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Post by lordb on May 3, 2017 6:21:04 GMT
A change of manager could change our fortunes with this squad of players. £18million on one player will never be spent by our club again and Hughes has completely messed that up add that to poor performances for last 12 months means we should be looking for a new manager in my opinion £18m is not big by Premier League standards. I expect to spend t sort of money and easily much more on one player most transfer Windows
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Post by cobhamstokey on May 3, 2017 7:02:48 GMT
Id still like us to get the "right" man in and have a manager in charge who can get the best out of the likes of Bojan and Imbula who are clearly very talented players. But I'm getting used to the idea that MH is going nowhere. Let's just hope he gets it right ready for next season or we could find ourselves in a mess. He needs to be well supported in the next window as we need some key positions sorting.
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Post by trickydicky73 on May 3, 2017 8:20:48 GMT
Are you 100% convinced that Berahino can lead the line on his own Dave, you don't think that he needs a partner or at the very least, a number 10 behind him?
The key is who is behind him isnt it, as you allude to. A real midfielder would allow us to free up that position for a bojan, a shaqiri or both and one or both of those on form, with Arnie, would surely provide enough service for berahino to thrive? As I say in my positive mode, I'm sure this is the case. In the darker days, maybe not. Who's this "real midfielder", Dave? Are we talking Carvalho level and price?
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Post by davejohnno1 on May 3, 2017 8:57:58 GMT
Yes and a real good midfielder would enable us to utilise that player given we have two options many teams would crave when both are fit and firing. I don't for one minute think Hughes has gone from building a team around BMX to abandoning it in his mind completely. Hopefully it is merely circumstance bought about by the lack of a bona fide midfield option to give the whole team the platform it needs to play.
So if we get this 'real good midfielder', you think Hughes will play Shaqiri or Bojan as that number 10?
In my positive moments, absolutely. At the end of the day, we were far too open, conceding too many goals and we couldn't carry both Bojan and Shaqiri from a defensive perspective. If we got the defensive base right, I think we'd see a team that included Shaqiri, Bojan and Arnie behind Berahino. If we were to get another flying winger, to inject pace into the team, then Shaqiri may move inside on occasion. I wouldn't be surprised to see us back in for Traore in the summer, assuming Hughes stays of course.
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Post by davejohnno1 on May 3, 2017 9:02:02 GMT
The key is who is behind him isnt it, as you allude to. A real midfielder would allow us to free up that position for a bojan, a shaqiri or both and one or both of those on form, with Arnie, would surely provide enough service for berahino to thrive? As I say in my positive mode, I'm sure this is the case. In the darker days, maybe not. Who's this "real midfielder", Dave? Are we talking Carvalho level and price? I don't work in football and my interest in football outside of Stoke City has waned massively over the last few years so my honest answer is "I've no idea". It could be a player that is well known and would cost a lot of money, such as Carvalho (one of the few foreign options I actually know and have heard of) or it could be a hidden gem that we land from another club (i.e N'zonzi). Where he comes from and what he costs, I've no idea but somehow, we need to find that one key ingredient that would totally transform our team. Find that and the nucleus of our current squad will look and perform a lot better than they are currently, including our manager.
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Post by Gods on May 3, 2017 9:08:38 GMT
Can we be in the hinterland, neither close nor a million miles away?
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Post by PerCyfilth ....Captains Log on May 3, 2017 9:15:04 GMT
Not close..in fact regressing. The age of our squad and lack of youngsters ready to step in is worrying. We need major surgery just to get back to 9th .Is LMH the man to do it.....? I am not hopeful.
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Post by crownmeking on May 3, 2017 9:18:16 GMT
Are you 100% convinced that Berahino can lead the line on his own Dave, you don't think that he needs a partner or at the very least, a number 10 behind him?
The key is who is behind him isnt it, as you allude to. A real midfielder would allow us to free up that position for a bojan, a shaqiri or both and one or both of those on form, with Arnie, would surely provide enough service for berahino to thrive? As I say in my positive mode, I'm sure this is the case. In the darker days, maybe not. I agree, I think Berahino needs someone behind him with some much needed creativity. I also think the more match fit (sharper) Berahino becomes, the more those creative players will trust him. It seems to me Berahino just needs time to click with his team mates, we know the talent is available in him, it just needs switching on again.
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Post by okeydokeystokie2 on May 3, 2017 9:43:26 GMT
This season certainly hasn't worked out as we or the club would have hoped, and I believe that is mainly down to Imbula.
Something's badly out of kilter with that lad. He's obviously got a lot of talent - when I saw that early performance against Chelsea I really thought we had landed a world class centre mid. But he's not happy, really unsettled and it looks as though it isn't going to happen for him here. I suspect a deal has already been done - not even on the bench again on Saturday. It's a real shame.
