David Kelly

Gloomy saying he wouldn't rule out a relegation battle is hardly hysterical though is it?A couple of the others are a bit over the top but that's not what most people are doing in reality.

I don't know about you,but the bloke who used to fill in the team sheet and who has overseen us registering Darlow as a first team player this season being in charge of the process doesn't fill me with any more confidence than if Ashley was taking a more active role. I suppose that he's unlikely to have any mates like JFK to pull out of his arse gives me a bit of comfort. I hope Carr is involved enough and can put something together for us. I can't say im confident that is something that gives me a bit of hope.

Ashley has never picked a good coach (Keegan of course has ability but was never going to be able to work under Ashley's constraints). The only one who was working was the one who just fell into the job. So just as relegation is a realistic possibility (not just a mathematical possibility) so is not getting a good head coach under Ashley. Hopefully this won't be the case but if anything the evidence we have (ie Ashley's history) suggests it's more likely a shocking appointment will be made than a good one. It's far from ridiculous to be concerned about this. It is daft to say we'll never sign a good player again because under ashley history tells us we do sign decent players. But there's not a great deal of talk that we'll never sign a good player again.

Don't see the threat. Sorry. The hysteria got the better of me.

There's nothing irrational about seeing the threat of relegation. If you see it as a threat then you really are being irrational.

Can anyone name a worse person in charge of a premier league team at present? I'm still grateful that Pardews gone but I think relegation is a greater possibility with his successor than it was with him. I don't think it's a certainty (im not sure anyone has said that) but there's a bigger chance. Carver may have the coaching badges but his record in charge is woeful at best and his audition for the job has been an unmitigated disaster. One draw in four games and two of the four games were against supposed dead certs for relegation. If this isn't a cause for concern I don't know what is. Yes people are probably overreacting but what else do you expect when we keep getting served this shite time and time again.

They didn't pick Hughton straight away though did they? That's why I think it's a definite possibility he'll stay as a permenent manager (not saying I definitley think it will happen just a posibility that we'd be foolish to discount). As for the threat of relegation. We've played well and picked up points in only a very small portion of the last 13 months now. If we continue to play that badly we won't pick up many more points whereas the shite beneath us are actually a. Picking up in their form (Bunley, Leciester, WBA all picking up points) b. Bringing in managers with a proven ability to save teams from relegation (WBA with Pulis) and c. Actually trying to improve their teams to improve their chances of survival. Whereas we are bang out of form, have no manager, and won't sign anyone despite starting the season short of centrebacks and losing one of the ones we had for the rest of the season. OK our league position now is far from desperate but if we lose to Hull (one of the few teams who's form is near as bad as ours presently) it's going to start looking a lot closer to being that way.

But if we accept Ashley knows fuck all about football why would you think that if Carver keeps us up, that he won't think he would be a good manager full time? Especially when you go back to how his managerial appointments have gone previously. They've been either, Club Legends to try and get the fans onside (something he no longer cares about), cronies (something I assume he's ran out of) or coaches who've just been given the job short term and then left in it. It seems more than possible to me that Carver could stay in the job if we stay up.

A big gamble that hasn't been thought through. That could be our new club moto. Either that or the title of Milk and Mings debut album.

Quite often when we bring these players in who aren't for a position we're desperate for (Anita and Haidara being good examples) we fail to bring them into the team with any great success. To me this suggests a potentially massive issue with our recruitment process. Pardew clearly had an idea of what he felt we needed and players were brought in who didn't match that idea. As it stands I think it's fair to say that we would lose money on both of those players I mentioned if we sold them (particularly Anita who has been generally poor and looked out of his depth) and neither have made any great contribution to the team. So we are just wasting money.

Aye I got your point. They've been happy to use the purchase of Darlow and Lascelles as purchases made this season but no doubt they'll use them again in the summer. Even if we signed all of them, how many of the issues we have in the first team would be resolved. At a guess I'd say not a single one. Not that that has any baring on our tranfer dealings like.

Me father didn't like it. It didn't fit in with his philosphy that for a television program to be watchable, you have to be able to get up and make a cup of tea in the middle and still be able to follow what's going on. This explains why all he watches is sport, the news and Coronation street! I enjoyed it like.

Ah I rember the Polish kid and Sissoko's replacement now. Never read owt about the other one like. I thought they were signings we'd actually made or were close to.

Who?

Mings sounds like far too nice a kid to be a professional footballer.

You would think that there's no chance of any of these signings happening without us having a permanent manager but the way football is in general these days (not just with our joke of a club), it wouldn't totally surprise me if we did sign them all.

As has already been said, we'll be looking at him if he fails to get promotion with Derby. Fucking hiliarious that's what we'd be banking on. No lads we don't want to try and sign a manager who may be able to win things, what we want is to put the bloke who puts out the cones in til the end of the season and then appoint someone who's just failled at their last job! Fucking genius. Reading Moncur's shite about how Carver will have the team organised is fucking laughable. He couldn't help Pardew get us organised (we've looked anything but organised for the majority of the last three seasons) and now we're supposed to believe he can do it on his own? Do me a fucking favour Bob. Moncur might have been the last captain to win anything for us but his opinions are fucking worthless.

I think your very optimistic to think he's good enough to keep us up. My hope is the players are good enough because I don't think there's any chance of him being good enough on his own.

I'm sure they do but if they don't start picking up points shortly we want to hope that they get some sort of bonus just for staying up or they might not bother their arses if there's no chance of a bonus. Lets face it, money is the only reason they're here!

Quite possibly they'll think the same as we do. That the season is over and they can't be arsed to put any real effort in. Hopefully they'll care enough about some bonus or other to make sure we don't get relegated before they completely pack in though.

He probably won't have the job til the summer anyway. We'll panic when we're bottom with 6 or 7 games to go then call for JFK!

He's clearly not a man to be put in charge of a premiership team even on a short term basis. There are plenty of coaches at clubs who you would be happy to have cover until a full time manager is appointed even if you wouldn't want time to be appointed full time (as was the case with Roeder) but Carver doesn't even insipre that much confidence. It's quite surprising that even the pricks in charge at St James Park don't seem to have any concerns over relegation given our form this season and the results we've had so far under Carver.

Finished watching Inherent Vice. Extremely convoluted for what was basically a very straightforward story. It was like they were actively trying to confuse you. Which is a bit of a shame because other than that it was very likeable.

Love a bit of Bjork. Debut, Post and Homogenic are all excellent. That reminds me to finish downloading her new one.

It was on BBC4 last night. I started watching Inherent Vice last night but I'd had half a bottle of wine with me dad before hand so I fell asleep an hour into it. It had the feel of a film I would really love (reminiscent of The Long Goodbye or a mix of Chinatown and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) but I was really struggling to make any sense of it. I was hoping that was mainly down to me being half asleep but on reading some of the comments on IMDB it looks like that might just be the way it is with it. I'll definitely have another go at it when I'm more awake though. If only for Joanna Newsome's narration.