Davefevs

one think I noticed on Saturday was Bentley's positioning....he was much more advanced, ready to play sweeper-keeper if need be. Its been a criticism of mine that he starts too deep. Hopefully this has been noticed and coached in.

think tonight is one to delegate Downing to the stands.

Atkinson should be back too.

Agree with you both….we’ve shown that some foundations have been built, we are more solid / competitive, although we’ve started to allow too many opposition chances. The next bit is to improve the attacking cohesiveness. Somehow Nige needs to get a tune out any of Palmer, O’Dowda, Wells etc. For Palmer and Wells, they need to be given a chance (assume they are putting it in on the training ground - no reason not to think so). I didn’t include Scott, because I’m sure he will get his minutes here and there, and he’s been generally quite creative in the games he’s played. Pring has shown a physical side in creating chances / crosses from the LHS. I would love to see Weimann and Wells tonight, but would settle for Wells. It’s likely to be a tight game, 1-0, 0-1, 1-1 type game and we need someone to take a chance. I think we will see some changes tonight. We don’t need to go gung-ho, but a back 3 of Worrall, Figueredo and McKenna is not blessed with pace. Balls in behind the WBs, down the sides of Worrall and McKenna is a likely route to success tonight. Worrall and McKenna getting “faced-up” in channels is not their comfort zone. Yates and Colback in their CM are gonna be niggly all night, but they aren’t gonna rotate our midfield too much. It is a game to win.

Problem was the billboard poster was green words on a red background. ???

I know. When Fulham went up he was a bit unfortunate imho….Chelsea wanted £10m, but he lost his starting place to Odoi towards the end of the season, so I think they were reticent to pay a fee that high for a player not guaranteed to start. But in Odoi’s case, playing a RB as CB in the Champ is a different kettle of fish. They also signed Mawson and Le Marchand.

£2m for Dasilva at the time was a good deal….loan with an agreed price. But they (Chelsea) made sure they got extra-value on Palmer (especially) and Kalas to make up for it.

We honestly don’t know. But despite Lee having to sell players he was never stopped from buying was he? Holden was the first manager to have to rein it in, paying a fee for one player last summer. Lee spent £59m on transfer fees alone in 8 Windows (and one emergency loan period), let alone loan fees, agent fees, signing on fees, and wage bill increase. He brought in really good fees for a small number of players. In fairness he did have to build the squad up a bit as Cotts was running it on a shoestring. The wage bill went up every season. The lowest season spend was £9.7m! Nige is working under a new remit, already cut costs by £10-12m. I’d be very surprised if there aren’t tentative plans in place for how do deal with things like Massengo and Kalas contracts. In Kalas’s case i suspect there is a scenario in place for him leaving / not wanting to extend. With Tanner we saw the team able to bring forward the plan. When we see 20/21’s accounts, how much we’ve lost, how much we can offset due to Covid, etc, we will have a better picture as to the constraints. I do think Nige has fully bought into the finances. He knows the first period is getting the cost base down so that he isn’t under pressure to sell in phase 2. I think Lansdown will support him as long as we don’t bust FFP. I don’t think any tensions will be seen in the next 12 months. We will know a lot more next summer when the futures of the likes of the two mentioned above are known.

I found the. Impossible from up on A4….had to make do with trying recognise by skin colour, build, hair, etc.

Forest line-up, same eleven last 2 games. Samba is having a poor season, quite a few mistakes of late. If Rob Atkinson fit I think Nige will go back 3. Would like to see Wells get the nod up top. Wouldn’t have a problem if we lined up similar to them (3421), with perhaps Weimann and Scott / Palmer behind. Really hoping Massengo fit to partner James.

I’m gonna wear the lucky green gillet from the 2015 win. Im not sure my knees bend that much these days though.

I guess that’s a double edged sword….you might get a decent fee for them??.

Would it help if we kicked towards the SS first half?

Yeah, was just generalising that around the same amount of money generated at different prices. For a more factual comparison: In 2019 the last full season of watching we sold about 13k SC at generated £3.6m from those sales so an average of £277 per season card. If if said would we be better off of selling: - 13k at £277 average (£3.6m) or - 18k at £200 average (£3.6m) For info match day revenue was £2.4m. Some of which will be pay on the day. Would be interesting to know how many POTD there were in that figure? Does 18k generate more than £2.4m? Does less POTD get covered my SC holders spending more. I don’t know myself. But I guess that attendances of 22k are generally better than attendances of 18-19k??? What do you reckon?

Great effort Stanley….been some classics….and the “Cider With” series were bloody brilliant. You and Pete did a fantastic interview, sounded so natural. Thank you for doing them.

Yep, we got a bit fragmented in our 3 units on Saturday. Generally the two up top haven’t got isolated this season, so that when a ball is played into midfield, James and whoever has played with him have been closing the receiver down. On Saturday we were dragged all over the place and the likes of Kelly has acres to move into….then ping a pass. He is such a sweet striker of a ball. I used to watch him in the practice net pre-game….he used to hammer it effortlessly. When a ball has that far to travel, you can question whether our full-backs can start a bit wider? I’m hoping to see a better City tomorrow. Whether that’s down to the personnel picked, City executing better, or Forest not being at Bournemouth’s level we need a big improvement tomorrow night.

Had some good games in the 352 of early 19/20 alongside Brownhill and Massengo. It didn’t look a natural threesome on paper, but we played neat football….we also had two mobile strikers….Weimann and Afobe.

No longer a City player but Low’s teammate at Eastleigh Vince Harper made me laugh joining in this celebration! Watch it right to the end.

Wes used to post on here @WesM

Agree. In the main we haven’t got enough controlled possession to build congestive cohesive attaching moves / threat. if you ignore the goal for the moment….this came from a good press, a clearance under pressure where two or three quick passes (on our left wing) resulted in us being able to open out to the right wing inside their half. We also see that with good territory gained (in a good shape) how good movement then enables us to create a chance. In this case a goal. We also see James getting into the box in case there’s a chance to pull it back. It’s pretty simple but very effective, and constructed off the back of two or three quick passes. The Tanner / Wells chance was created from a couple of quick headers, Tanner bursting through, crossing (to nobody) but then us picking up the loose ball in their third…with several bodies forward. When we attack in ones and twos, it’s difficult to string anything together. I think we need to get up the pitch so James and whoever plays alongside him have less distance to join the attack and less distance to support the defence.

Dohhhhhhh. No.

I’m not a singer, but occasionally join in, when a chant gets going. The chaos who sit just down from me, spent all game on their phones. They don’t even watch the game .

Especially when you hear Nagy was never scouted in the flesh!

Got to put pressure on the player trying to find the winger. That’s been part of our downfall.

I think “slowing” is just a standard thing as you move out of a single year age band into multiple year age bands. E,g. U18 could have 16, 17 and 18 year olds in it….so 3 times as competitive (crude statement). This is his first season at u23 level…played a few times last season, but often from bench. Now starting to really contribute. Bags of skill. His decision making improving….be good to see video of today. If you look at our u23s today, we had a 16 year old playing (Knight-Lebel). Buse 19 Taylor 19 / Knight-Lebel 16 / Williams 18 Pearson 19 / Kadji 18 / Owers 19 / Soady 20 Benarous 18 / Britton 20 / Francois 18 That’s a really young u23 line-up today. Watford pretty young too: 21 - 2 20 - 2 19 - 4 18 - 2 17 - 1