2023/24 - The Race For..................

[kendoddsdadsdogsdead]

not going to lie this last week has depressed me. Really did think we had a chance for the title if we stayed relatively injury/suspension free. The first 15 minutes against Chelsea cemented that, the next 15 blew it away.

Football is so fickle. who knows next year, don’t think it’s a certainty that we’ll get better and that we’ll have a better chance. we’ll probably have more games to play. Recruitment might not hit the mark in either quality or numbers. Son a year older, who knows with other teams.

No Europe and going out of the league cup early, real feel good factor around the club, new signings coming in and impressing. Sometimes you just have to take these chances. We never seem to.

 

[carpediem1906]

I don’t think any club has ever experienced such a mega screwed by footballing gods in one match, definitely don’t rem in our past 20 years for sure

it’s like toby n jan n walker n eriksen all out; and wimmer sanchez naughton winks are the replacements ….. and kane was unavailable to begin with

but if we are 4th after 12 games and just 1 point behind fools n arse; I’d say we are still in the mix…. But once u realise how pivotal VdV and Madders are to how we play…

So now it’s all about whether we can be within 4-6 points of 4th come end Jan (when vdv n madders are back)

 

[spanners]

When we look back the Chelsea debacle will be seen as the game that changed our season. Its kicked us completely off track.

 

[thePessimist]

When we look back the Chelsea debacle will be seen as the game that changed our season. Its kicked us completely off track.

weak old spurs would let a single game ruin everything. let’s see how our new team handles this. be good with a little break now..

 

[eddiev14]

I’d like Ange to use this period to blood some of our promising youngsters like Donley, Santiago and Dorrington.

I genuinely don’t care where we finish this season, I just want to see us playing good football and my view is we’ll have a better chance of that if we have hungry players playing in their natural positions.

 

[Ron Burgundy]

When we look back the Chelsea debacle will be seen as the game that changed our season. Its kicked us completely off track.

Yup. We lost our heads, players got banned and injured; and suddenly we seem like the course of the season will play out differently.

Things can change quickly, but it’ll be a hell of a scrap for places this season, and a 2 month hiatus, while we wait for Maddison and VDV, will kill us if we don’t pick up points

 

[Mr Pink]

I’d like Ange to use this period to blood some of our promising youngsters like Donley, Santiago and Dorrington.

I genuinely don’t care where we finish this season, I just want to see us playing good football and my view is we’ll have a better chance of that if we have hungry players playing in their natural positions.

This is such an u nrealistic view point.

The Club, majority of fans and Levy most definitely care where we finish.

I get where your'e coming from but its not your reputation and the chance of a lifetime job on the line.

There's a way to integrate youth and more raw talents into the side, and its not in one big sweep.

Ange is a brave manager but if he doesnt feel any young indivdual player is ready to cope with the physical or mental rigours of the league, then we trust his judgement

 

[Misfit]

I expect greatness from
Romero when he returns, single-handedly dragging the defence along until VDV or reinforcements arrive in January.

 

[cockerel downunder]

Feels like we’ve gone from title race to battle for 4th/5th in a week! Big game against villa next!!

i think we will have a strong 2nd half if the season just need to stay in touch

 

[purple8]

Let’s not get our expectations for January too high. Levy won’t back Ange and the best we can expect is a low cost back up centre back.

Yep just like the last window, we got the cheapskate goalie and lcb. Same old same old

 

[olliec]

I really hate to say this, but why is it Chelsea have completely derailed our season again? I mean VDV, Udogie, Romero, Maddison now all missing for some of our biggest games to come this season after playing them. We are totally cursed when playing that club! And totally screwed until the new year. Would have won yesterday if we had VDV and Romero.

chelsea curse is very real!

 

[Bobbins]

I really hate to say this, but why is it Chelsea have completely derailed our season again? I mean VDV, Udogie, Romero, Maddison now all missing for some of our biggest games to come this season after playing them. We are totally cursed when playing that club! And totally screwed until the new year. Would have won yesterday if we had VDV and Romero.

chelsea curse is very real!

