Unpacking recent matches is becoming more and more difficult as the weeks go on. Our ever-present attitude and endeavour under Le Bris over the last two seasons have become difficult to discern when watching the Lads, and each result throws up more questions about the team, players and club than the last. Promising patterns of play and comebacks have fallen away; in their place, new patterns are forming. Patterns of concerning defensive errors and worrying lapses in judgement and application. Something is going wrong at the moment, and there’s a lot of discussion around Le Bris and the setup of the team. But is he to blame, or is he a victim of circumstances and failings above and below him? Let’s have a look.
Recruitment
The first place I’d like to look is the 2026 recruitment. I was never as convinced as some by the summer window, despite what was a whirlwind finish culminating in the arrivals of Kevin Danso, Angulo Mk.II and Malick Fofana on deadline day. They followed fellow summer newcomers Thomas Meunier, Jules Ahoka and Dayann Methalie, and wingers Nilsson Angulo and Jocelin Ta Bi in January.
Let’s get this clear from the start – this was not a successful window in addressing our weaknesses. We knew from the start that we needed a left-footed centre-half to supplement and eventually usurp Alderete, and a left-footed right-winger to replace… well, nobody, as we essentially scraped through last season with a mix of last-minute, injury-prone free transfer Bertrand Traoré, full-back Trai Hume and 18-year-old central midfielder Chris Rigg on that wing. These, along with the signing of Methalie as left-back cover, were the three truly pivotal positions to address.
Instead, we brought in another no-nonsense, right-footed Dan Ballard equivalent in Kevin Danso after missing out on Muhamerovic to Leeds, two left-wingers for a combined £45m+ when we already had three senior left-wingers at the club, some youth prospects and a 35-year-old right-back on a free transfer (who has, ironically enough, been easily the most impressive of the lot). It’s remarkable when you put it down in black and white, especially when considering that Ghisolfi himself admitted that we essentially just brought in Fofana at the last minute because they wanted anybody of quality after failing to get an actual right-winger. You just can’t do that at this level – you need to solve the problems proactively and effectively, and we’re suffering at both ends of the pitch as a direct result of poor recruitment, in my eyes.
Right-Wing
We are lopsided going forward as we don’t have the quality, creative right-winger we needed to pry open defences. This has, in turn, inexplicably necessitated the use of either Hume or Meunier there instead, leading to a heavy, unnatural right-sided attack without any dynamism or threat, therefore isolating any left-winger we play on the opposite flank when teams inevitably discern that they only need to defend on one side.
There are even more knock-on effects, though, as playing all three of our potential right-backs at once has – again – inevitably led to one getting injured. In this case, it’s Meunier, which means Hume is at right-wing and we need our best and most dependable centre-half, Nordi Mukiele, to fill in at right-back when we desperately need his quality in the middle. It’s a butterfly effect cascading out from not addressing a very specific and long-standing issue and instead trying to paper over it with an abundance of left-wingers who, as of Bournemouth, cannot get a single minute between them anyway.
The additions of Fofana and Angulo would make sense in the context of a certain Chemsdine Talbi’s departure, but by keeping him around (seemingly in response to Romaine Mundle’s injury, of all things), the club has created an issue in the fanbase, on the pitch and potentially in the dressing room – something I’ll touch on later.
Centre-Half
The centre-half issues speak for themselves after the shambolic display at Bournemouth, but you could make a case for them also stemming from poor recruitment. Alderete has been a shambles this season; it’s not clear whether that’s due to overplaying over the summer, the injury sustained at the World Cup or otherwise, but he hasn’t been himself in attitude or ability – the meek response to Reinildo’s in-game criticisms told you everything you need to know. The only issue, though, is that he’s our only left-footed centre-half, and we need that to give the backline balance from which to build. Dropping him for a right-footer causes all sorts of imbalances, and dropping him for O’Nien had colossal consequences on opening day against Ipswich.
Danso, on the other hand, is literally the new recruit who was meant to fix these issues and is currently operating at a level far below what is required, despite a reasonable start in red and white. Combined with the issue of needing Mukiele at right-back, Hume’s inevitable fatigue beginning to show and Ballard’s injury, we are looking awfully shaky in defence despite bringing in three new recruits.
Striker
We can go on: up front, we are sorely lacking in depth when even a mild injury crisis hits. We lost both of our usual strikers and, instead of utilising our new, specifically allocated third striker in Juangulo, we relied upon a winger who was on loan at Exeter last season in Tutierov. It’s not an indictment of Timur himself; he applies himself well and should’ve had a Europa League goal to his name if not for some dodgy officiating. But an actual League One-level left-winger being thrown in up front in Gameweek 7 of the Premier League can’t be the sign of quality recruitment in my eyes.
It could be argued that many teams don’t have three senior strikers to rely on, but here’s the kicker: we do, and we did last season too. Mayenda was sold to Rennes for a fantastic fee, and we did officially replace him with a third-choice striker, but he’s clearly not deemed ready to play in the Premier League when we actually need him. So, again, it’s the fault of the recruitment in my eyes.
All of that error in recruitment adds up and piles the pressure on Le Bris; undercooked, out of their depth and out of position could sum up most of the recruits as it stands. While it makes sense to bring in potential, it shouldn’t be at the cost of quality in the first instance, and the team Le Bris has at his disposal is arguably weaker this season than last – a shambolic possibility when considering the club’s position as a play-off-winning Championship side last summer and a seventh-placed Europa League contender this summer.
