The King is dead

Our midfield problems are bad when people are turning to Johnson. I may be picky but I prefer my midfielders to be able to pass the ball to someone in the same colour shirt as they are wearing.

BJ is much maligned. As dar says, he offers something different and in my opinion was the most effective MF at Ipswich, certainly contributing more than King.
Unfortunately, he has the uncanny ability to balance anything decent he does, with a glaring (ockup and we know from another of his teammates that it is that which catches the eye

BJ isn't maligned enough. What he offers is certainly different to football.

Next please.

We don't have a complete midfielder though and now with King's injury it is going to be even harder for us to balance pace, distribution, vision, ball winning capability off the ball movement and defensive hard to play through solidity.

We could spend the rest of the season bemoaning our players and young manager, picking apart their faults but I'd prefer to see us get behind the lads whoever starts and not let our weaknesses define us.

All our midfielders can be very competitive at this level if not the complete article. Right now when the chips are down players and managers I think would prefer the thousands looking for the good they can do instead of focusing on the bad. {Insert Julius Caesar quote}

I think ranting and moaning is healthy but writing a players obituary even if they are limited footballers isn't really gonna help us get our mojo back.

All of our squad is capable of making an impact and I think a bit of stoic, backs against the wall, unity from fans, coaching staff and players is just the ticket right now.

Nothing to lose we're not favourites for owt anymore, so lets see if we can prove a few people wrong.

Even is we miss out on playoffs lets try n set ourselves up nicely for next season. Maybe a few players might have a few surprises for us. There is bags of potential in this side, that was the one thing about the Forest game that gave me hope. Forest outfought us and deserved their victory just about, but there was nothing exciting about them, a boring outdated style of organised football, journeymen footballers out huffing and puffing a low on confidence team. I still prefer our shoes to theirs even if they could do with a bit of clean.

We saw a glimpse of something special at the beginning of the season, we have gears in us even with our current injuries that if we can tap into and unleash will set us up very well.

The future is still very much ours, time to get behind the lads n look for the positives.

"Better to shine a light than curse the darkness."

On boys

Bad news for Saturday, while our midfield gets weaker by the day Grealish is set to return for Villa.

comment by 2 Wellies (U6713)
posted 9 hours, 33 minutes ago
We don't have a complete midfielder though and now with King's injury it is going to be even harder for us to balance pace, distribution, vision, ball winning capability off the ball movement and defensive hard to play through solidity.

We could spend the rest of the season bemoaning our players and young manager, picking apart their faults but I'd prefer to see us get behind the lads whoever starts and not let our weaknesses define us.

All our midfielders can be very competitive at this level if not the complete article. Right now when the chips are down players and managers I think would prefer the thousands looking for the good they can do instead of focusing on the bad. {Insert Julius Caesar quote}

I think ranting and moaning is healthy but writing a players obituary even if they are limited footballers isn't really gonna help us get our mojo back.

All of our squad is capable of making an impact and I think a bit of stoic, backs against the wall, unity from fans, coaching staff and players is just the ticket right now.

Nothing to lose we're not favourites for owt anymore, so lets see if we can prove a few people wrong.

Even is we miss out on playoffs lets try n set ourselves up nicely for next season. Maybe a few players might have a few surprises for us. There is bags of potential in this side, that was the one thing about the Forest game that gave me hope. Forest outfought us and deserved their victory just about, but there was nothing exciting about them, a boring outdated style of organised football, journeymen footballers out huffing and puffing a low on confidence team. I still prefer our shoes to theirs even if they could do with a bit of clean.

We saw a glimpse of something special at the beginning of the season, we have gears in us even with our current injuries that if we can tap into and unleash will set us up very well.

The future is still very much ours, time to get behind the lads n look for the positives.

"Better to shine a light than curse the darkness."

On boys
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Very well said 2 Wellies.

@Spart - I doubt he'd be completely match fit just yet.

Discussing the team yesterday with a friend I think perhaps we should consider 442 and have proper wingers - with Holmes on the right and Wilson on the left, Lawrence and Dutch dude for back up.

Marriott and Waghorn given time together up front to work on their partnership.

The only thing I'm not sure about but let's test it is Hudds and Mount in the middle.

I think that would work better than 4-3-3 as we don't have the creative players or pacey central midfielders to make this work currently.

Bad news for Saturday, while our midfield gets weaker by the day Grealish is set to return for Villa.

...............................................

That is one bit of good news but we've quite possibly had the worst injuries of all the teams in the Championship this season. We've still got Chester and Tuanzebe our injured (our first choice CBs), so are playing a 3rd choice CB alongside a January loan signing, McGinn is suspended (key CM), and we've got a GK out for the season. Whether Grealish is fit to start or not I don't know, of course he will make a difference, but he's been out for 3 months so we will have to wait with bated breath.

I know you're missing Mount, Lawrence and a few others and not in good form so maybe a good time to play you, but our form has been shocking and the manager has come in for some stick. It would be nice to end the season on a good run even if we don't make playoffs.

Pleased to hear that McGinn is out.
From what I've seen of him and given our currently dysfunctional MF, he is exactly the sort of player we need to avoid.