David Kelly

I think performances over the Christmas period and the Barton affair had weakend his position but there must have been a final straw which I can only think can have come in terms of Allardyce's transfer targets being very different from the boards or a manager they really wanted given them the nod. Hopefully it's a bit of both because if SA was coming to Mort saying I need £10m to spend on Nolan, Diarra and some no marks from the Portugese league instead of saying we need to get some creativity into the team, it should have sounded some alarm bells ringing with Mort and Ashley deciding that rather than wasting some money on Allardyce they can give it and a lot more to a new guy who they belive in and they are confident of getting.

I've never seen Enrique have a really bad game tbh (although I didn't see the Liverpool game when he was supposed to be shite) and there have been several games where Cacapa has looked class. Strange that they are being singled out when Smith and Geremi have barely put a foot right. Allardyce's inability to adapt has surprised me quite a bit. The guy is supposed to be one of the most forward thinking managers in the game yet he expected the fans of a club that has twice played in the champions league in recent memory and finished in the top six several times over the past fifteen years, to accept the same mentality of a club that has next to no resources or fans and are delighted to be finishing anywhere above fifteenth. I thought he was smarter than that.

My biggest worry is whether Ashley and Mort know enough about football to make the right decision. Neither of them have any experience in doing something like this. As I said in another thread I hope to god they are getting some advice from someone more knowlegeable than them. That said the names most football pundits are throwing up wouldn't inspire much confidence either.

I do care if we lose. I would take less exciting football (although not as dull as Allardyce) if it meant winning something. I'm just idealist/greedy I suppose. I want to win, but I want to do it in style. We weren't winning many games under Allardyce though and just scraping the ones we did get against crap sides. The reason the football was dull was because we were shit. If we were a good team we would by definition be playing much more entertaining football.

I'm still confused. What is about Mourinho's football which isn't "good"? Or are you pining for the old Keegan style days of no matter what the result is, we'll entertain...? Mourinho rapidly brought domestic success to a club that was effectively 'sleeping' almost as much as we are. His time at Chelsea came to an end because he was fed up of interference to team matters from the non-footballing personnel. And frankly, who can blame him?? Do I think he's a realistic prospect? No. Would I welcome him as our next manager? Damned fucking right I would! And anyone who says otherwise is a few sandwiches short of a picnic! Quoted for truth. And I would also say that I would take winning every day over entertaining football although I really don't think you can have one without the and anyone who thinks Chelski fans were coming away from Stamford Bridge feeling like they weren't being entertained is deluding themselves. There is nothing more entertaining than seeing top class players winning every week.

We might as well go for a flavour of the month as that's all the time they get here

I don't think any of our previous targets are of any concern any more. The new manager will have his own ideas and will have to be bloody quick to get anyone in.

I think you have nailed it. I hope you have nailed it. I'm really hoping Ashley really wants to see us up there with the big boys and is prepared to back a top class manager in order to do it. I hope he takes some advice from people with more football knowlege than him (David Dien would be a canny place to start). I'm used to the shite we had to suffer from Shepherd so I'm certainly not at the stage where I'm expecting any of this though and rumours of the likes of Redknapp certainly aren't helping me!

Aye that is spot on tbh. I can't really say I'm in favour of sacking a manger after so little time but after some initially promissing moves in the transfer market in the summer there is very little you can say that Sam did right and our attacking play is fucking horrendous.

Thank fuck for that, hopefully there's something in the Hiddink link at the bottom of that article, although I seriously doubt it.

This is absolutely spot on. I hope that Ashley has decided he wants to go all the way and bring in and heavily back a top class manager. However I rarely find reality very rarely matches up to my hopes and I think it's more likely that we end up with more of the same.

I hope this Redknapp thing turns out to be bollocks. Taking Portsmouth to 8th (while spending a decent amount of money) is the sum total of his achievements. If he was a young up and coming manager then you could understand us being interested but he's been doing this for a long time now and he's never looked like making a step up. What's the point in appointing a manager who record compares to the one we've just got rid of for not being able to take us back up to the top six. I'd rather go with Shearer tbh, at least there's no evidence that he's not up to it yet, but surely there's foreign managers out there that have a better pedigree. I know we wouldn't be able to get him but if we appointed someone like Redknapp without even trying to get Mourinho I'd be bitterly disapointed. We should be looking at the type manager that the top four would look at and if we can't get them then at least we tried but Redknapp is more like the type of manager the makems would go for. Honestly I couldn't see Spurs, Everton or Villa looking twice at him so what's the point in us.

