wilko154

Agreed and in reality a footballer should be able to play two games in a week comfortably. However in the second half on Sunday the midfield grew tired, their legs went and we were overrun resulting in us sitting deeper and deeper back. My worry is if they play both tomorrow and Saturday, instead of tiring on 70 minutes they will instead tire on 60 minutes and the pressure will be even greater. As you say though momentum and confidence could really be built up with a win and a strong performance. And if we do win without the majority of the first 11 it doesn't really help us all that much in that respect.

Agreed, I hated it at first but I'm now slowly getting used to the changes. I've found that if you play a CDM, change his role to stay back when attacking. He'll then be sat in front of the back four at all times, also don't take him past the halfway line and instead release the ball to a central midfielder. Jockeying against wingers stops them beating you or crossing the ball a lot of the time, and stops you committing yourself and getting beaten.

Against Crewe I argued the case for us to play a strong team and try to go for a decent cup run this season. However I am now firmly back in the play a second string camp. The way the season has gone so far we need to be looking ahead to Saturday's game, the cup is no longer important right now. Hopefully by January we will be in a position to give the FA Cup a good go. In saying this I think the team we put out should still be able to win the game, as no doubt Brighton will also play a weakened side. Some of our players are crying out for a rest, this showed in the last 20 minutes against Arsenal. Nakamba, Grealish and McGinn should be nowhere near this for me. The only players I would be tempted by would be Trezeguet as he has only played one game recently and Wesley who has now scored and would take some confidence with another goal.

The last two games has seen Heaton, Engels, Guilbert, Nakamba, Trezeguet/Jota & Wesley start. That's 6 new players, over half of the 11 man team. The two previous games we started with Heaton, Engels, Guilbert, Luiz, Trezeguet, Jota & Wesley start. That's 7 new players.

Strange comments. There’s no way Smith is under pressure after today. However I put him at fault for the loss, not something I’ve said before. Arsenal or not we shouldn’t be losing a game against 10 men whilst ahead. He didn’t have a plan second half and we were punished for it. He has to be ready to adapt to games, we were overrun in midfield second half and we needed to flood that midfield desperately. The change didn’t come until we were losing. In all honesty it was like Bruce was back in charge. By no means the end to our season but every week we are getting cut further and further adrift. No names but a certain team last season did similar and problem also said similar. Saturday is massive.

I've played some more today, slowly getting to grips with it. Online is a write off though, would be much easier to tackle if the tackle button worked. I've found the key is that no one else can defend either so just run at them.

Played the trial, it's the worst football game I've ever played. Tackling is not even possible. Cancelled my pre-order, done with FIFA now.

Exactly this, we tried and failed at 4-4-2 in the Championship; there is no way we would get away with it in the Premier League.

So you would rather have Agbonlahor, Ayew, Kozak and Gestede over Wesley, Kodjia and Davis? Ok then It's been 5 games... 5!

Personally I would give this a try against Arsenal. McGinn would be played out of position, but he's played fairly advanced recently making some great runs for the cross field ball. The need to play an out and out winger isn't as great on the right hand side with Guilbert getting forward and McGinn would have the legs to cover him better than Jota. This allows us to sit in two defensive midfielders whilst being able to take advantage of Hourihane's set pieces in the side.

If's and But's A points a point! 40 is the magic number of points we need to beat relegation. Last season this would have achieved 15th place in the league. To achieve this we would require 4 points per month. August - 3 points September West Ham - Draw Arsenal - Predicted Draw Burnley - Predicted Win Predicted Points - 5 Current Points - 1 If last nights draw is the point we pay back to August to bring our total to 4, we now have two games to pull in 4 points to bring us back on target. I see no reason why we can't bring home a draw at the least on Sunday.

A lot of criticism of Jack last night and he did misplace some passes but: - He drops deep to help out the midfield and defence when the opposition break, from there he carries the ball out. If he were to stop dropping in so deep we would likely not have been as good defensively. It's not always about the man making the tackles it's the pressure on the opposition cutting out passing lanes that helps to keep clean sheets. - He covered every blade of grass last night and desperately tried to drive us forward. He's not always helped with the movement around him and as the game went on he started to panic and misplaced passes. His tiredness showed in the last 10 minutes but taking him off is always a risk when he can produce moments of magic as he did against Crystal Palace. - The subs didn't really help his game, he needed legs around him to help him out carrying the ball and providing options to pass to around the box.

Agree with that, we also had Bent, Weimann and Agbonlahor around to take the pressure off Benteke initially. Wesley will learn and improve though. It's just if we have time to allow him to do so.

