David Kelly

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.

Fucking annoying as fuck. I wish he could just sit still when he talks. Prick.

It wasn't at all bad. Seemed to lose some of the Die Hard magic but still a very solid action film. John Mclaine must be made of rubber with some of the things he survived!

Not that we have loads of alternatives but you could always move Zog to LW and play Duff on the right now he's fit. Tbh I'd consider Geremi as an alternative although he's off to Africa now. At least he can deliver a decent ball in and he won't fanny about hopelessly before losing the ball. Both of those are options I would consider but tbh it's hardly an exciting alternative.

I would think any manager no matter how confident they are in their own ability would be put off by the constant sackings that have been going on here for the past few years and if Allardyce was sacked this season it would make it much worse. You look at the squad that was available at the start of the season and the net amount of money Allardyce has had to work with and anyone remotely impartial would have to say that it would be an incredibly difficult job to turn us around this season. A prospective manager looking at that would have to say that the same things that have happened to Allardyce (in terms of things not working out right away) could have easily happened to them too. And if they do they only have six months to get it right then it's on to the next man. That would certainly put me off a job I was being offered. As bad as it is at the moment I don't think there is anything else we can do but back manager until the end of the season. If at that time things aren't showing any sign of moving forward I would certainly be very uncomfortable providing significant funds if I were Ashley and I think that would necessitate making a change. Because this team is going to need some major investment if it's going to move to where we need it to be.

That'll solve our attacking problems then. We've also got defensive problems, too. Most of them caused by our inability to keep the ball in the opposition's half away from our goal for sufficient periods and the rest caused by our lack of a cohesive unit at the back. I don't really believe that the defenders we have are that lacking in quality if they were correctly moulded together.

The things he lacks now he will always lack (pace and quality in his distribution), there are some things you can coach and what he has missing aren't amongst them. The thought of him being involved in the national team is ridiculous (and partially what prompted me to start this discussion in the first place), he offers so much less than Beckham, Wright-Phillips, Lennon & Bentley (those names are just off the top of my head) that it's unreal. I agree that he should be no more than a squad player and the fact that he's one of the first names on out teamsheet each game is a shocking idictment on our sqaud.

That'll solve our attacking problems then.

They could do but Milner has never looked like he had any quality in his deliver in four years. Mind you it has improved, his first season he just kicked the ball into the crowd now he hits the first defender!

We have a problem retaining posession, but I think it stems to some extent from the fans. Any time the ball is played backwards an audible groan goes around the stadium, when it goes back to the keeper people around me are up in arms. I get the impression our players feel they MUST go forward or they'll incur our wrath, so when a simple pass isn't on they launch it in the hope it'll drop for us. More often than not it doesn't and we only succeed in inviting another attack. They can't win. Totall agree with this too. Also the slightest miscontrol (I'm not talking about Martins with every second touch being a tackle) is met with moans and groans even if the player retains posession.

We do have plenty of other useless twats who probably are more deserving of stick. I just wanted to point out how bad it is that the player we have who comes in for the least stick is generally average at best. He has no pace, no vision (as we saw last night when he beat his man and acres in front for him to run into only for him to keep his head down and try and beat the man again and lose the ball) and no quality whatsoever in his distribution. He appears to be a model pro and should be commended for his attitiude but if anyone thinks that makes him a good player they deserve to watch the shite that's being offered up at the moment.