Yesterday there was nothing positive anywhere across the board. I'm not ready to make that judgement yet. It does feel like Woodgate: a manager who has an ideal image in his head of what he wants who doesn't know how to get there. I think last season led us down the garden path. Because we had Akpom playing at a Champions League level and Giles who was on his wavelength we were playing on cheat mode. When we had to get real at the end of the season,

Thing is, the team wasn't horrendous. The problem was that Wilder was poisoning the club. The second he was out of the door, things started to improve. Then Carrick got Akpom back fully fit for his first match of the season and the rest is history. Carrick's first team was Steffen Smith - Fry - Lenihan - Giles Howson - Hackney Jones - Akpom - McGree Muniz He swapped in Forss for Muniz after 70 minutes then stuck with them. Right now, Carrick isn't the problem. The club and players are still united around him. The problem is the same one that Woodgate had; Car

Taken as a complete package, that was the worst match of the season. We've had worse performances, worse results, made worse mistakes, had worse individual performances by a player, picked worse starting teams, worse tactics, made worse substitutes. But yesterday was a solid 0/10 across the board. There isn't a way forward from yesterday that doesn't start with change. There's no way to look at the performances this season and say that it will come good if we just keep on improving on what we're currently doing. Usually the change is the manager. I don't think that makes sense at thi

👆🏻This. We have lost the ability to play out from the back and forgotten what the point of it is. This is a failure of coaching leading to players having to make it up as they go along.

Carrick needs to put his 4-2-3-1, possession-based, attacking football in the bin and come up with a system that suits the players. It hasn't worked since the end of last season, it's not going to work this season and it probably won't work next season. It doesn't mean 4-5-1 Pulisball, it just means that we have a collection of decent players who are unable to play the way Carrick wants them to. I don't get the impression that they have given up on Carrick, they're still trying, but their confidence is shot.

I presume Azaz is injured, if so. Dropping him for Greenwood would be mad.

I guess Carrick will go one of two ways. He could be determined that his system works. To be fair, our away record is very good. Or he could decide that he needs to change the system. I'm guessing the former. In that case, assuming that Dieng either is off the naughty step or never was on itm, I reckon it will be Dieng Ayling - McNair - Clarke - Thomas Barlaser - O'Brien Forss - Azaz - McGree Silvera This is assuming that Latte Lath isn't quite fit enough to start and Forss isn't allowed to play in the middle. I think we want to give Thomas a run of games to

Of course it's PR but doesn't mean it's also not largely true. Let's face it, if McGree was agitating for an exit and refusing to negotiate then his agent would be on the phone to a tame journo the moment he saw the piece. So yes, every reason to suspect that the piece is broadly accurate. Not every deal may get done. Personally, I think we'll see Hackney and RVDB stay and Carrick sign a new contract. I think Jones will sign an extension. I think we had been planning on selling McGree but the Rogers' and Crooks' sales have changed things. I think there'll be a lot out the door

That's the thing, and it's definitely how Gibson operates when he agrees to increase the funding. The problem we have at the moment is that we don't know if we have the foundations for a good team next season or not because this season has been so disrupted by injuries. Depending on whether you're a glass half-full type or not, we're either a couple of quality signings away or heading for league one. For example, O'Brien. One of the best midfielders in the league two years ago. In the next 12 games he might stay fit, get back to where he was and we might be able to get him off Forest for

That might seem like the case but, look at the actual numbers. We're 17th in the Home form table with 20 goals conceded. Our goals conceded, however, are relatively low. We're 9th in the table for goals conceded but only two teams in the league have scored fewer goals at home than us. Our massive weakness is an inability to score goals at home. Even worse when you realise that 4 of those goals came in one match against Preston. That leaves 13 goals in the other 16 home matches. Look at the away form and we're 7th in the away table. We've scored close to double the nu