weedman

He's just a low grade Adama Traore at the moment, must do better if he's to play any part for us 

2 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

He came on in the 54th minute, so was on the pitch for 45 minutes if you include injury time. 

Well at least it will get his match fitness up a bit, not that it makes any difference whatsoever to his performances 

He did the same thing in this game as he does in every game, overrun the ball trying to beat his man and run straight into the 2nd defender 

8 minutes ago, mykeyb said:

So he played what about 20 minutes, 19 of which we were chasing the game and didn't set the world on fire..........must be crap then

A striker playing in a team pushing forwards to get an equaliser and he didn't manage a meaningful touch of the ball for 20 minutes. Kodjia came on in the same team for half the time and at least controlled the ball once and passed it, that's more than Hogan has offered in the best part of a year 

I've been critical of him, but fair play that was his best performance for us by a country mile

Really poor again. I don't get it, he's good at beating players but literally only ever uses that to win free kicks. That free kick he won (the one he took straight into the wall) you could see he was desperate for a touch so he could go down and ended up luckily winning one after a heavy touch that almost gifted possession away. Defenders are getting wise to his tricks and pulling out of challenges, he seems to not know how to react to not winning a free kick 

What's even the point of winning free kicks when Hourihane isn't on the pitch? It only ends up with him taking them and he's terrible at it. If a set piece specialist isn't on the pitch I just don't see what Jack offers at the moment 

19 hours ago, Farlz said:

It's absolutely bonkers that we played this bloke at RB

I suggested earlier that the reason for that was that he was being bullied off the ball far too easily and needed some games where those mistakes wouldn't cost us as much while he got used to the physicality of the game, which made sense at RB for a few games (remember, he's only really played reserve or youth football before which is totally different). Even Bruce moved him to the center in his last few games, I think Smith will benefit from Bruce's "cluelessness", which is good for us

19 hours ago, av1 said:

Agreed. There have even been posters on here that claimed Jedinak was a better option than Axel. 

Jedinak WAS a better option than Axel, Axel is clearly improving as the season goes on and he gets up to speed. Also, I'd argue that Jedinak is still a better option against those arseholey teams that pump the ball long to a giant of a striker every 4 seconds, games against teams like Swansea who keep it on the floor Axel is the better option - although even they started pumping a lot of high balls in at the end and causing all sorts of problems, against teams that do that from minute 1 we need someone commanding

Looked good today but really should have scored those 2 chances in the 2nd half, looks comfortably our best striker though. I also agree with other posters about the moaning, he needs to tone it down a little, one time he played an awful ball to Elmo who just about managed to get a cross in before it went out and he was moaning about the cross. Some moaning when he doesn't get a pass is OK, but not if the whole thing was caused by your own terrible pass in the first place! 

53 minutes ago, GENTLEMAN said:

So true! If we implement the bolded it will be a success with current players, I think. We will be open to the pontential counter,  and perhaps will be caught out a few time. However, I think the opposition are not clinical in this division. We need impose our game plan upon the opposition, far to often we have not done this and have therefore been reactionary. 

To play that way properly we'd need dominant CBs, otherwise any team with a big man up front and quick wingers will kill us on the counter attack

This thread is fairly amusing. 

"He's been rubbish for us" 

"it's been tough though, poor coaching and no tactics" 

"but he's failed at the basics of being a footballer, like controlling the ball" 

"but he's proven at this level, just look at his history" 

"but he's been a failure for us" 

"he just needs more time and better coaching" 

And around we go. It's basically the Steve Bruce thread, tweaked slightly to suit a striker rather than a manager

14 minutes ago, sir_gary_cahill said:

Young was £9.5m, Milner was £12m, Carew was a swap with Baros, Friedel was £2.5m which equates to £24m, hardly £100m, where did you get that figure from?

Think he was saying we probably signed 100 players in that time, and to only cite 4 successes is poor, rather than saying those 4 players cost £100m

2 hours ago, Stevo985 said:

I'm not sure how long Hogan can ride the wave of that one 30 game spell at Brentford. Having the manager he had during that time will show us whether that was a flash in the pan or his actual ability. Considering that is his only real spell of quality in his career to date I suspect it'll be the former. But I'll be pleasantly surprised if he returns to that. We need it.

So one 30 game spell in a 10 year career to date is enough to be terrific? I remember players like Marlon Harewood or Roque Santa Cruz or Afonso Alves having similar flashes in their careers.

But ok. I hope you're right!

At Aston Villa they are both in the frame for how good they could be. I'd rather give RHM the game time as a fringe player and bring him through than waste it on somebody who i consider to be a pretty shit player.

If Smith turns Hogan around and turns him back into the player he was for that short spell at Brentford then obviously my opinion on that would change.

But based on what I've seen in an Aston Villa shirt, Scott Hogan looks crap whilst RHM is a youth prospect with a potentially bright future.

I normally agree with you Stevo, but can't agree on RHM, I think Hogan (although he has been poor) has shown much more. I really don't see what the fuss is about RHM, I know he's young, and obviously I hope he proves me wrong and stars for us, but for me he's not shown a quarter of what the likes of Gabby showed at a similar age, even players like Luke Moore and Nathan Delfouneso showed more than RHM has so far 

I don't particularly rate Hogan either, but for me he's 3rd choice behind Kodjia and Abraham and RHM is a distant 4th choice 

1 hour ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

My only argument was Chester has been shit and not having a settled partner shouldn’t be an excuse for his poor form just because he was so good last season.  He should be doing a lot better.

