BFTG - Blackburn

[Hound]

Theres a lot of variables. If we stay up. How much money we have/can spend. Who we can get rid of.

I very much expect there is a desire to sign all the loanees. Reading suits them as well - close to London etc, been massively welcomed, Portugese Manager for N.O.

Oliveira has been knocking about for a while and will have been considered by clubs previously. Martinez as well. Its not like they are unknowns who have surprised everyone by coming in and playing well.

I think if they keep doing the business, we start wining a few, and with plenty of fan support, there is a fair chance we'd successfully get all 3 of Martinez, Oliveira and Miazga

[Sutekh]

Isnt that what they said about Glenn Murray and we ended up getting him fit for a better move for him?
Thats the problem with loanees, if they play well, other clubs notice them.

I would agree that Oliviera and Miazga are just the type of players we need; but it all depends what sort of money we have available to spend when the window opens. I also think the other three are good business for this season, but disposable for next.

Id like a reliable centre back and a forward, who wouldnt.

With Murray it wasn't a better move at the time, he went back to Palace as the manager changed. He went on to play 15 times for them which wouldn't have happened if the manager change hadn't.

My recall was Murray was just what we wanted at the time, some fans became convinced we were going to sign him because we'd struck a deal with Palace at the time of the loan, and he ended up playing at a higher level than us at the end of his loan. I would suggest he didnt do that because the Palace regime changed, but because his desireability as a player at the end of the loan period was much higher than at the start. If Oliveira continues as he is, I feel he will have more options at the end of the loan period than the start. Not saying he'll go back to Norwich, because I think they'll get promoted and will probably want to upgrade, but he's no certainty to accept any permanent deal we offer him. Im not convinced there is ever such a thing as a certainty to sign.

A realistic amount for all our big 3 (Miazga, Martinez, Oliveira) loanees to be made permanent is around £15m I'd say. It is not beyond the realms of possibility to spend that much but it pretty much leaves us with no chance of making other purchases.

My sense is that we'll look to loan a keeper for next season as well.
If the last transfer window is anything to go by, we need to trim the squad before buying. I totally agree with this approach, but I think Oliveira and Miazga will interest us.

And they will probably interest a load more clubs as well given their performances so far - but IF Reading can stay up and they've enjoyed their time on loan at the club there's always a better chance of something happening to make deals permanent (though I suspect any move for Miazga next season might have to be on a loan basis).

[NewCorkSeth]

I think it's important to remember new loan restrictions might be coming in and Chelsea might be forced to sell a lot of their loan army.

Sure Miazga might be well sought after but I think if he enjoys his time here we may have a chance.

[Nameless]

Regarding Murray, I think the biggest reason we didn’t sign him despite having one of these magic ‘options’ was that he never looked like he was enjoying his time here and gave the impression he couldn’t wait to get out.
I doubt he’d have stayed whatever deal we put to him, he would have gone back to Palace and waited for someone else to come in for him.

[muirinho]

Regarding Murray, I think the biggest reason we didn’t sign him despite having one of these magic ‘options’ was that he never looked like he was enjoying his time here and gave the impression he couldn’t wait to get out.
I doubt he’d have stayed whatever deal we put to him, he would have gone back to Palace and waited for someone else to come in for him.

I'm sure you're right, but to be honest, Murray never looks like he's ever enjoying anything. Maybe he just has one of those miserable faces.

[Victor Meldrew]

Regarding Murray, I think the biggest reason we didn’t sign him despite having one of these magic ‘options’ was that he never looked like he was enjoying his time here and gave the impression he couldn’t wait to get out.
I doubt he’d have stayed whatever deal we put to him, he would have gone back to Palace and waited for someone else to come in for him.

I sat next to Murray's wife for the Boxing Day game at Brighton and at the time she thought he would be staying.
The lure of going back to Palace presumably turned out to be too much.

[Nameless]

Regarding Murray, I think the biggest reason we didn’t sign him despite having one of these magic ‘options’ was that he never looked like he was enjoying his time here and gave the impression he couldn’t wait to get out.
I doubt he’d have stayed whatever deal we put to him, he would have gone back to Palace and waited for someone else to come in for him.

I'm sure you're right, but to be honest, Murray never looks like he's ever enjoying anything. Maybe he just has one of those miserable faces.