The Players
The players have left much to be desired throughout much of this season, and I think a lot of the responsibility for the poor results and performances lies with them as a group. We’re bottom of the Premier League in a few metrics following the Bournemouth game – the league itself, xG conceded and xG created – but there’s one metric in which we’re league leaders: mistakes leading to goals.
It’s been covered increasingly heavily over the last few weeks, but with good reason, as you just cannot legislate for what we’re seeing from the Lads on a match-to-match basis. Huge individual errors for both of Ipswich’s goals on the opening day, a shocking lack of awareness from Xhaka for Brentford’s goal, innumerable costly errors at both City and Brighton. Bournemouth was a different level entirely. It’s not sustainable, and while there may be some blame attributable to Le Bris for the team’s setup, the players simply must do better and take some ownership of the failures on the pitch – we don’t have a chance if this continues.
Underperformance from individuals is costing us dearly – Roefs, Reinildo, the wingers and any and all centre-halves have all disappointed in spells. But if we want to look at individuals, where is our captain? Granit Xhaka looks like a shell of himself from last season. Gone is the standard-setter dictating from the middle and leading team huddles to drum up some fight in tough moments; gone is the leadership and hunger to succeed, and gone is the visibility to the fans – he seems comparatively invisible this season.
He’s not young at 34, and we knew that we would only get a couple of seasons from him ability-wise, but unfortunately, it’s everything else that we’re sorely lacking at the moment. You can excuse his inability to cover ground like he used to and some stray passes, but we need him to step up and lead these Lads right now. Nordi’s emergence post-Bournemouth sums it up at the moment: other Lads are picking up the slack while Granit coasts through.
A sense of inexplicable lethargy and softness has crept in over recent weeks. The excuses of European trips and fixture overload don’t hold water at the moment, as we’ve barely hit the season’s stride yet and, with a couple of exceptions such as Hume and Sadiki, many of the Lads should be relatively fresh. We need more energy from them; otherwise, it won’t matter who starts or what system Le Bris picks.
Le Bris Himself
So, let’s have a look at what Le Bris could reasonably be held accountable for at the moment.
An immediate and very salient issue that comes to mind is the freezing out of Chemsdine Talbi. As it stands, we have a talented and seemingly well-liked player who is being dragged around Europe (without being selected in the Europa League squad) and to every Premier League game just to take a spot on the bench without any intention of game time.
He is a player who contributed to season-defining moments last year and somebody who gives his all in defence and attack every game, even if the end result isn’t always excellent. In his place, we are currently persisting with a flailing Angulo and one of Meunier or Hume on the wings.
I understand that there are politics at play behind the scenes, but including him in the matchday squads is a truly mind-blowing decision when the only contribution he’s allowed to make is to watch from the sidelines as his inferior replacements struggle to create chances on either wing in his absence.
What takes this whole situation from confusing to outright baffling is Le Bris’ selection of Talbi for the League Cup game against Hull, wherein Talbi provided the winning goal – a wonderful, dinked effort over the keeper which was celebrated with almost zero emotion from the scorer himself. Why select him, put a reminder of what he’s capable of in front of all the fans, then reward him with a pointless tour around Europe and England for matches he’s not allowed to play in? Shocking man-management; this one’s all on Le Bris for me, and I’m not even the biggest Talbi fan!
The right wing is another very obvious issue and something that I and many others find very confusing from the outside looking in. Do we have any true natural options for that position? No. Do we have many natural wingers who could contribute in that position? Almost certainly.
The Hume/Meunier tactic is one with certain advantages, which I’m sure Le Bris has carefully calculated, but with four open-play goals in seven matches, perhaps it is time to use some of the expensively accumulated talent there instead to give us a bit of an edge going forward. Le Bris has really struggled to get a tune out of any wingers in the Premier League, so it seems strange that we’ve spent so much of our seemingly limited budget on players in that position.
It’s part of a wider issue in that I don’t think the team actually knows what to do this season – it doesn’t seem like there’s a clearly defined plan, as there was in Le Bris’ first two seasons, and we appear to be between playstyles without the advantages of any of them. I think it’s something we can easily turn around with Le Bris at the helm, but it’s been an issue nonetheless.
There are a litany of other issues which I could go into, too: Rigg’s limited involvement, baffling team selections (especially at Bournemouth, where our front four could arguably be outclassed by our League One setup of Clarke, Roberts, Pritchard and Stewart), a tactical stubbornness in playing to Brobbey’s style when he’s not even on the pitch, overexposed midfielders, an overly conservative approach to winnable games and a total inability to create chances, even when playing against a ten-man Brighton team at home.
When you add it all up, it’s clear that Le Bris has been making some very questionable decisions this season and, in my opinion, they’ve hurt us. Mix in individual errors, a shaky board situation and poor recruitment, and it’s not hard to see why we may be failing in the league so far.
Conclusion
For me, Le Bris has been at fault for a fair few issues this season, but in the end, I’d be sticking with him for as long as possible despite it all – he’s been sorely let down by those around him over the last few months, and he has earned support and trust through what is the first true sticky patch during his fantastic tenure thus far.
We know that Kyril Louis-Dreyfus can be ruthless at times, and he likely won’t allow form and results to suffer for long without action. It will take a combined effort from both players and manager to find a system and rhythm from which to build once more, but I believe we have the tools and the man at the helm to turn this around.