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Reply | Injuries
at 20:34 20 Oct 2026
I started my earlier post stating: "I hold no torch for Ben Williams".
So I have not come on here as his spokesperson.
I've heard the rumours (bad) and his performance at the fans forum wasn't great.
But that isn't in itself a smoking gun.
He might be a bit of a jerk to deal with: it doesn't explain why we have so many injuries.
The point about players getting their own PTs: I don't know the answer here, but is it possible most players at most clubs have one? Anyone can come up with a rumour, but in itself it's not enough to sack someone unless it's substantiated.
It is not that hard to find a scapegoat - Noury or Williams are the usual suspects- but what should we have done/ be doing?
RECRUITMENT:
We could have filled the squad with 24 Osman Kakays: fit, strong guys with good injury records.
The flip side is such players might lack the technical ability to get the team challenging for the play offs, which now seems the expectation of many fans.
Granted Declan Rice is an extreme example, but just about every Championship club is mining the same data science sets across Europe and beyond for player recruitment. We are not working in a vacuum. We have a lower than average budget for our division. Many players we sign (Poku, Kone etc) are linked with rival clubs.
SPORTS SCIENCE/ PERFORMANCE TEAM
So if it is not a clear/ easy fix on recruitment, is it something we are doing in the building?
If so, I repeat my question from a couple of weeks ago: what is it?
Clive initially replied that such problems often reflected on how a club was run, but rowed back when I asked if he thought our club was badly run.
No one else has really come up with a tangible suggestion.
So I totally accept that we MIGHT be doing something terrible, and if so yes absolutely we should fix it, and if we can find better, let's do so. But after hundreds of posts on the subject I am still completely clueless on what it actually is we are doing wrong... |
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Reply | Injuries
at 17:06 20 Oct 2026
What a blow.
I hold no candle for Ben Williams but other than being disappointed I’m not sure we can necessarily blame him. He might well be doing something wrong, I simply have no idea.
If there is something we are doing wrong then I would far rather we used any transfer budget we might have on using data science to recruit the most cutting edge sports scientist who has the best track record in football at keeping people fit.
But then again, how do you assess that? One of the reasons Declan Rice is a £100m footballer is because he can play 60 games a season at an incredible level. Obvs the likes of Arsenal will have a better fitness record because they aren’t taking chances on Lampety, Poku, JCS etc.
There does SEEM to be an issue given the 3 yrs of major issues, but whenever I have asked what specifically that actually is, it turns out other fans don’t really know either. I |
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Reply | Rampant R's to Brum Rush The Show Match Thread
at 17:21 17 Oct 2026
Re passing there ball - and the buck - to Charles, they do that a lot, and today after a good start his kicking wasn't quite up to his usual brilliance. When the CBs didn't just ping it back to him, they were shuffling it back and forth along the line in a re-enactment of Warbs-ball.
I'm hoping today was just tiredness after a 3 game week.
But Stephan has to take some responsibility. Some of us were saying even before kick off that the Vale-Smyth-Poku combo was too powder puff away to a good side. Meanwhile his substitutions looked more like damage control than a genuine attempt to rescue the game.
Who knows? With a fit Madsen, Chair, Burrell and (don't laugh) Lampety this would look a very different side. But how often will we see that this season? |
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Reply | Rampant R's to Brum Rush The Show Match Thread
at 15:51 17 Oct 2026
Then maybe having Smyth, Poku and Vale is a luxury we haven’t earned. With those 3 on the pitch it is leaving too much on the shoulders of Kamara and Ronnie. |
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Reply | Rampant R's to Brum Rush The Show Match Thread
at 14:50 17 Oct 2026
Varane, Madsen, Saito, Kone - looks quite strong to me given our injuries. Not much in defence on the bench but given absences we are down to Harry’s “bare bones”.
Need to see Vale influence the game and support the striker. |
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Reply | The next three matches
at 15:50 15 Oct 2026
Interesting (and encouraging stat).
Hard to see how they can be 4th with so few home wins and us 5th after such a long run of draws. |
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Reply | Charles's gambit
at 10:23 15 Oct 2026
In microcosm, that incident reflected the challenge of what do you do when a team just refuses to come out to play, as many of the poorer sides who come to Loftus Rd do.
It’s a work in progress but we are definitely coming closer to unlocking that key: the Charles out-ball of course, Mad Boy Kember marauding down the left, and Ronnie stepping into midfield for long stretches when in possession. |
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Reply | K&L
at 10:15 15 Oct 2026
Really positive that we can start 3 former DS players and none looked out of their depth.
Both did well, Kolli just needs a goal now.
Well as they linked up on occasion I suspect against Brum we will revert to the set up that worked well at WHU - Jimmy and JCS in defence, Ronnie the extra midfielder. |
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Reply | 10 Games in
at 10:06 15 Oct 2026
Good post. They do say 10 games is the point where the table takes some shape, so the right time to assess.
The two big positives for me are 1) we are very compact and hard to break down which means we are always in games - we finally have a real spine to the side, and 2) it feels like there is a fair bit more to come from this team.
If we had been able to bring on Burrell, Chair, Saito on 60 mins, who knows what the score could have been?
Injuries and whether we can beat teams when we dominate possession still the two big challenges.
Am not in anyway arrogant or complacent about the tough games coming up but am a bit less nervous than usual before such clashes. Could suit us.
Smyth working miracles. We now need the likes of Poku and Kolli to hit their stride. |
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