Summer transfers rumours, speculation, news | Page 136 | Vital Football

Summer transfers rumours, speculation, news

Agree with Moonay here, we had by far the hardest run in out of any team in this league, played away at Sunderland understrength and somehow last narrowly. And then went on to win 3 and draw 1 Vs Charlton, Wycombe, Rotherham and Portsmouth.

We clearly have not clicked yet even though the hoofball is not needed sometimes, but once the team settles in and get some games and rest we will see the rewards.

It's definitely a start we all would have taken before kick off Vs Sunderland.

Next up Doncaster though, this is the game we will really be tested mentally as they have been poor and it's a game we are expected to win. We will learn more about the team Vs Doncaster than the last 5 games.
 
I don't know if it's still the case, but I know the window used to reopen for loans. If it is still that way then maybe we haven't finished yet.
 
Next up Doncaster though, this is the game we will really be tested mentally as they have been poor and it's a game we are expected to win. We will learn more about the team Vs Doncaster than the last 5 games.
Every time I look forward to playing Domncaster, seems they do us over :eek:
 
We've played 5 games, all against relegated teams, or ones who are amongst the favourites for promotion

We've won 3, drawn one and lost one.

We've 10 points and are in 4th position, 2 points behind the leaders (who we lost to).

Players are still getting to know each other.

Most people would have expected (and been happy) us to have no more than 5 points - maybe even 3 - at this stage.

For all the talk of being happy to have a "boring, mid table" season, it seems that given the wonderful strengthening of the squad, it looks like the manager is going to be under pressure (from the supporters at least) to get us up this season.

Whatever happened to "lerrum gel" ?

(Sorry KDZ, this isn't necessarily aimed at you ... I've just taken advantage of the nature of your post).
Agree with this.

The most impressive part of this is the defence. You won't go up, or be in the mix, if you have a poor defence. Everything is built upon that and it will give us confidence when on the ball to attack and get goals. Even if we are still struggling for goals and good fluid attacking play in a couple of months, L1 is traditionally a tight league and I expect us to continue to be in with a good shout of going up.

We will need to ride our luck a little with injuries as our squad is potentially a little thin, but I expect the owners will be happy to invest or bring in a loanee if necessary. I do think we lack a little in the middle of the park to open up teams but I think we have enough on the flanks and up top to cause damage once they gel and get a few more games under their belts. I'd like to see Wyke and Humphrys start to threaten the goal as we know they can.

Our problem is pretty clear:

1630488250872.png

1630488302130.png
 
Not surprised how terrible that xG looks. Rotherham and Portsmouth at home, I can't remember if we created any clear cut chances other than the goals (Keane's miss vs Rotherham is the only one that comes to mind. Our open play build up has been really poor and I fear we may struggle against the lesser sides who come to the DW and park the bus. Time will tell on that one.

Having said that, attack wins games, defence wins titles.
 
We've played 5 games, all against relegated teams, or ones who are amongst the favourites for promotion

We've won 3, drawn one and lost one.

We've 10 points and are in 4th position, 2 points behind the leaders (who we lost to).

Players are still getting to know each other.

Most people would have expected (and been happy) us to have no more than 5 points - maybe even 3 - at this stage.

For all the talk of being happy to have a "boring, mid table" season, it seems that given the wonderful strengthening of the squad, it looks like the manager is going to be under pressure (from the supporters at least) to get us up this season.

Whatever happened to "lerrum gel" ?

(Sorry KDZ, this isn't necessarily aimed at you ... I've just taken advantage of the nature of your post).

I don't think anyone is arguing any of that. I don't think anyone is saying this is the finished product or unhappy with the points return.

But what we are seeing at the moment is an attempt at a style of play that isn't playing to our strengths. It's not so much a case of gelling in the sense that if the def mids are instructed to not effectively act as water carriers and link up play in favour of giving the centre halves more space to play long balls either over the top into the channels or aimed at the strikers head it isn't the best use of what we have. We've seen in most games including pre season the same pattern appear we've only started to get the def mids showing for the ball around the 60-70 min mark, once we do we've been playing through the middle more and we've looked much better. The pattern has happened so often that it doesn't look like it's Naylor, Power, Cousins, Smith, etc hiding for all that time and then suddenly becoming brave - it looks very much like they are given more licence and it seems strange that they aren't given that from the start.

