DakotaVilla

I’d play Kodija instead of Adomah/Greene and give him license to stay up the pitch as much as possible. id play Whelan instead of Conor to compensate for some defensive cover. No way west Brom will be able to handle Tammy, Jack, McGinn, El Ghazi and Kodj.

My point was that they picked their current fully fit XI - they didn’t rest anyone and don’t have a raft of players coming back from injury either. Would not be surprised in the least if Boro or Derby do them.

That was Leeds’ best team, in their own back yard, and they looked rattled on and off the pitch. More injuries and surely a suspension for their only fit striker (Bamford) as well. They are going at 100mph and as soon as the pressure is back on that is going to blow up in their face ..... just like their promotion push. We on the other hand rested Whelan and Tammy and have far more squad depth to handle any injuries and suspensions that may come during the semis. Even jack was only at 50%. I’m far more worried about taking on the baggies with the second leg at their place than taking on dirty Leeds again.

West Brom play derby away on the last day of the season. Derby will have to win that game to make the playoffs offs. You have to assume that derby will win or draw that game. if that happens and we win our two remaining games we leapfrog baggies. As well as building more confidence by beating Leeds and Norwich this means we play baggies at home in the second leg of the play offs - I’d be far more confident of our chances in that scenario. Players now have a week off. They have a further week off after that. Then another week off before the semis. Then another week and a half to prepare for the final. As rest is not an issue we should play our strongest team and go to win every game.

Purslow wrote the rules didn’t he? Not much to see this year I doubt. if we don’t go up then I’d expect to see some sales or creative accounting. Sounds like Steve Gibson needs a better advisor.

Derby’s game in hand isn’t until the penultimate week of the season. We could be out of sight by then.

A fraud of a footballer who always looks and plays) like he’s just smoked a lot of weed. Looks like he gave up trying a long time ago.

The comment was about being hard to beat not whether we drew games. The facts show that we are incredibly difficult to beat. sort out the defence - as you have correctly stated - and we’ll be hard to stop.

First team left back First team defensive midfielder Cover for Jack If we achieve this and keep Tammy it will have been our best window in a long, Long time.

The choice was ultimately Tammy’s to envoke the loan recall - if he wanted to go to Wolves. Most players would have gone to play in the premiership. Clearly, a number of people at the club have been in Tammy’s ear about why he is better served by staying with us. Smith, Terry, other coaches, players etc and maybe even the owners. Everyone involved deserves immense credit for convincing him to stay. Even if they didn’t directly intervene, the owners deserve a lot of credit for creating an environment that facilitated that.

Linked with Allardyce and Moyes - yes please! Either will gut them within two years.

More to the point it’s not as if ten/twenty million is going to make a meaningful difference to the wealth that both owners already have. its not like Xia who, comparatively speaking, didn’t have a pot to piss in.

He might need some help picking a front gate for his new pad in Sheffield.

None of them were gainfully employed - because of how poor they were - within a sufficiently short time period or with a decent enough budget to do so. I doubt Bruce will resist the temptation to go with his old formula and I’m sure that he’ll be knocking on an open door. Even if he just takes one or two off us it will help free up some space/Budget.

Apparently it’s because he wants to watch Cricket in Barbados. You could not make it up!

Time for Steve to get busy and buy back some of the rubbish he bought here.

Great to see Bruce get the Wednesday job. Surely he’ll be active in lining up deals for some of his former players. Hopefully it will accelerate the exit door for the likes of Elmo, BB, jedinak and Lansbury. May also mean bids for the likes of Hutton , Albert and Kodj. Should free up some funds and space for Smith to make some bigger moves in the window.

18m is nothing for him. We just match Wolves offer pending promotion and then back date his contract to ensure FFP compliance. if we don’t get promoted Chelsea probably have an even more valuable asset and Tammy could probably have his pick of more teams in the premiership come the summer.

You can’t coach Hutton to be a left back because he’s not a left back. so basically you’re saying he should play anti Football ala Bruce until he has the players to play his preferred style? Google Gary Neville’s comments about Arsenal’s new manager after they lost at Chelsea earlier this season. Basically, he said that the minute a manager starts adapting his philosophy to the players he is finished. Going to take a while to fix the significant short term focussed damage that Bruce and Xia did to the club. It’s as simple as that.

Defenders - at least we had covering defenders last year. A blind person could see that we have had a serious downgrade in this department so far. midfielder - at least we had some cover for Jack last season. Bolaise and El Ghazi - were totally unfit/unproven before they started hence the inconsistency. The rest of the midfield - Bruce essentially used them as a second line of defence hoping for some miraculous attacking play from Jack or Snodgrass. The fact that none of them (Jedinak, Whelan, Hourihane, Bjarneson) can pass a ball and don’t have the athleticism to get past a man or move into space is hardly smiths fault. At best the only one that will still be here in 12 months is Hourihane. Attack - agreed, that this is a serious upgrade on last year.

So, with the players available, who else should he have played in those positions? The dinner lady?

The issue was that both fullbacks were out of position at the same time. Normally when one is bombing forward the other would drop back to provide cover so that the 3 man defence can spread itself across the vacated space. i can understand why bree was out of position as the ball was on his side of the pitch and he was following the runner (in the absence of a midfield that seemed bothered to do this) but Hutton’s positioning was absolutely criminal. Only reason this idiot should get to stay in the squad post January is that he can cover (I say that very loosely) both full back positions in event of a red card or injuries.

I like Mcginn and it’s absolutely no surprise that he looks 5 x the player when Jack is next to him sharing the load. Unfortunately since Jack’s injury he’s had to do the work of Bjarneson and Hourihane which is why he is so knackered.....whilst the other two both swan around the pitch looking for set pieces to take. Whelan does the graft when he plays but is so limited going forward. A proper DCM and Jack alternative will allow us to get the best from McGinn. Hourihane can benchwarm and BB can do one.

Leicester (Maddison) and Spurs (Sissoko) say hi.

In order of importance, I think we still need: - Left back - that can defend (and attack). A poor mans Amavi would be perfect. - CDM. An agile tough tackler than can also keep possession and recycle the ball. An FFP compliant Gueye please. - CAM - An alternative for Jack the next time he gets hacked out for a period of games. Romaine Sawyers or a decent run of games for O’Hare to step up. - CB - A huge, pacey man mountain that can pass the ball would be great. Failing that the boy from Wolves would be OK as fourth choice. Outs Definite - Elmo, Jedinak, Lansbury Potentials - one of Kodjia or Hogan or anyone else that Steve Bruce is stupid enough to want and pay good money for after he gets the Wednesday job.