You could be right !
I just remember him showing obvious sings of frustration with team mates and very little positivity.
The way Oliviera celebrated his goal said a lot to me, the guy has had a tough season and seems to be enjoying playing and scoring again.

[Tilehurstsouthbank]

He's played barely a handful of games for us. Ludicrous to be saying he's as good or better than goalkeepers who put in scores of excellent performances at this stage.

Sometimes you can just tell when someone is a class above. Martinez is, for me.

Class above his competition sure. Potential to have a career at a higher level, sure. At this stage, way too early to compare to Hahnemann, Shaka or Ali Al-Habsi.

Common sense consensus.

[NewCorkSeth]

Regarding Murray, I think the biggest reason we didn’t sign him despite having one of these magic ‘options’ was that he never looked like he was enjoying his time here and gave the impression he couldn’t wait to get out.
I doubt he’d have stayed whatever deal we put to him, he would have gone back to Palace and waited for someone else to come in for him.

I'm sure you're right, but to be honest, Murray never looks like he's ever enjoying anything. Maybe he just has one of those miserable faces.

You could be right !
I just remember him showing obvious sings of frustration with team mates and very little positivity.
The way Oliviera celebrated his goal said a lot to me, the guy has had a tough season and seems to be enjoying playing and scoring again.

The way Oliveira celebrated made me want to bend over and present myself to him.

[Sutekh]

Regarding Murray, I think the biggest reason we didn’t sign him despite having one of these magic ‘options’ was that he never looked like he was enjoying his time here and gave the impression he couldn’t wait to get out.
I doubt he’d have stayed whatever deal we put to him, he would have gone back to Palace and waited for someone else to come in for him.

I sat next to Murray's wife for the Boxing Day game at Brighton and at the time she thought he would be staying.
The lure of going back to Palace presumably turned out to be too much.

It was the change in management at Palace that gave him the opportunity to play regularly there, after that there was no contest given they were in the PL and, sadly, in the following summer of 2015 he went to newly promoted PL side Bournemouth which killed any subsequent move to Reading completely.

Shame, he is really good player and will always get a good welcome back here as far as I'm concerned.

[RoyalBlue]

Sometimes you can just tell when someone is a class above. Martinez is, for me.

Class above his competition sure. Potential to have a career at a higher level, sure. At this stage, way too early to compare to Hahnemann, Shaka or Ali Al-Habsi.

Common sense consensus.

Credibility dashed by including AAH in with the other two. I'm sorry he was good but really not what you would call great.

[Maneki Neko]

he was a very very good shot stopper.
cant compete with those two but is probably the best of the rest

[Tilehurstsouthbank]

Class above his competition sure. Potential to have a career at a higher level, sure. At this stage, way too early to compare to Hahnemann, Shaka or Ali Al-Habsi.

Common sense consensus.

Credibility dashed by including AAH in with the other two. I'm sorry he was good but really not what you would call great.

He had the odd mistake in his locker but during his stay, especially the last year and a bit he was exceptional. Saved us many 3 & 1 point hauls.

[Snowflake Royal]

he was a very very good shot stopper.
cant compete with those two but is probably the best of the rest

Had a bad start, but was good after. I know he had little competition, but he got PotS two years running for a reason.

I agree, not at the level of Marcus or Shaka, but beyond Federici and certainly Mannone for me.

[URZZZZZZZZ]

Surprised there hasn’t been more praise for Swift’s fantastic pass to Oliveira for the winner. It was fabulous

This.

Also, the run from Richards did a great job in allowing Nelson the space to score. A lovely goal all told.

[Lower West]

First half shambles down to Gomes. Poor team set-up. Cannot afford more slip-ups. Should have been dead and buried.

Nope.

Rino was injured and we don't have any other tenacious tough tackling midfielders to play there. His only choice was to play more balanced wide men who would track back and help our only 2 CMs in the middle. I really don't think there was any other choice.

Meite is also not 100% fit and would not last the 90mins.

Blackburn definitely deserved to be ahead in the 1st half and I agree we should have been dead and buried. They knew we had no other CMs and were physically inferior in the middle so all they had to do was hunt our CMs down into hurried passes. That's why we had so little of the ball in the 1st half and why Blackburn overran our midfielders.