Great post. We didn't have the money to buy a finished article striker like Haller and so we've had to buy a younger model in Wesley. He has bad habits, he's still learning the game and it's upto the coaching staff to iron them out and improve him as a player. I think a combination of coaching and learning the English game will see his performances improve over the next few weeks.

At the beginning of the season we spoke about how we were going to have to give Wesley time to adapt after playing in the Belgian league with it being a step up to the Premier League. He still needs time. People are forgetting that the same thing happened to another Belgian striker we once owned... After 5 games Wesley has 1 goal and has received mixed reviews. After 5 games Benteke had 1 goal and had received mixed reviews.... by the end of the year he had scored another 7 goals and by the end of the season a further 15. It's not a certainty that Wesley can replicate Benteke's form but we need to give him the time to adapt. Below are the comments aimed at Benteke from VT at this point in the season.

I put this in the PL Thread but probably should have posted in here first... More doom and gloom on here I see. Quick to jump on the negatives but fail to appreciate the positives. We played well for the majority of the game and deserved the 3 points slightly more than West Ham. But a point against a team that finished 10th and spent 40 million on a striker over the Summer is never a bad result. The game was end to end throughout and we tired in the second half just as the red card came about, pushing for the winner in the last 20 minutes unfortunately finished us off and we looked leggy for the last 10 minutes. Positives Nakamba looks really classy, calm on the ball, breaks the play up and has a real engine on him. Can be forgiven for missing a few passes on his debut and after not playing competitive football for a while. He will improve in the next few weeks. The defence was again absolutely solid. Only three clubs have conceded fewer goals than us and no side has kept more clean sheets (two). Engels and Mings look like a real force and Guilbert was impressive although burned out in the second half. Going forward we looked good in patches, there were some brilliant breakaways but we weren't clinical enough to take advantage. Again this will improve with more game time. Unfortunately there were a few negatives but they are things that Smith can now work on and try to iron out. We panicked with the ball at times which lead to misplaced passes, wrong passes and poor touches. The major problem is the lack of goals up front and for me Wesley didn't do enough, unfortunately we don't have many other options currently. Hourihane is also a big loss currently and shoehorning him into the team, especially at home, could be what we need to spark us back into life. Overall it was a disappointing night but once again we haven't embarrassed ourselves and have shown signs of what we can do. With another solid defensive display on Sunday, we need to work hard at getting at Arsenals poor defense and we have a chance; it's certainly not over yet!

More doom and gloom on here I see. Quick to jump on the negatives but fail to appreciate the positives. We played well for the majority of the game and deserved the 3 points slightly more than West Ham. But a point against a team that finished 10th and spent 40 million on a striker over the Summer is never a bad result. The game was end to end throughout and we tired in the second half just as the red card came about, pushing for the winner in the last 20 minutes unfortunately finished us off and we looked leggy for the last 10 minutes. Positives Nakamba looks really classy, calm on the ball, breaks the play up and has a real engine on him. Can be forgiven for missing a few passes on his debut and after not playing competitive football for a while. He will improve in the next few weeks. The defence was again absolutely solid. Only three clubs have conceded fewer goals than us and no side has kept more clean sheets (two). Engels and Mings look like a real force and Guilbert was impressive although burned out in the second half. Going forward we looked good in patches, there were some brilliant breakaways but we weren't clinical enough to take advantage. Again this will improve with more game time. Unfortunately there were a few negatives but they are things that Smith can now work on and try to iron out. We panicked with the ball at times which lead to misplaced passes, wrong passes and poor touches. The major problem is the lack of goals up front and for me Wesley didn't do enough, unfortunately we don't have many other options currently. Hourihane is also a big loss currently and shoehorning him into the team, especially at home, could be what we need to spark us back into life. Overall it was a disappointing night but once again we haven't embarrassed ourselves and have shown signs of what we can do. With another solid defensive display on Sunday, we need to work hard at getting at Arsenals poor defense and we have a chance; it's certainly not over yet!

Christ reading through this thread and anyone would have thought we got tonked 5-0 over the weekend. We haven't even played yet and the meltdown has begun. Give the lads a chance.

Started the new season of Top Boy. The first two episodes have been some of the hardest TV to follow in a while, the slang is up to the max along with Jamaican accents. I had no idea what was going on by the end of episode 1. Just finished episode three and it's starting to get back to it's best.

I hope they do, Will Vaulks did it against him for Rotherham and he did this...

Yep just a warm up kit, available to buy as part of the training range.

Article in The Athletic about Jack Grealish. Has anyone signed up for it this season and is it worth it? I am tempted...

If this works out Steve Bruce is going to have sleepless nights thinking about how he didn't think of this first.