If he had Imbula doing the job he was bought for he could play the 4-3-3 with an advanced midfielder - the same formation that destroyed Liverpool. Maybe that gives us an extra body in midfield with Shaq, Saido and Arnie focussing on attack, getting support from deeper.
Looks like it's not going to happen though, so I'm with the majority that our key challenge is still to find another player who can play box to box like Steven N'Zonzi.
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Post by nicholasjalcock on May 3, 2017 11:30:27 GMT
Not even close! Maybe not a million miles away but it certainly feels like it?!
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Post by iglugluk on May 3, 2017 11:50:54 GMT
The trouble, as far as I'm concerned, is that we been slipping for over a year now and after 4 years at the helm it seems Hughes is struggling to get things on track. We've signed players but on the field we've regressed. As such it's hard to tell right now if we're close or not. There seems to be a worrying lack of direction and it needs to be halted quickly if we are going to avoid similar problems next season. To be honest I've lost faith in the approach of the club management as things stand here and now.
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Post by mrcoke on May 3, 2017 12:11:05 GMT
Defensively against top 7 sides we are a million miles away. We need replacement FBs, better than Whelan and Cameron in front of the back 4, and obviously sign Indi and a back-up to him and Ryan. Our current defence can cope with bottom half teams, but gets torn apart by the best teams.
Offensively we might be close if we could get Berahino to start scoring regularly. He's getting fitter, getting more scoring opportunities, and if he could bag a few his confidence will be boosted and he will be a different player. With him scoring and Arni, Allen, and Shaq chipping in, we would be a whole lot more successful.
Whether we could bridge the gap to the big 6 clubs like Everton (or Leicester last season) is huge stride though. As it is, bad as things might appear, we are still within spitting distance of 8th place.
So we are not very far from being 8th, neither are half the middling teams, but a long long way from 6th.
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Post by okeydokeystokie2 on May 3, 2017 13:20:49 GMT
Ay, there's the rub... in terms of league position, we close to our maximum potential, but a million miles away from where some supporters want to be and think we should be.
I fully understand the general frustration - looking at the squad, you can't help feeling that this group is capable of better football, more goals and more wins. But it's not an exact science. The Human element, psychology and confidence play a massive part. The middle of the table is so tight this season, given that we are all disappointed it could still be a top ten finish, which would continue Stoke City's most successful run in its 154 year history.
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Post by boothenesque on May 4, 2017 12:01:54 GMT
I'm sure we all reflect on our club and where it is heading on the field of play at times when we are supposed to be working on when the kids are in bed and your are left watching the shit tv our wives like (just as I'm doing now). In our darkest days I feel like we are a million miles away and only wholesale changes will bring about the performances we all want to see. On others, I remain convinced that we have the nucleus of a squad that could turn in effective, positive and entertaining football with the best manager we could wish for. In our darkest days I think we've spent too much on poor signings and on others I think 18m for imbula is chicken feed compared to what other clubs are spending. So which is it? It is a game of fine margins and those fine margins sway opinion dramatically. One player could make all the difference and transform us and make some of our struggling players better than they actually are. If we could somehow locate the proper midfielder that we are clearly crying out for I'm inclined to believe that the rest of our players are more than good enough to replicate the performances we were seeing 18 months ago. That one player would bring out the best in everyone. The question, is where on earth we start in finding that one player who could transform our current fortunes. We were a million miles away from the PL when languishing in Div One thinking a home win against Rotherham was a good result and we had a line up that included Ben Petty. A frustrating season yes but the league places us as the 12th best team in the country at the moment. A million miles from what?
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Post by superheroantonius on May 4, 2017 19:43:17 GMT
We don't have a midfield! Or a striker! Apart from that we are okay :-)
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Post by Glory Hunter on May 4, 2017 22:25:37 GMT
We don't have a midfield! Or a striker! Apart from that we are okay :-) Get real, this is rubbish.
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Post by bayernoatcake on May 4, 2017 22:28:06 GMT
A change of manager could change our fortunes with this squad of players. £18million on one player will never be spent by our club again and Hughes has completely messed that up add that to poor performances for last 12 months means we should be looking for a new manager in my opinion £18m is not big by Premier League standards. I expect to spend t sort of money and easily much more on one player most transfer Windows Do you? Since when?
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Post by bayernoatcake on May 4, 2017 22:30:30 GMT
We don't have a midfield! Or a striker! Apart from that we are okay :-) Get real, this is rubbish. What do our midfield actually do? And I think we have a few excellent strikers tbh but what have they done in the last two years?
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