[talkSAFT]

Looking forward as the new owners have come in and steadied the ship. Where do we go from here. I'm looking at how we progress. Although Carlos has done a fantastic job I'm not sure he is the one to turn us into genuine promotional contenders. He has acquired most of our squad and drilled his style of play into the squad. The massive question is do we persevere with him or let him go and bring in someone who can inject some pace into our performances and take us forward. I would personally keep Carlos until the end of this session, but if promotion is not achievad it's time to move on. We have to accept he's been great for the club, but he's never going to get us up.

Bloody Hell, Blue! I hope CC is not reading this.
He's only turned down the thought of moving on because of the great support of the grateful fans. Why is he "never going to get us up"? His points won ratio is brilliant considering the state the Club were in 2 years ago when we were almost favourites to go down to League 1.
Right now we're continuing to make a progress we couldn't have imagined 2 years ago, thanks only to him, and Mr.Patel (who, we hope, is also not reading this!)

[Salopbaggie]

Looking forward as the new owners have come in and steadied the ship. Where do we go from here. I'm looking at how we progress. Although Carlos has done a fantastic job I'm not sure he is the one to turn us into genuine promotional contenders. He has acquired most of our squad and drilled his style of play into the squad. The massive question is do we persevere with him or let him go and bring in someone who can inject some pace into our performances and take us forward. I would personally keep Carlos until the end of this session, but if promotion is not achievad it's time to move on. We have to accept he's been great for the club, but he's never going to get us up.

Can't agree Blue. building a squad/team and getting your philosophy in a style of play into them can take years, it is not something you do over a season. To my way of thinking this is CC first real season when he has had substantial control over what is happening, even if still with financial constraints. I would certainly not want to see the back of him at the end of this season even if we end up mid-table. In the interview at the end of the Oxford game, you could see his frustration in the team, without him actually saying that. I think he has earned our trust for at least a couple of seasons, and in all honesty I don't think the question is should we keep him, as much as it is can we keep him?

[drewks]

Yeah, I'm torn on this one.
VERY mindful of Lord Snooty's comment earlier - regarding watching his teams being boring - I AM drawing a bit of a parallel with us under CC and England under Southgate. You COULD say that England progressed under GS, but were also as dull as hell..... are we going down the same track - possession = back >sideways>sideways >back, etc etc?
At least Southgate had his choice of players, it could be argued, and CC is doing everything on a shoestring.... but it seems that the possession game, and not taking any chance of an adventurous pass or piece of individual skill, is being drilled into players.
At the expense of entertainment?!
With our history of attractive/attacking football, what do we want - dull success or better but not-so-successful entertainment??

Personally, I'm thinking that obviously a marriage of the 2 is ideal, but if it's one or the other - sorry Carlos....

[Blue Baggie]

I like the differences of opinion. My reasoning is based on giving Carlos this season. I think at the end of the season we have to evaluate what we want and if Carlos is the man to deliver it. I was hopeful we could push for automatic promotion. But even with Carlos bringing new players in IMHO our performances and style of play is almost the same as last season. I was expecting an improvement, but it has not happened. We need to change our approach to win games and I'm not getting a warm feeling Carlos can achieve it.

[drewks]

Yeah, I'm torn on this one.
VERY mindful of Lord Snooty's comment earlier - regarding watching his teams being boring - I AM drawing a bit of a parallel with us under CC and England under Southgate. You COULD say that England progressed under GS, but were also as dull as hell..... are we going down the same track - possession = back >sideways>sideways >back, etc etc?
At least Southgate had his choice of players, it could be argued, and CC is doing everything on a shoestring.... but it seems that the possession game, and not taking any chance of an adventurous pass or piece of individual skill, is being drilled into players.
At the expense of entertainment?!
With our history of attractive/attacking football, what do we want - dull success or better but not-so-successful entertainment??

Personally, I'm thinking that obviously a marriage of the 2 is ideal, but if it's one or the other - sorry Carlos....

.... just like to add that I'm full of admiration for CC in the way he's turned us round from a struggling club to one that is challenging in the top third - I don't think that came across in my original post - but I just don't like modern-day football, with the huge emphasis on possession, continually passing square and back, and hardly any will to 'take a chance'!

[Minizin]

From the state Bruce left us in, dragging us to the playoffs, the cutting the wage bill by 30% this summer and being top after 6 games (and now having lost only twice) - he’s done alright.

It’s also worth pointing out that we have no right to be guaranteed promotion contenders. I think 5 clubs have parachute payments, and I’d guess our wage bill is 6th-10th. Any better performance than that is a real achievement

[Blue Baggie]

3 points from the last 5 games. I don't really want to say anything more.

[Slick_Footwork]

Poor game to watch tonight. Bore draw from two teams who both looked happy to take a point.

Maybe we deserved to win as we had better chances and probably should've had a penalty. But it wasn't an easy watch.

On paper, a draw away at Blackburn is decent. The league position, likewise.

But I'd be lying if I didn't think we were capable of more...

I'm struggling to understand some of Corberan's decisions at the moment. I thought Racic was one of our better players on Saturday, so why was he dropped?

Meanwhile the likes of Grady, who was poor for consecutive games, keeps his place...

We've seen Corberan drop our better players for the sake of "rotation" already this season and it's bitten us on the ass. He dropped Mowatt against Sheffield Wednesday and we lost. He dropped Fellows right in the middle of his hot streak against Boro and we lost...

Fellows hasn't looked the same player since...

Surely we need Racic and Mowatt to have a run of games together so they can forge a proper partnership. They have to be our first choice duo in the middle of the park with Molumby and Diakite as back up. Despite that, they're not getting a run of games together. It's constant chopping and changing.

Mikey Johnston can't get a look in, despite being one of the best players in the Championship last season. I appreciate he was really poor against Millwall on the one occasion Corberan started him and Grant has done enough to keep that slot on the left. But in games like tonight when Grant and Fellows are non-existent, Mikey has to be introduced earlier. When he came on tonight, he was the one player who looked like he actually wanted to go forward and create, but it was too little too late. We know what he can do, we know he can change games, so he has to be given a chance. We've seen more than enough of John Swift to know he's not the player when you need a bit of magic to open the game up, Mikey is.

I believe Corberan has done a great job to date. If you look back at my posts historically, he was my choice for the role. I think he knows a player when he sees one. But the job he's done historically does not make him immune from criticism. I don't feel like we'll get a good run of form together until Corberan finds his best XI and sticks with it.