How are we handling the pressure?

[Dodgin]

If it's an away game and I'm listening GJ,  late in the game I usually turn the sound down if the opposition are attacking. Seems quite normal

[Sting of the North]

Whatever people feel about mass recruitment in the summer I'm sorry to says it's inevitable,  this squad is not good enough to even remotely compete in The Premier League,  though saying that no current club in this year's Championship has got a squad even remotely close to competing in The Premier League in just six months time,
Just to prove my point, let's fast forward six months, it's August 2020, and this Saturday we are due to play our first game of the season at home to Everton,
How many of our current squad (excluding loan signings) would you like to see in the starting eleven ?
Rodak, Hector, Bobby Reid, Mitrovic , that's about it as far as I'm concerned, the failure to once again bring in two decent full backs in The January transfer window is again going to cause us problems this summer, MacDonald,  Cairney and Johansen are not good enough to play in The Premier League,  though I could make a case for Johansen on the bench,
If the ambition is to stay up then another massive overhaul is required or if we accept our fate as a yo-yo club, in the same way that Norwich have done this summer , then maybe we only need 4 or 5 top quality additions,  accept our fate, come back down, get promoted again and add 4 or 5 more until eventually we can go up and survive,
But it's crazy to even suggest this current squad is good enough.

I bet to differ on most points. To stay up you have to better three teams. Every club good enough to get promoted should have a fighting chance with only a few key additions if managed properly. Also, most players doing a good job at Championship level can do a decent job at PL level under the right circumstances. I believe the 'craziness' is to believe this not to be the case, especially as we see Sheffield United and Norwood this year.

Different opinions and all that.

For an hour last Saturday our squad got played off the park by the team 19th in The Championship,  there's a long way to go between now and Premier League survival,
As I say , I have no problem whatsoever with becoming a yo-yo club , though the majority of our support would never be able to accept that concept.

But the question here was not whether or not we played well last week? Or more generally whether or not we are playing to our potential? It was about whether or not this squad can potentially form the basis for a PL surviving team, was it not?

[colinwhite]

yes

[Statto]

For an hour last Saturday our squad got played off the park by the team 19th in The Championship,  there's a long way to go between now and Premier League survival,

We were 1 goal up and this team's/Parker's approach in that situation is to sit back and soak up the pressure. It's generally a successful strategy for us, as it was on Saturday. As I said on another thread, there was a discernible gulf in class between us and Huddersfield, and had they equalised, I suspect we'd just have turned the afterburners back on and scored another couple.

As for our squad, Rodak, Hector, Cairney, Cavaliero and Mitrovic are all good enough for the PL IMO, and possibly 2-3 of Bryan, Johansen, Reid, Odoi, Mawson (if he gets his confidence back) and even Arter and Kongolo (if we keep them). All in all I'd be happy to see around 7-8 of our current squad in the first XI for the start of a PL season. Yes we need an injection of a few top quality players but so does every promoted club.     

[The Rational Fan]

For an hour last Saturday our squad got played off the park by the team 19th in The Championship,  there's a long way to go between now and Premier League survival,

We were 1 goal up and this team's/Parker's approach in that situation is to sit back and soak up the pressure. It's generally a successful strategy for us, as it was on Saturday. As I said on another thread, there was a discernible gulf in class between us and Huddersfield, and had they equalised, I suspect we'd just have turned the afterburners back on and scored another couple.

As for our squad, Rodak, Hector, Cairney, Cavaliero and Mitrovic are all good enough for the PL IMO, and possibly a couple of Bryan, Johansen, Odoi, Mawson (if he gets his confidence back) and even Arter and Kongolo (if we keep them). All in all I'd be happy to see around 7 of our current squad in the first XI for the start of a PL season. Yes we need an injection of 4-5 top quality players but so does every promoted club.   

We only need around four first-team players, one bench player and if required swap returning loan (one first XI and two 2nd-XI) players.

First XI: Rodak, RB, LB, Hector, Kongolo, DM, RW, Anguissa, Mitrovic, Cairney, and Cavaliero
Second XI: Fabri, S.Sess, Bryan, RCB, Mawson, Reed, Knockaert, Arter, Kamara, Seri, and Reid
Third XI: Betts (GK), Christie (RB), Odoi (LB/RCB/LCB), Onamah (CM/AM/LW), and Stansfield (CF)

One important difference compared to 2018 is we start with a so much stronger second XI and third XI. It doesn't require much:
The five players for the first team could be filled by two purchases (LB, DM), two EPL loans (RB, CM), and one foreign loan (RW).
The three bench players could be filled by buying top-championship players (GK, RCB, AM), that are prepared to stay if relegated.

