The Marcelo's a Magician but you aren't a Wizard Potter CK

[the flying pig]

Now that Dallas has got his engine fixed it's time to play him as Left/Half back...

i don't hate the idea of a back three:

bill or llorente - cooper or llorente or koch - pascal or firpo

with dallas at RWB and james at LWB. james is good at running, let him scuttle up and down that left flank for the whole game, see if anything good comes of it.

[Devi]

Now that Dallas has got his engine fixed it's time to play him as Left/Half back...

i don't hate the idea of a back three:

bill or llorente - cooper or llorente or koch - pascal or firpo

with dallas at RWB and james at LWB. james is good at running, let him scuttle up and down that left flank for the whole game, see if anything good comes of it.

Agree.

Who’s the rest of your line up, and what’s the formation? Assume KP in front of the 3, with Forshaw slightly ahead of him, but what’s the next bit?

[the flying pig]

Now that Dallas has got his engine fixed it's time to play him as Left/Half back...

i don't hate the idea of a back three:

bill or llorente - cooper or llorente or koch - pascal or firpo

with dallas at RWB and james at LWB. james is good at running, let him scuttle up and down that left flank for the whole game, see if anything good comes of it.

Agree.

Who’s the rest of your line up, and what’s the formation? Assume KP in front of the 3, with Forshaw slightly ahead of him, but what’s the next bit?

yeah, i dunno.

i suppoes the first choice would be the 8 players you mention and then jackie, bamford, and raph ahead of them. kp/forshaw is a bit defensive to be playing in front of three centre backs, and raph/jackie are a bit too wingerish to be playing in front of wing backs, but if we had bill especially, maybe even llorente at RCB i'd imagine dallas drifting infield a little, similarly i could imagine jackie & james switching roles occasionally on the left. the big gap would be a central attacking midfield, but, let's face it, forshaw/kp won't both be fit every week, leaving an occsaionaly opening for klich/rodders i guess, and with one or both of kp and raph presumably off in the summer then new signings could be made with this sort of structure in mind [though that presumably takes us into post bielsa, with everything up for grabs].

[Tommy]

Most important things first - this being the second consecutive weekend where I found myself in the semi-fancy hospitality part of a newish stadium, I have to say the fancy bar at Brighton was nicer than the slightly fancy Spurs lounge, which felt a bit like an upmarket bookies. It being very cold I fancied a wee dram before the match but could only see bottles of Jack Daniels (just about the worst shit imaginable when it comes to whiskey). However, a kindly member of staff went into a backroom and managed to find an unopened bottle of Glenmorangie 10 year old single malt, which she then poured a generous double of but only charged me for a single shot of JD. Thus, my drink plus Eric's pint was only £8.70, which I'm sure everyone will accept is a fairly good result by the standards of a modern football stadium.

And so is a point away at Brighton if I'm being honest. I just assumed we'd lose and we should have but having had a read through the last few pages I realise that I'm still not that worried about the state of affairs (but will be if we don't pick up some points in the next two games).

[Mustafaster]

Most important things first - this being the second consecutive weekend where I found myself in the semi-fancy hospitality part of a newish stadium, I have to say the fancy bar at Brighton was nicer than the slightly fancy Spurs lounge, which felt a bit like an upmarket bookies. It being very cold I fancied a wee dram before the match but could only see bottles of Jack Daniels (just about the worst shit imaginable when it comes to whiskey). However, a kindly member of staff went into a backroom and managed to find an unopened bottle of Glenmorangie 10 year old single malt, which she then poured a generous double of but only charged me for a single shot of JD. Thus, my drink plus Eric's pint was only £8.70, which I'm sure everyone will accept is a fairly good result by the standards of a modern football stadium.

And so is a point away at Brighton if I'm being honest. I just assumed we'd lose and we should have but having had a read through the last few pages I realise that I'm still not that worried about the state of affairs (but will be if we don't pick up some points in the next two games).

Congrats on blagging a decent dram. Respect.
I think everyone is delighted to have come away from there with a point.
That's not what anyone is concerned about.
The week before we lost, but everyone was reasonably relaxed because the performance was so good. Play like that every week and we have no problem.
The worries after Saturday is because the performance was so poor.
Play like that every week and we have a major problem.
I think the inconsistency is wots worrying.

[Tommy]

Personally I think it's almost entirely due to changing the team every match thus far, which has largely been down to injuries. When we get the same team on the park for a few games in a row I think we'll be alright.

I think Forshaw has been brilliant since he came back and didn't think he was bad defensively or offensively. It's a shame that we didn't score from that late Roberts chance because the ball into him from Forshaw was absolutely top drawer. I see from the stats that he ran the most of any player and hopefully he can stay fit for a while. Given that Struijk has been improving this season and the likes of Koch and/or Bate might come into contention at some point, we suddenly seem pretty much fine in midfield. Between Kalvin, Forshaw, Klich, Dallas, Struijk, Rodrigo, Roberts, Struijk, Koch and Bate we should be able to cope until the summer pending absolutely catastrophic injuries.

Junior was fairly bad but he wasn't as shite as folk are making out, Brighton just happened to have two really good attacking full-backs when he's still adapting to our game and coming back from injury. I too have trepidation based on prior appearances but not ready to give up on him just yet. At the minimum I think he could be alright on the left-side of a back three, which we seem to be using more often of late. We definitely miss Ayling and Alioski but the former should be back soonish and it occurs to me that perhaps Dan James is our best Alioski analogue - ie, small, fast, absurdly good engine, modest goal threat etc. Hopefully this would also give Harrison some much needed help down the left and mean we can stop playing James up front, which is increasingly hard to watch even if he does do the required running.

We could definitely do with as many points as possible this week but even if we don't get them it's not necessarily curtains. As soon as we have more senior players back I can see us turning it around, despite a fairly grim start to the season.

[BARE-NAKED-LADY]

Bloody hell, there's some doom and gloom on here.

For the record, l believe Moscow is the football romantic, Michael the doom and gloom merchant & Dan tries to provide the balance. It works well.

As for Leeds, why is anyone surprised. We always have a few years success followed by inevitable misery. We'll be fine and stay up by the skin of our teeth.

Dean Viila will show how limited he is even with Norwich. Gerrard will be found out, and Watford will drop further down. As for Newcastle, can't wait until their billionaire owners see what the Championship is like.

That's my dream.

P.S. as well as injuries, I don't think the constant disruption of the international break will have helped our rhythm. See where we are after Brentford. Seven points seems like a reasonable return, fingers crossed.

[Devi]

See where we are after Brentford. Seven points seems like a reasonable return, fingers crossed.

Seven points from 2 games would be more than reasonable.

[BARE-NAKED-LADY]

See where we are after Brentford. Seven points seems like a reasonable return, fingers crossed.

Seven points from 2 games would be more than reasonable.

You do know I'm including the point we gained from Brighton right?

Anyway we'll know if we're almost there after tonight.