David Kelly

I do rate Parker but I worry that he's lost a lot of the fans and it's starting to effect him (although you can never doubt his effort) so if we were offered £8m I think it would be too good to turn down.

The Proposition - Canny, Guy Pearce is quality as always.

How is it overachieving? By what standard do you judge, when he's had 8 years to run his own personal fiefdom? I guess if Sammy Lee doesn't get 5th now he'll be slated as absolute shite. What about the bloke at Gretna? Has he overachieved? You achieve the potential in your circumnstances. I'll judge Sam on how he does with a year with these players as compared to every other manager that has been given the same affordance. Alternatively, we could take a back step and actually look to see who is out there who really could improve this club over 5 years, not just take the bloke we know wants the job because he turned it down 3 years ago. Any comparison of NUFC to Bolton is way off base. Different players, different chairman, completely different club, different exectations, hell the only thing in common is the Premiership, nothing else at all is the same. You have to ask yourself would Liverpool/Arsenal ever take a chance with Sam? If not why not? His only top flight record is Bolton. Some people think that's a good thing, I don't. Alternatively, If you want untried at the top, why choose Allardyce? Why not anyone else? Why not a completely unexpected and dynamic appointment, like Wenger to Arsenal, Houllier to Liverpool etc etc. And frankly, most of this is down to Fred, so delusions of anything coming good now and attacking any hint of questioning is also foolish. You've still not said what his bad points are though. Come to think of it, he doesn't have many, apart from the glaringly obvious that people seem to think is water under the bridge, even though it isn't even resolved yet My anger at his appointment is the pure bull being spouted about justifying his appointment: 'over-achieved at Bolton' - flawed argument, see above 'best for our circumstances' - he would have been here 3 years ago, don't even pretend Fred has gone for Sam because of circumstances, he is his number one idea of a top flight manager 'backroom staff' - this is basically spin and soundbites, Sam is certainly not the only manager who knows this stuff 'will stand up to Fred' - basically, when it comes down to it, no, he won't. No manager ever has. Ifyou want this, you get a director of football Combined with the fact that yet again, no effort at all has been made to get the right manager, we have taken the easy choice once again. I can't understand why you think he hasn't overachieved with Bolton. Is your criteria for overachivement? Do you have to take Wimbledon from non league to the premiership? The simple fact is that before his arrival Bolton were a first division club with no expectations other than having the odd challenge for promotion and if they did get up battle bravely against relegation. But he did more than this, he took them up, kept them up, established them as a premiership club (similar to Curbishly at Charlton) and then give them a realistic chance of qualifying for Europe and even an outside chance of snatching a Champions League spot. For me and it appears most others, that is what we would consider overachivement. This whole point you have about the fat man wanting him three years ago is irrelevant when you are arguing about why people now are saying he is the best we could get currently. Three years ago I agree few people would have wanted him (although I'm sure almost everyone would have took him over Souness) but we are not in the same position we were then. At that time we had finished 4th, 3rd and 5th in three seasons, qualifying for the 2nd group phase of the champions league and getting to a Uefa cup semi final. At that time we were an attractive proposition. Now we have had three god awful seasons, we are not in europe and we don't have the same amount of transfer funds as we did. We can't expect Europes elite to come kicking our door in so most of us have shifted our expectations of who we can appoint. I agree with your point that any manager should be able to bring in decent backroom staff but the simple fact is that none of our last five or six managers have done this and Allardyce has a succesfull record of it. If he did pick Gary Speed to bring as a coach I would be quite confident that he would be up to the job beacuse Allardyce's previous picks Brown, Lee, McDonald all appear to have been good at the jobs with all three going on to manage their own teams. As for standing up to the fat man, none of us know whether this will ever happen but I don't have any real expectations for it. But I do believe that Allardyce would have set out certain ground rules before he accepted the job that Shepherd must have aquiesced to. This may be a false assumption but we will never know. I also agree that Shepherd is unlikely to have undertaken a thorough europe wide search for our new manager, I think this is something most would concede. But that just makes me all the happier that we got SA in. No one expects fatty to carefully consider his options so we can just be grateful we didn't end up with an appointment like the last two!

tbh that's where a good backroom staff must help, a Ferguson style hairdrier rollicking is best served in many ways as a last resort, really there should be layers of management and discipline that stops that stuff long before it every gets to that. Which is something that Allardyce appears to sucesfully employ.