[colinwhite]

Whatever people feel about mass recruitment in the summer I'm sorry to says it's inevitable,  this squad is not good enough to even remotely compete in The Premier League,  though saying that no current club in this year's Championship has got a squad even remotely close to competing in The Premier League in just six months time,
Just to prove my point, let's fast forward six months, it's August 2020, and this Saturday we are due to play our first game of the season at home to Everton,
How many of our current squad (excluding loan signings) would you like to see in the starting eleven ?
Rodak, Hector, Bobby Reid, Mitrovic , that's about it as far as I'm concerned, the failure to once again bring in two decent full backs in The January transfer window is again going to cause us problems this summer, MacDonald,  Cairney and Johansen are not good enough to play in The Premier League,  though I could make a case for Johansen on the bench,
If the ambition is to stay up then another massive overhaul is required or if we accept our fate as a yo-yo club, in the same way that Norwich have done this summer , then maybe we only need 4 or 5 top quality additions,  accept our fate, come back down, get promoted again and add 4 or 5 more until eventually we can go up and survive,
But it's crazy to even suggest this current squad is good enough.

I bet to differ on most points. To stay up you have to better three teams. Every club good enough to get promoted should have a fighting chance with only a few key additions if managed properly. Also, most players doing a good job at Championship level can do a decent job at PL level under the right circumstances. I believe the 'craziness' is to believe this not to be the case, especially as we see Sheffield United and Norwood this year.

Different opinions and all that.

For an hour last Saturday our squad got played off the park by the team 19th in The Championship,  there's a long way to go between now and Premier League survival,
As I say , I have no problem whatsoever with becoming a yo-yo club , though the majority of our support would never be able to accept that concept.

Dont agree. They get 2 quick scrappy goals which put us in shock and them able to play without fear. They created afew chances which we coped with and then saw the game out ,hardly getting played off the park. You dont need to dominate for 90 minutes,and in fact if you try you will get burned in the PL. Pretty much one of the main points in my original post. Earlier in the season we were having 75 per cent possession ,dominating teams and still dropping points whilst Parker was being accused of being tactically inept. Now we are tactically streetwise we are suddenly being played off the park. Come on !!!

[The Rational Fan]

Whatever people feel about mass recruitment in the summer I'm sorry to says it's inevitable,  this squad is not good enough to even remotely compete in The Premier League, though saying that no current club in this year's Championship has got a squad even remotely close to competing in The Premier League in just six months time,
Just to prove my point, let's fast forward six months, it's August 2020, and this Saturday we are due to play our first game of the season at home to Everton,
How many of our current squad (excluding loan signings) would you like to see in the starting eleven ?
Rodak, Hector, Bobby Reid, Mitrovic , that's about it as far as I'm concerned, the failure to once again bring in two decent full backs in The January transfer window is again going to cause us problems this summer, MacDonald, Cairney and Johansen are not good enough to play in The Premier League,  though I could make a case for Johansen on the bench,
If the ambition is to stay up then another massive overhaul is required or if we accept our fate as a yo-yo club, in the same way that Norwich have done this summer , then maybe we only need 4 or 5 top quality additions,  accept our fate, come back down, get promoted again and add 4 or 5 more until eventually we can go up and survive,
But it's crazy to even suggest this current squad is good enough.

I bet to differ on most points. To stay up you have to better three teams. Every club good enough to get promoted should have a fighting chance with only a few key additions if managed properly. Also, most players doing a good job at Championship level can do a decent job at PL level under the right circumstances. I believe the 'craziness' is to believe this not to be the case, especially as we see Sheffield United and Norwood this year.

Different opinions and all that.

For an hour last Saturday our squad got played off the park by the team 19th in The Championship,  there's a long way to go between now and Premier League survival,
As I say, I have no problem whatsoever with becoming a yo-yo club, though the majority of our support would never be able to accept that concept.

Dont agree. They get 2 quick scrappy goals which put us in shock and them able to play without fear. They created afew chances which we coped with and then saw the game out ,hardly getting played off the park. You dont need to dominate for 90 minutes,and in fact if you try you will get burned in the PL. Pretty much one of the main points in my original post. Earlier in the season we were having 75 per cent possession ,dominating teams and still dropping points whilst Parker was being accused of being tactically inept. Now we are tactically streetwise we are suddenly being played off the park. Come on !!!

Currently, no team in the Championship is good enough to be a Premier League Top 17 Team, but we are around the 23 best club in the UK so good enough to become a yo-yo club. We need to become a Yo-Yo Club, building a squad year-on-year rather than massive squad changes. If we get promoted I would start by  buying everyone currently here, welcoming Anguissa back, get Chambers if fit, buying a premier league right-back and left-back plus a few younger players.

We need to go into the Premier League with a plan that no one in this division currently is going to get ahead of us. We need a plan to build a squad that will finish above WBA, Leeds, Brentford, Forest, Bristol, Cardiff and Huddersfield teams for the next four years because that is all we can do. We cannot plan to be better than the top 17 clubs, we just wait for one of them to slip up and be the next team standing.

We can get promoted, we can finish above at least two teams in the EPL and we can get promoted again; but we cannot bridge the gap from us to Bournemouth or Brighton without them making mistakes or us getting lucky say with youth development. They have a better squad than us, then we both go into the transfer market for the same players will spend the same amount of money.