We've seen something similar before when bought Moore, we were so desperate to try and play everything through him we adjusted the rest of the team to our overall detriment. Morsy and Williams who were exceptionally good at doing the water carrying roles stopped showing for the ball and the centre backs were looking long for Moore all the time and it wasn't very effective and in the Championship we got punished for that. We only came good when we reverted back to using Morsy and Williams and incidentally looking for Moore less got a lot more out of him. I think we are in that same process with Wyke at the moment - we are trying to change our style to suit him but i think it's not actually suiting him or anyone else.

We will almost certainly evolve tactically, and i suspect end up like we did at the end of last season under Richardson and at our best under Cook where the 2 def mids were always showing for the ball to link up play. We've got a better team than most in L1 so we've got the luxury of being able to get results during that process unlike when we were in the Championship and trying to do it with Moore. Hopefully we'll end up with similar performances at the end of this process to the end of that Championship season. We are capable of good football, we've seen it in patches especially later in games, we just need to start doing it from the start of games. Once we do everyone is in trouble.
 
I don't think anyone is arguing any of that. I don't think anyone is saying this is the finished product or unhappy with the points return.
.

I don't think I said they were KDZ ..... I was merely pointing out that we have a tremendous points total and we're in a great league position, (neither of which were expected at this stage).

I get your points re style, but like I said in my other reply to Jeff's Right, I don't give a shit.

Points in these games will have given the team some great confidence. Playing well, yet getting beat (for which I used to defend many managers, much to the disgruntlement of many on here who couldn't see past the result) would have many fans on Richardson's back from the outset, but it seems playing less than excellent all of the time (cos let's face it, there's been equally as much good stuff -almost- as poor) brings it's own criticism, even at this early stage, with a team that's still being put together.

As has been said, not conceding goals will mean that we don't lose games, and with the attacking force we have, no matter how poorly we've been playing in a game, we're always likely to pluck a goal from somewhere.

Keep doing that till Christmas, and I'll be well happy. If the new style has gelled by then, I'll be even happier.
;)
 
Agree with this.

The most impressive part of this is the defence. You won't go up, or be in the mix, if you have a poor defence. Everything is built upon that and it will give us confidence when on the ball to attack and get goals. Even if we are still struggling for goals and good fluid attacking play in a couple of months, L1 is traditionally a tight league and I expect us to continue to be in with a good shout of going up.

We will need to ride our luck a little with injuries as our squad is potentially a little thin, but I expect the owners will be happy to invest or bring in a loanee if necessary. I do think we lack a little in the middle of the park to open up teams but I think we have enough on the flanks and up top to cause damage once they gel and get a few more games under their belts. I'd like to see Wyke and Humphrys start to threaten the goal as we know they can.

Our problem is pretty clear:

View attachment 51528

View attachment 51529

Whilst we are clearly struggling to create at the moment. Those xG stats indicate a defence that is all over the place and struggling which is clearly not the case.

We have had 14 shots on target to our opponents 10. Yet expected 1 win and 3 losses?

10 shots on target against, A of 6.8. Rotherham had 10 shots on target against A of 3.8. Doncaster had 24 shotson target against, A of 5.9? The stats make no sense whatsoever.

xG is supposed to be quality of chances. The 7 on target against us missed were easy long range saves. Apart from 1 great chance for Rotherham in the last 4 games the Wucombe goal aside the teams against us have created no clear cut chances and not come remotely close to scoring. So an expected goals conceded of 6.8 is laughable.
 
I'm with Moonay on this.

The way we win, or draw, is far more important at the moment than the way we play.

That will not always be the case but for a new manager, as with LR, results are the priority. If we had got off to a bad start the comments on this board would have been very critical of the manager and would no doubt have revolved around his "lack of experience".

We all know the problems that bringing in so many players cause and the time it takes for players to gel and understand each others playing style. We have seen in previous seasons that it can take a side up until the Xmas period to come together and we have witnessed the upturn in results and playing style after the break.

In my opinion LR has decided upon a strategy to control possession and play the ball forward into the channels for Wyke and Lang to run on to and challenge the opposition CB's. I think this is a strategy to use both Wykes strength and Langs pace to unsettle the CB's and disrupt the play. I think as the season progresses we will see less of this and more of the play centred around midfield players bringing the ball out as the players gel and the understanding gets better.

I think we may also change our shape and go to a three at the back and utilise McClean and Darikwa as wing backs giving the CB's another outlet rather than playing the ball long or into a crowded midfield.

As I said I am happy to accept that the system being used at present is not pretty, but is effective, and that as the season goes on it will evolve.
 
