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Reply | Field to Norwich
at 12:38 3 Feb 2026
My guess would be that last summer we weren't planning to sign Hayden like we ended up doing, and thought we'd be selling Varane this summer, so we wanted to make sure we had Field locked down so we weren't trying to replace the entire central midfield at once, especially after having a season wherethere was a pretty strong correlation between how we performed and whether Field was playing. Stephan was brand new in the job (or possibly wasn't even in role?) and wouldn't have had much/any say in it. We were also expecting to play 4-2-3-1.
Now we do have Hayden, there may not be much interest in Varane as he's been mediocre this season and now injured, we play 4-4-2 and Stephan has made clear he doesn't rate Field at all. At that point the best you can do is try and get some money out of him, whether that's a combo of loan fee/wages paid or a sale (or ideally, both). |
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Reply | Field to Norwich
at 09:33 3 Feb 2026
This 100%. We have a midfield two and it's unbalanced - one of them is Madsen, and then the other is Field/Hayden/Varane. Even when Stephan has changed it up recently, he's preferred to play Morgan over Field. When Field has played he's almost always been out of position. The guy is a senior player in the prime of his career, a big figure in the squad, has captained the side on several occasions, and he's doing bit parts at left back while he's behind a 20 year old from the dev squad in his preferred position after years of being ever-present for us? Keeping him around is only going to make him miserable, and not playing does nothing for his value. A good loan out that lets him play is best for everyone - Norwich might buy him at the end, or if he plays well someone else will. We're in zero danger of going down, probably not going up, none of our development prospects are currently making a serious case for themselves as a sale except for Nico (and he remains the only player we have no direct replacement for, so any sale means you need to go and find another one of him), so if you can save some wages for a few months and potentially sell Sam at the end to keep things steady that's what you have to do. |
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Reply | The antidote – Report
at 09:23 3 Feb 2026
I think you're right that it's about the players around him. Watch that first goal back - Bennie picks it up from the Coventry header, finds Vale, one touch long out to Madsen, one touch over to Kone. We've really lacked that ability to just get the ball out and forward over the last few weeks, and we've not really had anyone in the side apart from Madsen that could play that Vale pass. It was noticeable against Wrexham too - having Vale in the side means you have multiple players with vision and the ability to play difficult, progressive balls forward, so we're not totally reliant on Madsen doing it out of midfield. That gives us more creative options but also gives him more freedom to do things like he did for that goal in pushing forward to challenge for the long ball out, then running up the wing to receive the pass when we'd won it back.
Apart from that one game in central midfield where everything he did went wrong, Vale to me looks like Andersen did in his first six months with us. He's not particularly quick or physical, but he always seems to have more time and space than anyone else gets, and he does difficult things so smoothly they look simple. I think he probably lacks the athleticism to make it to the top, but if he can consistently perform like he's done in the last two games he'll be an incredible player at this level.
One other observation on Madsen - the guy never wants to touch the ball if he doesn't have to. I think if any of our wingers are out there receiving that pass, they would have taken at least one touch just to get it under control. He lets it run because he knows what pass he's going to play and where the ball will be when he plays it, so why worry? |
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Reply | January transfer rumours
at 09:07 3 Feb 2026
Stephan said after the game that Hayden was just fatigue and there's zero issues with him. He's fine. |
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Reply | Christian Pullella
at 12:30 29 Jan 2026
Remember that bit about Brighton looking at undervalued positions/markets? Could be much the same thinking at a smaller scale.
Pearman seems to have mostly disappeared, Adamson has had a few first team sub appearances and looked a bit better in his most recent one, Bennie is in that sort of 19th spot in the 18 where ideally he's not being used but he provides injury cover when necessary. He could really do with Obikwu taking over as the cover striker so he can go on loan somewhere and play consistently for a bit. |
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Reply | Madsen
at 18:25 21 Jan 2026
I think Serie A is a great shout. He's probably not fast/athletic enough for the PL, but he'd do well over there. |
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Reply | Madsen
at 18:02 21 Jan 2026
Losing Madsen for any length of time is our single biggest risk currently. Not because he's necessarily better than Dunne or Burrell or others, but because we don't seem to have anybody in the squad who can do anything like what he does. I think Jimmy has been brilliant, but I'd feel ok about Edwards/Cook for a run of games, and Mbengue and Field can fill in for a game or two without the defence going to bits if needed. Who replaces Madsen? We saw Field/Hayden tried and the ball just never went fowards, and Varane is less progressive than either. Vale or Morgan might do it but both had pretty lousy goes in their (admittedly short) cameos there recently. |
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Reply | Player Sales
at 16:08 21 Jan 2026
Can't imagine that Dunne is going anywhere. Turns 29 early next season and just signed a long contract here. A team would have to REALLY want him, and given Cook is unlikely to be here that would leave us with only Edwards and Morrison (and the ghost of JCS) as senior CBs so we'd have to find a replacement of our own. |
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Reply | The 3 sides of a match thread at Oxford
at 15:54 21 Jan 2026
Was honestly laughable watching Madsen try and take the one corner where the very instant he stopped holding the ball in place it would blow out of position again. I thought the ref was about to book him for timewasting at one point because it went on so long, with very little he could do about it. |
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Reply | The 3 sides of a match thread at Oxford
at 14:11 21 Jan 2026
Yeah I think that's fair. My pushback is that some of the narrative right now is a little too doom and gloom - I agree we've had a rough Christmas and some poor performances, but across 18 games remaining we'd have to be in relegation form to finish at or below last season, and for the first time in years we seem to be avoiding those doom spirals. Not saying it won't happen, but I feel more confident than I have for a long time that we'll turn a corner, pick up some results, and maintain about where we are or a little better. Win 4, lose 4, draw the rest - a pretty dismal run of form, a sub-25% win rate, we'd still end up on 62. You'd want better, but on the raw numbers it's still forward progress.
