We need the confidence a win brings, before the Bournemouth game. Nothing to do with league position, all about the morale of the team.
People are hugely overrating Fulham. Even so, we're not gonna go on a run of 22 games getting only 3 points. Mate I'd love to be wrong but it just isn't gonna happen.
Not worth rushing a player like kwp or Diallo back though. They're the worst PL side since Derby, we're perfectly capable of beating them without the above two.
Pretty dismal game between two teams that both looked absolutely knackered and uninspired. One moment of quality won it for them. We couldn't convert our one moment of quality. Not much else to say really, other than that Dominic Calvert-Lewin has lovely eyes.
We were trying to play a system of tight passing in our defensive third but without Romeu and Bednarek at right back this was always going to be a struggle. I feel we should have tried a different shape. Hopefully things will start to get better with six days until the next game. Any players nearing fitness you wouldn't risk tonight.
Wow reading this thread is dire. There was me on my stream thinking we actually looked a bit better tonight defensively at least. Sloppy defence for their goal but at least we didn’t collapse once we conceded. I think FF made a bit of a difference there. Up front we had nothing, but that’s no surprise seeing as we don’t know how to break teams down.
We would have had a chance if Armstrong had been in his normal position. Our lack of creativity up front bothers me more than our frailties at the back, most of which seem to come from the way we defend free kicks or a loose pass. If Diallo isn’t ready for Saturday I would rather have Stephens alongside Prowsey than Armstrong. I don’t care that he is a CB. He has played the role, albeit at a lower level, and was player of the season to boot.
2 average teams tonight, 1 has a warchest, 1struggling with the hectic fixture list. It really would be nice to see an owner back our club. Villa, west ham etc backed and seeing the rewards.
Why do we need our strongest team for Bournemouth? We beat them then got knocked out the next round. Its not like we're playing Bournemouth in the final. Its just another game to pick up injuries. There's really no evidence at all to suggest we won't go down, theres nothing suggesting we have the players/coaching staff/manager to get us out of this
Hopefully. With him and possibly KWP I feel confident, especially if we can play Armstrong on the left. Might consider playing Redmond up front at least he shot.
People need to cut us some slack. Biggest injury problem in the league, which started before Man U - crazy things going against us since then. Ralph is playing players out of position, games coming every few days, no decent subs to pick up the slack. We can't even ease our injury return players in gently - they're straight back in the second they can walk. It's not like our fixtures have been great since the confidence dent either. Judge it after we've played Sheffield United, WBA, Brighton etc. We'd be severely up ****'s creek if Ralph hadn't been on an immense league-topping run before now - that cushion him and the team earned us is the only reason we're likely to stay up at this point in time. Liverpool are feeling it; Sheffield United, Newcastle, Burnley are experiencing it; I've said all season that Leicester are overrated - they just happened to have an unblemished squad for most of it. Now they're without Fofana, Justin, Maddison, Barnes etc. it's the real test. Everton would drop like a stone if they lost a few key players. We just happened to be in this hole a lot earlier than everyone else, and this hole is a deep ****er to get out of. That's down to Covid scheduling and the complete lack of funds, and there's not a lot Ralph can do about that. We're just keeping going, and there's been some **** performances, granted. But we're unlikely to turn it around in style against a top six team, so let's enjoy the relative long break before the next one.