More Press-ed off than ever before

[dave.woodhall]

http://thebirminghampress.com/2017/01/breaking-the-transfer-window/

[kippaxvilla2]

Frightening.

[Steve67]

Excellent piece Dave. Nail on head. So very frustrating.

[ciggiesnbeer]

Scary. But true. I have no idea where we go from here. We simply do not seem capable as an institution of pulling out of the dive.

[eamonn]

On the button. Forest comparison b!oody terrifying.

[Chris Smith]

You sum it up well, Dave and the thread title reflects just how I feel. I had high hopes after the recent activity in the transfer market and although some allowance can be made due to their unfamiliarity with each other in midfield none should be offered for their seeming naivety.

As if it were needed this was the final confirmation that we aren't getting out of this division this season.

[Risso]

You sum it up well, Dave and the thread title reflects just how I feel. I had high hopes after the recent activity in the transfer market and although some allowance can be made due to their unfamiliarity with each other in midfield none should be offered for their seeming naivety.

As if it were needed this was the final confirmation that we aren't getting out of this division this season.

At least not in the direction most of us would hope.

[Rigadon]

Ah well. Massively annoying as it is, it's only football.

[Villafirst]

The club needs a period of stability and not wholesale changes every six months. The ability is there.....what happened to the team that battered Brighton in that second-half only a couple of months ago?

[paul_e]

The club needs a period of stability and not wholesale changes every six months. The ability is there.....what happened to the team that battered Brighton in that second-half only a couple of months ago?

I absolutely agree, that's why I thought the idea of using Bruce to get promoted and then replacing him with someone to push us on was fanciful, we should be defining a club style and working towards that rather than ripping everything down every time the latest manager fails.

If we accept that the playoffs are gone for this year I'd give him 2 months to show he can form a team and if it's still not happening I then don't know how he could continue.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

The club needs a period of stability and not wholesale changes every six months. The ability is there.....what happened to the team that battered Brighton in that second-half only a couple of months ago?

We've got the stability, unfortunately it's the wrong type of stability.
Possibly the most depressing post from Dave to date. Something has to change.

[ROBBO]

I still support Bruce.....for now but he needs to get this team sorted in weeks not months, what i don't like is that we seem to be slower and not as fit as our opponents week after week, when we close down we do it at snails pace, there is no pressure applied. The way he kept the original 11 when it was obvious changes were needed was very worrying.

[Fin Feds Dad]

Been saying it for months - Every team we play against pass the ball better than we do .

It's basics - fucking clueless

[brian green]

Very insightful and thought provoking as always.

The two dominant thoughts this piece provokes in me are firstly the endlessly recurring periods in our games that are completely devoid of any kind of leadership.  We can field half a team of captains of previous clubs but still are incapable of inter player communication.  The most basic form of panic is allowed to run amok through our team, regardless of the personnel.  They need to be told by somebody, and they need to be told that they must obey, not to resort to leathering the ball aimlessly upfield.  They need to be told to mark tighter and to press harder.  They need a leader, at least one strong, indomitable man out there.  Chester was captain at Brentford and he was our worst player.
The second thought DW's summary provokes in me is who judges the judges?  Who at VP actually decides whose job it is to evaluate the players we recruit and play?  It can't be Bruce, the work has to be delegated.  That being the case why do we have so many players coming into the team who are ill prepared or under prepared both mentally and physically to give anywhere remotely near performances expected of them? Who assessed Elphick or McCormack or Adomah and now Bjarnason and Lansbury and Hourihane?  Why has the last six years been swamped with demands for more time.  More time for managers, more time for players, more time for this ephemeral process of gelling that never happens.  We wait for the gelling process to manifest itself while our players don't even talk to each other on the field.

This is the last chance saloon.  It is either Bruce or the abyss.  The abyss this morning looks the more attractive.

[robbo1874]

I reckon next 4 or 5 games will give a fair indication of the direction we're heading. Hopefully it will be stability and then pushing up the table.

The amount of business we've done in this window leads me to think that we've started planning now for another season in the championship. I think they expect to still be in this league next season and scraping up through the playoffs as a nice bonus if it happens.

It should mean we have a largely settled squad and system by the end of the season and we'll only need to do minimal business in the summer. Hopefully we can then focus on a decent pre-season and come out of the traps next season like the barcodes did this season.