This week has been an unrelenting tide of Chelsea fans both amongst my friends groups and generally around social media constantly crowing about how they destroyed our team and our season.

And they're right.

 

[eddiev14]

This is such an u nrealistic view point.

The Club, majority of fans and Levy most definitely care where we finish.

I get where your'e coming from but its not your reputation and the chance of a lifetime job on the line.

There's a way to integrate youth and more raw talents into the side, and its not in one big sweep.

Ange is a brave manager but if he doesnt feel any young indivdual player is ready to cope with the physical or mental rigours of the league, then we trust his judgement

Oh no, obviously it’s unlikely to happen. I just hark back to the time Poch had Mason and Bentaleb in midfield. Kane up top, Townsend, Dier. All were super young, and got their chance over more established players like Kaboul, Capoue, Adebayor etc who didn’t suit Poch’s style

 

[dannythomas]

Yep just like the last window, we got the cheapskate goalie and lcb. Same old same old

Reality is that Levy had the Kane deal to help him loosen his control of the purse strings. Even then everyone knew we needed another centre back as cover and it didn’t happen. Not convinced that we’ll see much more than that in January. Maybe a loan deal or two.

 

[skiba]

Oh no, obviously it’s unlikely to happen. I just hark back to the time Poch had Mason and Bentaleb in midfield. Kane up top, Townsend, Dier. All were super young, and got their chance over more established players like Kaboul, Capoue, Adebayor etc who didn’t suit Poch’s style

We’re doing the same now with the
VDV, Udogie, Sarr and Johnson.

All those players you mentioned from the Poch era had a decent amount of men’s football under their belt. Donley and Dorrington haven’t made a single appearance between them and Phillips has 18 championship appearances and wasn’t even first choice for Blackburn.

Wolves are a powerful athletic team and we couldn’t cope yesterday. No way was that a game for chucking in such young and inexperienced players IMO.

It was pretty clear that we wanted to move on from the old guard in the summer. None of them are part of the new leadership group and they probably won’t be here much longer. I wish we didn’t have to rely on them but that’s the risk we took and we need to see if we can muddle through until January.

 

[Misfit]

This week has been an unrelenting tide of Chelsea fans both amongst my friends groups and generally around social media constantly crowing about how they destroyed out team and our season.

And they're right.

All the team had to to do avoid all this was continue playing football as they had in the first 20 minutes. They couldn't live with us and then they collectively shit the bed out of nowhere.

I believe they call this a learning experience. Hell of a basic lesson to have to relearn for professionals though.

 

[zonbon32]

Can't remember where I saw it but basically there was this concept/principle that every season has three parts. Our first part was excellent, the second will be rough, but once we have players back for the run in + hopefully some new recruits, we should be able to have an excellent final part.

 

[Adam456]

To have lost the last 2 games and still only be 2 points of top is not a bad result. Obvs we'd be top again if we'd held on but it's not like we deserved it.

Almost 2 weeks to the next game is exactly what we need to reset and assess the options within the squad. For example, I said before the game that there's no way that Dier and Davies are overlooked in favour of academy players and CMs as CBs options. The upside of having a bad performance is that Ange has the justification to make changes. It's clear to me that we need individuals who can simply pass and move without panicking, even if they, individually don't seem to be the best in their position. Our game relies on the team effort, not individual brilliance. So hopefully he has the ammunition not to play Dier, PEH and perhaps Davies

It's also Citeh-Liverpool so if we scrape 3 points at home to Villa the table will take care of itself

 

[olliec]

For starters we need more control in the middle of the pitch, so Bentancur straight in for me after international break.

 

[cookiemonster]

When we look back the Chelsea debacle will be seen as the game that changed our season. Its kicked us completely off track.

Romero is the one I hold responsible for all the shit since