With those 3 decent defensive reinforcements yesterday,we've had a fantastic transfer window!We now have good depth in every position across the pitch and considering that we only had 6 contracted players before it opened(4 of those being from our academy),that's a magnificent effort by all involved.The squad we have built is full of good players and seemingly good characters too.

Throw into the mix we've received over a million for Joseph,McGuirk,Burn,Lowe and Morsy combined and have spent around that on transfer fees to assemble this excellent squad,makes our transfer window even more impressive.

I've really enjoyed and been encouraged by our start to the season,especially considering the tough opposition.Now the squad is complete,i'm really looking forward to watching it continue to gel and further improve for the remainder of it.I reckon there's around another 10 or 11 teams with similar ambitions to win promotion,which makes for an exciting season.Bring it on!💪
Just to add that Paul Kendrick has confirmed that it looks like we have actually made a profit this transfer window.Remarkable effort!This has obviously helped us in offering decent wages for this level to some of our signings.As I said previously,outstanding transfer window and a massive well done to everyone involved!👏
 
I don't think anyone is arguing any of that. I don't think anyone is saying this is the finished product or unhappy with the points return.

But what we are seeing at the moment is an attempt at a style of play that isn't playing to our strengths. It's not so much a case of gelling in the sense that if the def mids are instructed to not effectively act as water carriers and link up play in favour of giving the centre halves more space to play long balls either over the top into the channels or aimed at the strikers head it isn't the best use of what we have. We've seen in most games including pre season the same pattern appear we've only started to get the def mids showing for the ball around the 60-70 min mark, once we do we've been playing through the middle more and we've looked much better. The pattern has happened so often that it doesn't look like it's Naylor, Power, Cousins, Smith, etc hiding for all that time and then suddenly becoming brave - it looks very much like they are given more licence and it seems strange that they aren't given that from the start.

We've seen something similar before when bought Moore, we were so desperate to try and play everything through him we adjusted the rest of the team to our overall detriment. Morsy and Williams who were exceptionally good at doing the water carrying roles stopped showing for the ball and the centre backs were looking long for Moore all the time and it wasn't very effective and in the Championship we got punished for that. We only came good when we reverted back to using Morsy and Williams and incidentally looking for Moore less got a lot more out of him. I think we are in that same process with Wyke at the moment - we are trying to change our style to suit him but i think it's not actually suiting him or anyone else.

We will almost certainly evolve tactically, and i suspect end up like we did at the end of last season under Richardson and at our best under Cook where the 2 def mids were always showing for the ball to link up play. We've got a better team than most in L1 so we've got the luxury of being able to get results during that process unlike when we were in the Championship and trying to do it with Moore. Hopefully we'll end up with similar performances at the end of this process to the end of that Championship season. We are capable of good football, we've seen it in patches especially later in games, we just need to start doing it from the start of games. Once we do everyone is in trouble.
Let's see what happens if we Go behind in the first 15 mins that will tell a lot.
 
Agree with this.

The most impressive part of this is the defence. You won't go up, or be in the mix, if you have a poor defence. Everything is built upon that and it will give us confidence when on the ball to attack and get goals. Even if we are still struggling for goals and good fluid attacking play in a couple of months, L1 is traditionally a tight league and I expect us to continue to be in with a good shout of going up.

We will need to ride our luck a little with injuries as our squad is potentially a little thin, but I expect the owners will be happy to invest or bring in a loanee if necessary. I do think we lack a little in the middle of the park to open up teams but I think we have enough on the flanks and up top to cause damage once they gel and get a few more games under their belts. I'd like to see Wyke and Humphrys start to threaten the goal as we know they can.

Our problem is pretty clear:

View attachment 51528

View attachment 51529
Heard someone describe xG stats very succinctly the other day. If your xG is lower than actual goals then you've got good, efficient goal scorers. If your xG is higher than actual goals then your strikers aren't good enough to convert the chances.
 
I don't think I said they were KDZ ..... I was merely pointing out that we have a tremendous points total and we're in a great league position, (neither of which were expected at this stage).

I get your points re style, but like I said in my other reply to Jeff's Right, I don't give a shit.

Points in these games will have given the team some great confidence. Playing well, yet getting beat (for which I used to defend many managers, much to the disgruntlement of many on here who couldn't see past the result) would have many fans on Richardson's back from the outset, but it seems playing less than excellent all of the time (cos let's face it, there's been equally as much good stuff -almost- as poor) brings it's own criticism, even at this early stage, with a team that's still being put together.