The thing is we can be a yo-yo club, we can be the 18th best team in England and teams in the top 17 clubs all slip up from time to time. We can only plan to be better than 74 professional football clubs and hope one of the top 17 slip up, history says most seasons one of them always does. We are currently the 23rd best club, if we need to move into the 18th-21st best club for a few seasons before we get our chance so be it, be just have to be there ready coming 18th or 21st in the football league (i.e. automatic promotion) every season until it happens.

[Sting of the North]

And yet promoted teams is not always relegated. Is then the only possible explanation a slip up by another team? Did half the PL slip up so far this season, allowing Sheffield United to be within touching distance of a place in Europe after 25 games.

I feel like I keep repeating myself in multiple threads, but things are not that simple because this is not a situation with just a few very limited and unimaginative possible outcomes. Keep theorizing away about exactly what we should/have/need to do, but reality will most likely never reflect  those theories.

It's not even close to being that simple, as proven all the time.

[Milo]

From the current squad bearing in mind we can't just sign 11 new players and have to keep some continuity to learn from last year..

Cav, Mitro, Knockaert, Hector, Rodak are first team Prem in my opinion.

Odoi of course filling in holes.

Whole of midfield needs a rethink for the Premiership. Cairney is too inconsistent, Macdonald and Johansen are in their 30s.

At the back, RB at the very least needs replacing. Bryan seems to do better in the Prem than the CS for some strange paradox.

[The Rational Fan]

And yet promoted teams is not always relegated. Is then the only possible explanation a slip up by another team? Did half the PL slip up so far this season, allowing Sheffield United to be within touching distance of a place in Europe after 25 games.

I feel like I keep repeating myself in multiple threads, but things are not that simple because this is not a situation with just a few very limited and unimaginative possible outcomes. Keep theorizing away about exactly what we should/have/need to do, but reality will most likely never reflect  those theories.

It's not even close to being that simple, as proven all the time.

Teamwork and luck come into it, but you cannot fix that with recruitment as ManUtd Proves. In terms of player acquisition to get you up the table all teams above Sheffield United would have considered those players and could have bought them but didn't, isn't that a slip up. Sheffield United made a squad from what the 17 teams from last year never wanted, the real key is not the squad that is the 19th most expensive in the PL but building team over a few years.

FFP is designed to encourage teams to behave like Sheffield United, focusing on being the best you can be, finishing a little higher, getting slightly better and go on to the field trying to win each game with the weaker squad. FFP is designed so a club cannot buy its way into the premier league, as a promoted club has less money than a established club even if the owner pours in some money.

Clubs can get ahead by buying undervalued players or developing players or developing team work, but FFP prevents team spending so much they don't need to do any of those. That gives Fulham three options: the ideal that we can suddenly get better that other clubs at recruiting players is unlikely given recent acquisitions so that leaves us with developing players and teamwork like Sheffield United.

In order to develop players and teamwork, we need to stop changing the squad every season and get yo-yo players long-term (with us going up and with us going down).

[copthornemike]

Wolves provide an excellent current example of where we should aspire to in my opinion.
In the Championship played a possession based game which allied to players with better technical ability than other teams promotion was achieved.
The clever bit in my opinion was to change to a defensively strong counter attacking side in the Premiership utilising quick forwards.
All down to an excellent manager and good recruitment

Both the promoted squad & recruited players were too slow and poor defensively compared to the average Premiership team.
Hopefully we are good enough now to get promotion, yet intelligent enough to learn from the mistakes of our all too brief Premiership stay.

[The Rational Fan]

On the 1st July 2018

• First XI were: Betts, Christie, Odoi, Ream, R.Sess, KMac, Stefjo, Cairney, Ayite, Kamara, Kebano.
• Bench 12-18 were: Button, Fossey, Djalo, Cisse, Torres, Fonte, Woodrow.
• Squad 19-25 were: Rodak, S.Sess, Riley, Edun, Elliott, Kait and Graham.

That squad is truly terrible PL team with only R.Sess and Cairney worthy of starting at Brighton. That has to be one of the worse squads ever to enter the premier league and adding £100m to that lineup could not be guaranteed to work, it's not as strong as Aston Villa was after the playoff.

If we get promoted this time, I reckon bringing Anguissa and Seri back plus adding £100m would do wonders now. If we go up Cairney would struggle to make the first XI and Seri would have to train hard to make the bench, if that's not competitive what is.

We might go up and down, but if we do well every premier league team will have to play like a premier league which rarely happens. Crystal Palace and Burnley are getting older someone will drop the ball, we just need to be really to take the opportunity when it comes.

[Statto]

Another one goal lead successfully closed out.

[Oakeshott]

"Another one goal lead successfully closed out."

No question we are looking much more solid defensively. Pleased with where we are in the table and promotion, automatic or not, looking very possible. But I can't help wondering where we would have been if Hector had been able to play from August.

[bog]

"Another one goal lead successfully closed out."

No question we are looking much more solid defensively. Pleased with where we are in the table and promotion, automatic or not, looking very possible. But I can't help wondering where we would have been if Hector had been able to play from August.

+1 100%

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