Nuno Espirito Santo

[Paplane]

Lets keep on track chaps.

Nuno Espirito Santo.

I'm just hoping he hasn't been done over. He's a decent guy and has improved us no end in the short period of time he's been here. It's clear EM requires his managers to be subservient to how he wants to run his clubs and he treats them tough. I hope Nuno's on the same page, like Cooper seemed to be.

[The reds]

I’m confident Nuno can get us comfortably away from the drop zone so we don’t need to worry about any deduction - which I don’t think we get anyway 

We should be talking about how Nuno has improved us in a short time, making us competitive again, playing good football, looking like a premier league side for once.

[Username]

Yes fair enough Sniffer, obviously the Mendes stable does its own scouting, they must all have something about them to join. My point was that I prefer us to to our own homework too about the type of player we need and whether they fit the club. Not suggesting we don’t do that as well but you have to admit we have had some pretty random choices rock up here in the last 6 years. I also don’t want us to set our scope so narrow that we only recruit from one pool, I hope Syrianos is still involved with his knowledge of Germany for example.
Final point, we have a Category 1 academy but I remain worried that the constant influx of players reduces opportunities for us to develop the next Johnson. Cooper was heavily involved with the academy, my concern with Nuno is that certainly at Wolves he reportedly never even watched their academy teams. I hope there is still a way for our homegrown talent to get to the first team. Classic example of this, MGW leaving Wolves because of lack of first team opportunities there, admittedly he was a lot younger and more raw when Nuno was there but you get the point.

I don't know the actual answers to these questions but:

1. How many academy players did Cooper give a debut to in his time here? Bearing in mind that his tenure was certainly a lot higher than the average manager, and
2. I had read that Nuno likes a smaller squad and, as a result, and particularly at Wolves this led to him giving homegrown talent. Is that not true?

In view of the above then it suggests to me that Nuno is more likely, based on facts, to give homegrown talent an opportunity?

I know some will argue that it has been forced on him but got to give Nuno credit for giving some of these youngsters a chance, not many get to play in the 4th round of the FA Cup at that age.

[wassy04]

Yes fair enough Sniffer, obviously the Mendes stable does its own scouting, they must all have something about them to join. My point was that I prefer us to to our own homework too about the type of player we need and whether they fit the club. Not suggesting we don’t do that as well but you have to admit we have had some pretty random choices rock up here in the last 6 years. I also don’t want us to set our scope so narrow that we only recruit from one pool, I hope Syrianos is still involved with his knowledge of Germany for example.
Final point, we have a Category 1 academy but I remain worried that the constant influx of players reduces opportunities for us to develop the next Johnson. Cooper was heavily involved with the academy, my concern with Nuno is that certainly at Wolves he reportedly never even watched their academy teams. I hope there is still a way for our homegrown talent to get to the first team. Classic example of this, MGW leaving Wolves because of lack of first team opportunities there, admittedly he was a lot younger and more raw when Nuno was there but you get the point.

I don't know the actual answers to these questions but:

1. How many academy players did Cooper give a debut to in his time here? Bearing in mind that his tenure was certainly a lot higher than the average manager, and
2. I had read that Nuno likes a smaller squad and, as a result, and particularly at Wolves this led to him giving homegrown talent. Is that not true?

In view of the above then it suggests to me that Nuno is more likely, based on facts, to give homegrown talent an opportunity?

I know some will argue that it has been forced on him but got to give Nuno credit for giving some of these youngsters a chance, not many get to play in the 4th round of the FA Cup at that age.

Do we? He played one who came on in the 90th minute and was because Montiel was injured.

I'm all for giving credit where its due but this was not it. Personally I'm happy he took the game seriously and didn't play a bunch of kids for a one off game.

[Salvatore Matrecano]

We undoubtedly play better football under Nuno but fact is we are leaking goals constantly and its costing us.

Do we need to go back to Cooperball as painful as it may be to watch and grind out some 1-0s?

Even if not would we be better with a back 3? Not that we played that particularly well on Wednesday.

[Reds73]

We undoubtedly play better football under Nuno but fact is we are leaking goals constantly and its costing us.

Do we need to go back to Cooperball as painful as it may be to watch and grind out some 1-0s?

Even if not would we be better with a back 3? Not that we played that particularly well on Wednesday.

Well to go back to Cooperball you wouldn’t be playing CHO and Elanga.

You’d have MGW right wing and Kouyate instead of Domingues

NO THANK YOU

[Jacksbadhobbits]

We undoubtedly play better football under Nuno but fact is we are leaking goals constantly and its costing us.

Do we need to go back to Cooperball as painful as it may be to watch and grind out some 1-0s?

Even if not would we be better with a back 3? Not that we played that particularly well on Wednesday.

Well to go back to Cooperball you wouldn’t be playing CHO and Elanga.

You’d have MGW right wing and Kouyate instead of Domingues

NO THANK YOU

what if playing that way kept us up. who wants to get relegated playing nice football

[Shawoddyred]

We're playing fine defensively except for set pieces and stupid mistakes. It's not the formation.

[Shawoddyred]

And to be honest, a lack of strength and dark arts. Players being shunted, off the ball twice today when they were going to engage the Newcastle player, with them then scoring or assisting.

Either man up and be stronger or throw yourself on the floor to show the ref how badly hurt they made you.

[Marco Polo]

It feels better, but the results are the same. We’ve got a lot of points to pick up and we’re running out of time.

[Jacksbadhobbits]

We undoubtedly play better football under Nuno but fact is we are leaking goals constantly and its costing us.

Do we need to go back to Cooperball as painful as it may be to watch and grind out some 1-0s?

Even if not would we be better with a back 3? Not that we played that particularly well on Wednesday.

Well to go back to Cooperball you wouldn’t be playing CHO and Elanga.

You’d have MGW right wing and Kouyate instead of Domingues

NO THANK YOU

what if playing that way kept us up. who wants to get relegated playing nice football

[wassy04]

Ultimately you play more attacking, you leave more options for your opponents to attack. That's the sacrifice, net result is the same. We are conceding too many from set pieces but you don't just get set pieces for nothing. We're giving them away because teams are able to attack us and we're forced to give away corners etc.