As has been said, not conceding goals will mean that we don't lose games, and with the attacking force we have, no matter how poorly we've been playing in a game, we're always likely to pluck a goal from somewhere.

Keep doing that till Christmas, and I'll be well happy. If the new style has gelled by then, I'll be even happier.
;)

It's a results business, so certainly not a case of asking for style over substance - asking them to take more risks, defend less or anything like that.

This season i'd say we've gone long more than we have via the def mids but the former has seen us struggle while the latter has yielded our best stuff. I'm not a fan of possession for possessions sake or dislike long ball as a tool when done right, you need a balance - but at the moment we are probably leaning into the stuff we are not as good at rather than focusing on what we are better at.
 
I'm with Moonay on this.

The way we win, or draw, is far more important at the moment than the way we play.

That will not always be the case but for a new manager, as with LR, results are the priority. If we had got off to a bad start the comments on this board would have been very critical of the manager and would no doubt have revolved around his "lack of experience".

We all know the problems that bringing in so many players cause and the time it takes for players to gel and understand each others playing style. We have seen in previous seasons that it can take a side up until the Xmas period to come together and we have witnessed the upturn in results and playing style after the break.

In my opinion LR has decided upon a strategy to control possession and play the ball forward into the channels for Wyke and Lang to run on to and challenge the opposition CB's. I think this is a strategy to use both Wykes strength and Langs pace to unsettle the CB's and disrupt the play. I think as the season progresses we will see less of this and more of the play centred around midfield players bringing the ball out as the players gel and the understanding gets better.

I think we may also change our shape and go to a three at the back and utilise McClean and Darikwa as wing backs giving the CB's another outlet rather than playing the ball long or into a crowded midfield.

As I said I am happy to accept that the system being used at present is not pretty, but is effective, and that as the season goes on it will evolve.

I think winning is probably always more important than the way you play. But the way you play obviously makes winning potentially easier or harder.

We've demonstrated different ways we can play, but at the moment we're more often using a style that is probably making winning a bit tougher than the other we have in our locker. If you keep winning it doesn't matter, but i think to keep winning we're probably going to have to evolve and i think we will.

I do agree going to a variation of 3-4-3 with wing backs (and maybe Sheff United style overlapping centre backs) is probably going to be something we try soon.
 
I'm with Moonay on this.

The way we win, or draw, is far more important at the moment than the way we play.

That will not always be the case but for a new manager, as with LR, results are the priority. If we had got off to a bad start the comments on this board would have been very critical of the manager and would no doubt have revolved around his "lack of experience".

We all know the problems that bringing in so many players cause and the time it takes for players to gel and understand each others playing style. We have seen in previous seasons that it can take a side up until the Xmas period to come together and we have witnessed the upturn in results and playing style after the break.

In my opinion LR has decided upon a strategy to control possession and play the ball forward into the channels for Wyke and Lang to run on to and challenge the opposition CB's. I think this is a strategy to use both Wykes strength and Langs pace to unsettle the CB's and disrupt the play. I think as the season progresses we will see less of this and more of the play centred around midfield players bringing the ball out as the players gel and the understanding gets better.

I think we may also change our shape and go to a three at the back and utilise McClean and Darikwa as wing backs giving the CB's another outlet rather than playing the ball long or into a crowded midfield.

As I said I am happy to accept that the system being used at present is not pretty, but is effective, and that as the season goes on it will evolve.
Why not simply use McClean as a winger and get some crosses in for Wyke and let a left back defend.
 
Latest Free Agents some good players on there


✍️ FREE AGENTS ✍️ - Olivier Ntcham (Swansea ✅) - Robbie Brady - Jack Wilshere - Nathaniel Mendez-Laing - Daniel Sturridge - Kean Bryan - Andre Wisdom - Wilfried Bony - Ahmed Elmohamady - Kadeem Harris - Neil Taylor - Hal Robson-Kanu - Andy Carroll - Mo Bešić Any takers? 🤔 https://t.co/7aEtu5CoD0
 
Latest Free Agents some good players on there


✍️ FREE AGENTS ✍️ - Olivier Ntcham (Swansea ✅) - Robbie Brady - Jack Wilshere - Nathaniel Mendez-Laing - Daniel Sturridge - Kean Bryan - Andre Wisdom - Wilfried Bony - Ahmed Elmohamady - Kadeem Harris - Neil Taylor - Hal Robson-Kanu - Andy Carroll - Mo Bešić Any takers? 🤔 https://t.co/7aEtu5CoD0

Robson-Kanu is the only realistical-ish name there right?