As for Jedinak, I don’t want to see him at centre half. I just don’t think he has been as bad as some people make out.

Also the arguments for Chester at the moment are pretty similar to the arguments for Bruce aren't they? We're trusting that he'll come good because of his experience and the fact he was good before, same as we did with Bruce. Hoping that signing better players to play alongside him will make him better, which is pretty much Bruce's tactics, maybe he just needs better training (or a pre season)? 

The same isn't happening with Jedinak because he doesn't have the experience at CB, completely ignoring the fact he's been better than Chester this season and every excuse you can find for Chester is also equally valid for Jedinak

On topic I hope Smith gets given more of a chance than Mile has, I think he will as he was the "fans choice" and I hope he will as we seem to be moving towards a proper structure at the club for the first time that I can remember. I always get excited about these new dawns before it inevitably blows up in our face so I'm going to enjoy the unknown before coming back to reality

29 minutes ago, sne said:

Think there is a lot that points to that there were different types of signings.

Nyland was supposedly someone Bruce had followed for 4 years, Tuanzebe and maybe also Abraham & Bolasie? are likely to be players Bruce had at least some hand in getting in.

Players like Moreira and El Ghazi was likely not Bruce players but rather Mendes. 

As for McGinn? No idea, but since we were also looking at that defender from Aberdeen it appears we were scouting in Scotland.

I've seen the bolded bit before but I will never believe it, it's a little too Tim Sherwood for me 

I don't even think that was a league game, it's a friendly and the team they're playing aren't even a proper team 

44 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

To be honest i think smith would struggle with JT.  As i think JT is a big charchter and smith doesn't seem like someone who could control JT. I might be wrong but he comes across smith as abit soft.

I have a feeling brentford wont give us permission anyway tbh. I think we will now and up giving it to terry

The other thing i would say is I don't expect JT to be a number 2 for long I think someone would come in for him eventually 

 

See I think the opposite. He's a big character but he's super professional and I think having him there would really help Smith to implement his ideas. The likes of Grealish, Bolasie etc are big players and simply aren't going to bust a gut for someone like Smith unless he's got someone like Terry behind him.

We've got big ego's in the team and it takes a big personality to bring them all in line. I don't think Smith could handle it, but the players will play for Terry, and if he's there backing up everything Dean Smith says on the training ground it could be a match made in heaven. 

On Smith as well. Just so everyone understands and the ridiculous straw man arguments can stop. He is a cog in the Brentford "machine", an important cog, that's doing a great job for them, but still a cog, just like Scott Hogan was a cog in their team. It doesn't mean he can't succeed anywhere else, it doesn't mean he won't succeed anywhere else. It just means his job is made a lot easier due to the infrastructure they have in place. To replicate his success for us would be far more difficult than it is for him there. It doesn't mean he can't, it doesn't mean he won't, just that it's far from a guarantee that he will, hence people's reservations about him. 

He's clearly a good coach, but he is (in my opinion) as much of a risk as any of the other names mentioned, however with someone like Terry alongside him I personally think it could work 

I'm on board with the idea of Smith with Terry as assistant, Terry is super professional and would make sure the players respect Smith and that would allow him to coach them into something vaguely cohesive. There's a big difference between getting lower league players to buy into an ethos than £15m players who think they're ready for the PL and I think someone like Terry could help bridge that gap until Smith can command that respect in his own right. 

Don't think it'll happen, but I'd be probably more comfortable with that than with Henry or Terry as manager. At least we know Smith is a capable coach at this level and as long as there are plans to supplement any manager with a suitable hoard of backroom staff (which I hope there is) it could work 

Anyone else having trouble signing in? Keep getting a server error, ironically when I put my password in wrong it works fine to tell me the password was incorrect 

1 hour ago, Zatman said:

Yeah but if stayed on the pitch we would probably still have Brucey in charge

I am about as certain as it's possible to be without sitting down with our owners and asking them that the decision to sack Bruce wasn't made on the basis of one match 

1 hour ago, Czechlad said:

I think the new rule is silly. That is a textbook red for me. Maybe you disagree, but I like the way things were. Players shouldn't be able to do a risky tackle when they are the last man and get away with a yellow. 

But 1) it is a rule, whether anyone likes it or not and 2) it wasn't even a bloody foul, the strikers poor first touch meant his momentum took him away from the ball and as he was off balance and stretching to get a shot in Chester stepped in front of him and cleared it. And we now get triple punished for that decision, horrendous 

Didn't AVB retire from football altogether? 

It was an appalling decision, we shouldn't need to bloody appeal it should just be rescinded by the ref along with a written apology to the fans and a promise to never referee another match at any level and early retirement in Sunderland or somewhere else equally depressing 

5 minutes ago, Skills said:

how many points in front do you think we'd be if they had Bruce and we had Lampard?

Is Biesla doing ok at Leeds?  they're only 7 points ahead of us, add the 2 points from Whelan so less than 2 games away...   Why the hell did we get rid of Bruce again???

Hysteria? 

1 hour ago, NeilS said:

From what I have seen in the replay, there is enough doubt on the intention for an appeal to be made. I think that will be overturned.

From what I've seen in the replay it wasn't even a foul in the first place. Strikers touch was poor and his momentum took him away from the ball, he's then off balance stretching for the ball allowing Chester to get back in front of him and nick the ball away. There's absolutely nothing in that challenge, it was less of a foul than McGinn for our 2nd, and that wasn't close to being a foul either 

Surely, surely that will be overturned when we appeal