The selling thing I think is a bigger issue. We've got lots of exciting prospects who are probably 1-2 seasons away from attracting real money, we've got some solid pros who form the spine you build those prospects around, but in the middle of that you ought to have the players who are ready to sell now for money to go back into the side, and the only one of those that is in any way likely now is Madsen. Celar and JCS we'll get no meaningful return for, Varane has had a pretty poor season, everyone else is on the wrong side of the "development" equation in one way or another. It pretty much has to be Nico, but how much will we really get for him, and how do we replace him? Otherwise maybe Mbengue, or Kolli, but will either of those attract meaningful bids? |
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Reply | The 3 sides of a match thread at Oxford
at 11:32 21 Jan 2026
My counterpoint would be - yes we had a decent run in the back half of 2023/24, but we still finished that season 18th and on 56pts. We're already on 40 with 18 games left to play. If we finish the season in the top half (even if that's 11th or 12th) and somewhere around 65pts (which would be a pretty middle of the road, win one, lose one, draw one type run of form), is that not progress/development? The last three seasons we've spent most of our time looking down the table, and in both 2022/23 and 2023/24 were in real danger of going down. If we end this season having had a couple of flirts with the play-off places, with not a single worry about getting relegated, a bunch of development prospects bedded in with a full season's experience, our best overall finish since 2021/22 - I think I'd take that. No, we can't settle for that forever, but it's concrete, material progress. There's holes in our squad still (left back where we're borrowing a lad who in his supposed athletic prime can't play 3 games a week, centre mid where our entire plan is for Nico Madsen to play every minute of every game because nobody else can play a decent pass, and that plan only looks remotely adequate now because Madsen is an entirely different player than he was six months ago), but in most positions we have vastly more depth than we have for ages.
Some of this stuff is only going to end up being proved in hindsight. Remember when Sunderland came up, loads of exciting kids, not enough steel, had a pretty mediocre season then followed it up on the next go around by winning the playoffs? This could be our version of their 2023/24, getting the squad in place, getting them a year of being kicked about by Championship defenders so they toughen up for next time, going on to better things. Or it could be another false start like 2024/25. Plenty of those in the Championship, not just for us - look at Bristol City, who constantly threaten to make a real stride forwards and don't, or Blackburn just barely missing the playoffs last year and now in severe danger of exiting the other way. If we're here in 12 months raving about our playoff push this season will look like a brilliant foundational step; if we're hanging around the lower half of the table again because we've sold our best players for The Model and replaced them with more kids, we'll talk about it as a missed opportunity. In the meantime, if we're not winning then at least we're not losing, which we absolutely would have been in recent seasons. |
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Reply | Cat 1. Academy Plans
at 13:56 14 Jan 2026
Yeah, I think the WLS article is key here as it suggests the facilities are fit for purpose, it's all the jobs you need that we don't currently have.
I wonder if a big part of it was that we were already employing a lot of people in academy roles which didn't map to the cat 1 requirements, and couldn't/didn't want to bring in further people who did? Would then make some further sense of the big clear-out a while back. |
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Reply | Rest of the Championship thread 25/26
at 14:33 13 Jan 2026
On the other hand, maybe Spurs aren't happy with the minutes he's getting down in Portsmouth and think Coventry's a better prospect? |
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Reply | Morrison going out on loan
at 14:31 13 Jan 2026
When Jimmy was talking about re-signing I think the talk was that the challenge was he wanted 4 years and we were only offering 3. Given he ended up staying, presumably that means we've basically got him until retirement, plus he's club captain. As long as he's fit (and to date he's very rarely injured) he's going to be starting every game for the foreseeable. The club is clearly very high on Edwards so he'll be first choice in the other slot.
Normally that's fine because you want a good third-choice CB for cover, but we already have Cook in that role, plus youth prospects, plus the ghost of JCS. Morrison's chances of playing regularly are pretty low. Why not send him out for the next few months, which keeps him happy, gives him competitive minutes we need him to be getting, and then re-evaluate in the summer when at least one player above him in the depth chart will be gone and he'll have hopefully played 15-20 more games of men's football than he has today? |
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Reply | West hams ground....
at 15:53 12 Jan 2026
Yeah, I should have done that - I didn't want to stand for four hours, but I'd rather have been able to see! |
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Reply | West hams ground....
at 15:09 12 Jan 2026
Been there twice now (not for football). Once in the conference facilities where they refused to let people in before 9am for an event that was meant to start at 9.30, and ended up being delayed until gone 11 because they weren't remotely equipped for bag checking that many people that quickly. Second time for the Iron Maiden gig last year which ran more smoothly, but unbelievable what a poor experience it was - from where I was sat I could basically make out that there was a band on stage, but no more than that, and even the jumbo screens didn't help much. Then I looked to my left and realised there were people 500m further back and 100m higher up, who presumably could just about tell that there was a stage somewhere off in the distance. The side angle of our fans celebrating yesterday says it all. If I were a West Ham fan I'd never go to a game again, it must be completely miserable. |
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Reply | Fourth Round Here We Come Match Thread
at 17:41 11 Jan 2026
Think we can be proud of that. Effort and commitment across the team and a superb captain's performance from Jimmy. More importantly our players looked like they wanted it and felt like they deserved to be there, and absolutely refused to be bullied - loved Kone flooring Castellanos in some of the pre-corner grappling. A far cry from completely wilting against Leicester last season and if only we weren't wracked with injuries we could have gotten over the line. |
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