Mantra

Fuck it, do what Arsenal do, start with 4 Centre Backs as a back 4 to fix our leaky defence. Use that as the foundation. (White, Saliba, Gabriel, Timber) ≠ (Forino, Santos, Toal, Johnston) Defence fixed ✅ Let the wingbacks become wingers to free them up. Got a defensive player behind them, let them push up and give us real attacking width without thinking, "shit I need to cover the winger". Attacking width gained ✅ Try Dempsey and Thomason as a partnership, they both have a bit of bite to their game. Let them screen the defence together, Thomo can ping it long, Dempsey can carry it/play simple passes. Gives our midfield some more mettle ✅ Get 2 up top, or one attacking midfielder and one striker. As long as one drops deep and links play, the other runs in behind. So a combination of Charles (runner) and Collins (link up). Or Vic (hold up) and McAtee (late runs in behind). Score some fuckin goals ✅ (sorry I'm bored and writing imaginary team lineups is the only thing that will get me excited about Saturday)

Is Cooper the one who scouted Forino/Schon or something? First time I’ve heard his name

https://www.patreon.com/posts/112163884?utm_campaign=postshare_creator anyone got access to this?

Where’s the Thomason captaincy rumour from? BN article only mentions Craddock and someone from analysis team. Not sure how removing coaches is going to be beneficial. Replacing them with someone better might but that will take a couple weeks to sort. Seems a bizarre decision at the moment but I’ll just have to trust SB knows what she’s doing on this one…

The biggest annoyance is that we’ve given him cash to spaff again this summer and a new bloke coming in probably won’t want half of them next summer. Here is our contracts situation from transfermarkt:- Expiring June 2025: Coleman, Baxter, Santos, Cogley, Matheson, Williams, Jones, Sheehan, Matete, Arfield. Expiring June 2026: southwood johnston, forrester, tutu Dempsey, Mendes-Gomes Charles, Adeboyejo Expiring June 2027: Forino, Toal, Schon thomason, McAtee, lolos Collins

Given some of the British names I’ve seen banded about today, I could get behind a left of field foreign manager I’ve never heard of.

The positive is that we still have 40 games left to play, more than enough to make up ground and get ourselves challenging again. Our players are more than capable of reaching the playoffs even with the bad start. They need confidence and inspiration. Evatt is a broken man right now so they won’t be getting that from him. The tactics is one side of it but the man-management and motivation is another. I don’t think if I was in that dressing room I’d have much faith left at all in “the process”. I don’t for one second buy Evatt’s excuse of the game being a physical mismatch. If that’s the case we might as well have just forfeited the game before it started because they’re “bigger than us.” There is always a solution tactically to play to your strengths and target the oppositions weaknesses, he sadly did not find any despite priding himself on his tactical style. My gut says the decision has already been made and the board are waiting for Monday morning to announce it. My only counter is that I think SB will feel disappointed and embarrassed by how the decision to stick by him after Wembley has gone. Does she do what she did at the start of League 2 and double down on him? The difference now is that fans are in the stadium again and being vocal in their discontent, that may be a deciding factor.

😔

“That isn’t my team and that should not represent who I am and what I am as a manager” Totally distancing himself from the team he has cultivated and coached for a long time. He’s definitely gone

First chant today from the crowd was Ian Ian Ian, second name is Evatt Evatt Evatt… Crowd tried to make a good atmosphere first 20 mins but a lull descended and by full time it had turned again completely

I don't think he's a clown, or a useless twat or anything of that nature. He has his ways and his style which worked for a time but it's gone fully tits up now. We've been found out to the point that Evatt can't see the wood for the trees. Doesn't seem to know what to do to fix the problem. Every game feels like a re-run of Oxford and the players look clueless. Taking off a defender for a midfielder for the first time ever when we're 3-0 down was like putting Cogley at LWB in the final. The crowd around me were sarcastically cheering everytime we passed backwards. Was all a bit pantomime.

Gonna predict 1-1 with a last minute equaliser