We desparately need Eza back to help out Rino when he's fit.

We've the rest of the season yet to play that's my real concern. Kelly\Swift as a partnership has never worked. Clement worked that one out. Likewise Aluko is a luxury in a team battling relegation. Swift is better in a floating no 10 role as well. Sitting deep restricts his ability to get in the box as often. Bacuna may well prove to be a huge loss.

For far too long we've performed inconsistantly game to game. No sign of this being eradicated yet. Gomes may have plenty of good ideas. But certainly appears to be lacking the tactical nouse. Have we moved on from Clement. Jury is still well and truly out.

When Kelly was disposed in the first half inside the Blackburn half. Blackburn breaking away with a 4 to 2 advantage. Better teams will capitalise. The fragility was there to see.

[Blackbag]

Was it Blackett who had the deflected shot from outside the box ? Was a good effort

[biff]

Another thing that impressed me re; Miazga (in comparison with Ilori) is that he makes sure his passes reach their intended targets. Ilori too often took too much off of them to make them cute, but frequently got us into trouble. A proper centre half.

[NewCorkSeth]

Another thing that impressed me re; Miazga (in comparison with Ilori) is that he makes sure his passes reach their intended targets. Ilori too often took too much off of them to make them cute, but frequently got us into trouble. A proper centre half.

Didn't Miazga underhit a pass back to Martinez against Blackburn?

[Vision]

First half shambles down to Gomes. Poor team set-up. Cannot afford more slip-ups. Should have been dead and buried.

Nope.

Rino was injured and we don't have any other tenacious tough tackling midfielders to play there. His only choice was to play more balanced wide men who would track back and help our only 2 CMs in the middle. I really don't think there was any other choice.

Meite is also not 100% fit and would not last the 90mins.

Blackburn definitely deserved to be ahead in the 1st half and I agree we should have been dead and buried. They knew we had no other CMs and were physically inferior in the middle so all they had to do was hunt our CMs down into hurried passes. That's why we had so little of the ball in the 1st half and why Blackburn overran our midfielders.

We desparately need Eza back to help out Rino when he's fit.

We've the rest of the season yet to play that's my real concern. Kelly\Swift as a partnership has never worked. Clement worked that one out. Likewise Aluko is a luxury in a team battling relegation. Swift is better in a floating no 10 role as well. Sitting deep restricts his ability to get in the box as often. Bacuna may well prove to be a huge loss.

For far too long we've performed inconsistantly game to game. No sign of this being eradicated yet. Gomes may have plenty of good ideas. But certainly appears to be lacking the tactical nouse. Have we moved on from Clement. Jury is still well and truly out.

When Kelly was disposed in the first half inside the Blackburn half. Blackburn breaking away with a 4 to 2 advantage. Better teams will capitalise. The fragility was there to see.

That's a pretty pessimistic take isn't it?. I mean I thought the Gomes appointment was baffling at the time as well but currently we're in the best run of form/results that we've had for some time. 1 defeat in 6 is pretty consistent stuff and 9 points from those 6 games certainly warrants a little more than "lacking tactical nouse" , "we haven't moved on from Clement" etc. We're definitely more organised and solid defensively. They'll be blips and outliers along the way (Swansea etc) but it's pretty hard to argue that we're not a far better defensive unit than we were despite not having a genuinely defensive minded midfielder available to us.

As for the midfield personnel he didn't really have much option did he?. The idea appeared to be to alternate Swift and Ejaria centrally alongside Kelly (hence Swift popping up in the penalty area to score) but neither played particularly well in the first half. The improvement second half was mainly due to both Swift and Ejaria (and Kelly) playing better rather than any tactical issues. This, in my view was a consequence of Meite coming on and exploiting the spaces Oliveira created and offering more of an attacking threat. As an aside I think this is where Loader could really benefit himself and us too.

Bacuna is something of a loss especially if we don't have Rino or Eza available but even then if the money received has allowed us to add any or all of Martinez/Miazga/Oliveira then it's a trade off I'm more than happy with.

Few people are saying we're suddenly world beaters, we're still going to be in a relegation battle come the end of the season but I can definitely see what Gomes is trying to achieve far more than at any time under Clement. Don't get me wrong there are plenty of things that need major improvement but to suggest there's been no improvement under Gomes is being overly negative.