Its happened. Move on. Shows how slow I am at typing! I hope we have someone lined up or we're just completely writing off this season (I know we were always going to be to an extent but we still have a chance to make some progress to line us up for next year) and could really end up in a relegation battle. I'm fucking sick of all this starting again though, I hope whoever is appointed it is a good decision because these last four seasons have been fucking depressing!

Kris has come up trumps a few times in the past so this deserves some attention although I still doubt it tbf.

What about Imre Varadi? English

Yeah I would agree with that.

Again, we only have one specialist defensive midfielder, and Diarra is significantly better. What's the problem? Faye is also a specialist defensive midfielder and there's several others who are capable of doing the job. As far as I can see we don't have a single attacking midfielder (unless you count Emre who is more likely to be away in the window than get a run of games) so that has to be the priority. If we have the chance to sign both all well and good but I think it's highly unlikely Allardyce is going to have a massive amount of money to spend this transfer window and if Diarra is going to cost between £2m & £5m that is going to be a hell of a chunk of his budget eaten up immediately. It's only my opinion but if we were to sign him I can't see us going for an attacking midfielder too. Yes he would provide cover for Beye which would have the added benefit of keeping Carr away from the team but for five or six games during the African Nations I wouldn't really be wanting to spend that sort of money.

As annoying as it might be I do feel that it is a fact that there is very little love for any of our players and it's probably justified. We have a £17m striker that most seem to feel is only interested in England and would jump ship at the first oppertunity (and who is past his best anyway), an £11m striker who can't pass or control a ball and is brain dead, other strikers who are fat and lazy or just generally shit. You would usually expect to see strikers or local lads being firm fan favourites but this isn't the case at the moment with us, we have absolutely no one that excites the fans. If you asked most fans above the age of about fifteen I think they would probably struggle to name their favourite player. In a way one of the fat mans trophy signings would seem very appealing at the moment. I agree. Many would name Given which tells its own story. I think N'Zogbia might get a few votes and Taylor would too but your right only Given would probably get a strong support although I don't think he's been at his best this season and I think he more and more doubters now.

As annoying as it might be I do feel that it is a fact that there is very little love for any of our players and it's probably justified. We have a £17m striker that most seem to feel is only interested in England and would jump ship at the first oppertunity (and who is past his best anyway), an £11m striker who can't pass or control a ball and is brain dead, other strikers who are fat and lazy or just generally shit. You would usually expect to see strikers or local lads being firm fan favourites but this isn't the case at the moment with us, we have absolutely no one that excites the fans. If you asked most fans above the age of about fifteen I think they would probably struggle to name their favourite player. In a way one of the fat mans trophy signings would seem very appealing at the moment.

Milner, Butt and Taylor are the only players in that list that anyone really rates as good players anyway. So Milner gets it for me. Who would be our best good player? Do we have any?

SSN saying that we have made an equiery but no official bid yet. Not where we really need to be looking to buy at all for me, although I assume being at Arsenal he can pass a ball so he would probably improve the team.

Let's just hope it's not true. Even at his best he wouldn't be the type of player that we need at minute and as the Bolton fans will testify to his best is a long way off.

agreed! taylor and faye together works! Faye and Cacapa. I'm not convinced by Taylor, even though he did pull out a decent performance last night. I think when they get a run together Faye and Cacapa will be an excellent partnership. That's if we help out the defence a bit further up the field.

I think he's just a patronising cunt and speaks like that to everyone. I'd rather listen to Lawrenson than that muppet.

I don't think any of our squad has any range of passing at all which you could see yesterday when they gave us time and space on the ball and we didn't have a clue what to do it. Going back to the original point, this has been my view for quite some time. Until Shearer gets the job a large section of the crowd (and while I agree there does seem to be a few more now who are taking the view that we need to give Allardyce until the end of the season there are still a good number who believe he's had more than enoughh time and should be gone immediately) will not give anyone a fair amount of time to turn things round. The only thing you hope is that he might actually be up to the job, no one could know the answer to that at the moment though. I'm also not sure what people want Shearer to come out and say to try and put the rumours to bed. He's made it clear he would love to manage us one day so really if he now says no I don't want it yet would anyone really believe him? I seriously doubt it. He's employed as a pundit by the BBC and he is a legend to this club so they are obviously going to have him talk about us. I'm sorry but until he has done the job and either failled or succeded he will always be there in the backround and there's nothing anyone can do about it unless Ashley or Mort were to come out and say he's not someone they would ever consider.