IstillhateSteveBould

Neither is Tom Lees. Or many other good championship defenders. Physicality is a big part of defending. As is aerial ability.

Agree he's probably still the best option, but as you say, he's certainly not ideal. Have to say I don't think we have the players to play either a 3 or a 4 very well at the moment. And midfield is a major problem whichever way we go. For me, we're just so unbalanced, our only real chance of putting a few wins on the board, is by keeping 3 attackers on the pitch as often as possible. I think 343/352 makes that slightly easier, so for that reason I'd stick with 3 at the back for now. Just stop weeing about trying to pass it around in defence. Get it forward as often and as quickly as possible.

Who would you play at left back?

Nielsen definitely has a lot of potential. Yes he's a little slow and clumsy, but he's a big lad who can man handle attackers and easily win headers. That's half the battle when it comes to defending. You add composure and concentration and there's huge potential there.

And it was his pace that forced their defender to panic. Just shows the difference a bit of pace up top can make. He's a real threat Matias. It's a massive shame he can't seem to string a run of games together.

On paper at least, it looks like FF and Fletcher should be a decent partnership. One of the championship's best players alongside someone's who's played most his career in the PL. They should compliment each other and it should work. Not sure why it hasn't in the past. Maybe Carlos and his tactics? Encouraging signs on Saturday though. Certainly had enough chances between them.

I feel for him. He's out of his depth at this level. Fans on his back will just make him worse. Jos needs to take him out of the team. Why not play Boyd there?

Depressing

Agree with that. As for the signings, yes I can see purely from a football quality perspective why those players may have been looked at. But as a strategy, signing multiple players at that age, on huge wages and long contracts, is high risk poo or bust. It HAS to work or you're in trouble. Terrible from a business point of view.

We are, personnel wise. Just think we're so unbalanced and massively lacking in certain other areas. When you've got the likes of Forestieri and Bannan lining up alongside Palmer, Van Aken, Fox, Pelupessy, Dawson etc, there's a gulf in quality. Reminds me of the late 90s when we had Di Canio and Carbone playing alongside Atherton and Booth

Just think they've got a decent balance in their team and they're tough to play against (despite poor recent results). Bit like Preston, Bristol City etc. Midtable, no real chance of going down, but a little short of challenging. Add a couple more of good quality and there's no reason to think they can't. I thought the same when Stuart Gray left us. Not bigging them up too much but they're moving in the right direction imo.

Pigs looking like signing Norwood. Good player. If they can get Coutts back to his previous form, a midfield 3 of him, Fleck and Norwood is strong. Honestly think they are only a couple of players away from challenging.

They were decent players and fair enough, no one would have predicted how catastrophically bad they'd turn out to be for the club in general. But we didn't really need 2 more midfielders of that type, they were expensive and offered ZERO resale value. Both were signed on long contracts. We went into September that year STILL needing a at least 1 CB, a tough tackling midfielder and a LB. Minimum. The point is, whoever decided to spend that portion of our budget on those players, rather than in areas that were so clearly lacking, needs sacking.

He'd have the final say in terms of releasing the money yes. But he can't have been the one identifying the areas that needed strengthening and who was the most suitable player, surely. If it's true that Carlos was the one who pursued the likes of Abdi and Jones, while missing the glaring holes in other areas, then he has to shoulder a large portion of blame.

Whichever tactics we used, there was always a chance we wouldn't get promoted. Our transfer dealings seem to suggest failure was never considered.