He gives the impression of a bloke who won't take any shit from the players too which is something our last two managers were fucking awfull at. Souness tried to get by on bullying whereas Roeder just looked like you could walk all over him and he would just take it. Allardyce appears to be tough without losing the players respect.

My cousin used to be the same (well not quite the same but all hyper and mental) with it.

Jessie The Body is a legend tbh. Spirited Away. Looks fantastic but I was a little bit disapointed after all of the rave reviews I've seen for it.

Saw a bit of it when the lad came to the lass's door and they thought he was Jehova's Witness. That was canny funny. It's the first time I've ever seen any programme with Rob Brydon, I think he's really funny on talk shows but I've never fancied any of his shows.

I can't think of any other manager who I would rather have at the moment (discounting the likes of Fergusson, Mourinho et al who we couldn'f get). He seems to have the same ideas as a lot of us in terms of what's needed in the modern game. I just hope he is allowed to implement them!

Let's face it, it would take a hell of a lot to be worse than the shite we've had to sit through the last few years. Even Robson's last season was awfull on that front!

I'm hoping that we will see the back of Bramble, Carr, Babayarou, Moore, Bernard and Luque. None of them contribute anything positive to the club and do nothing but drag us down. Realistically to replace these players you would only need to sign one left back and one centre back although we would hope there are at least two centre backs signed and a right back too. I think Dyer's time at the club has finished tbh, many of the fans haven't forgiven him for his past indiscretions and he really does appear to be stagnating now. I fear we will struggle to keep a hold of Owen, Martins, Zoggy and Parker all of whom seem to have genuine reasons to leave. God knows what's likely to happen to Emre. I would say we need to get rid of those players in the top section and possibly Dyer too if we are to ever move forward. If we lose any of the players from Owen down then it's going to take a hell of a lot of work, money and time to get us back into the top six.

He's obviously warming to him. I can see that season ticket application still being filled in!

I think Souness is probably a better manager but he did terribly with us and is a complete twat. Roeder is just clueless and totally out of his depth. If nothing else at least Roeder left in a more dignified (and less expensive) manner.

Nah, this about dressing room unrest, he's never there!

Yeah this thought has occurred to me too. If he doesn't leave now we will have to show something special to get him to sign a new contract or next summer he will have to go in order for us to get anything back (and it won't be £9m) on him.

I wonder how long this escape clause is valid for? I was going to say that only an idiot would allow such a clause to continue beyond one transfer window but then only an idiot would have allowed the clause in the first place!

Fucking hope not. I rate him as a manger of smaller clubs but I doubt he could translate it to a club looking higher. That's funny that, I was thinking the same thing about _ _ _ _ _ _ Not really the same case though sice Jewell hasn't shown that he move a small club into Europe and consistently keep them overachieving in the top half of the table well clear of any threat of Relegation.

Fucking hope not. I rate him as a manger of smaller clubs but I doubt he could translate it to a club looking higher.

Quoted for its truth and logic. Might I pose a question here. When was the last time we got in a new manager bang on in line to when the off-season started??? My memory aint what it used to be Possibly Charlton or McCfaul?

Surprised by that like after they stayed up.

Very ignorant of the fat man not to call him back if he did. I am in favour of fatty bringing Allardyce in as despite him having no record of taking teams on to trophy winning glory he really does tick nearly every box in terms of what I (and I think most fans whether they realise it or not) want in our manager. That said I doubt the decision has been made on any sound strategic basis and is more likely a case of just going for someone who is available and high profile!

I'd take them both to bolster our squad but I wouldn't be losing any sleep over missing either of them tbh.

Aye I don't know how we can jump in ahead of anyone without a manager like.

TBH I don't think there is a best to get out of Xavier. Would not be impressed (much like with Sib) but if we got some good players to play ahead of him I suppose he would pad out the squad a bit.