inckley fox

I suppose, unless you watched Cannon extensively on his previous loan, it's hard to say. He's barely kicked a ball for us, so all we have to go on is that successive managers haven't appeared to rate him highly. I think he's one of those where his absence has led to people mixing up their curiosity with the hope that he's what we're missing (if that makes sense). Mind you, I haven't seen enough of Broja to be sure that he's an upgrade either. I doubt there are all that many on here who have studied either of them at length, let alone both.

If he refuses to play games as a result of it, they will.

You must have loved it when we signed Vardy, Mahrez, Schmeichel, Ulloa, Drinkwater, James, Kante, Maddison, Soyuncu (and so on)!

Obviously you weren't paying attention to our post-Xmas form. Everyone was rightly worried about where things were going towards the end under Maresca. Factor in an upcoming deduction and limited dealings, and we're in a right mess. Any manager will need time - and a lot more than two games. A draw vs Spurs and a narrow loss to Fulham are by no means cause for people to be calling for a manager's head. That's such an obvious observation, that it seems absurd to even be repeating it.

Potter would be crazy to come. The Forest fans I know thought Cooper was nuts too. Pearson tried a lot of different ideas before he got it right in the PL. It clicked in March, with a 3-4-1-2 and an almost all-out attack approach which few of us saw coming. Two games in, it is absolutely the definition of knee-jerk to say the manager is out of his depth. Especially given (a) that he's already shown elsewhere that he isn't out of his depth and (b) we're in a right old mess, and were before Maresca left. Just look at our post-Xmas form.

I agree with many that Justin was poor for their second, but also felt Fatawu switched off and led to him being pulled out of position. Hermansen might also have done a bit better. Reid is one of those players I've never rated at all. I'll be patient, but it hasn't started too well. Winks and Wilf could also be an issue. And poor Kasey, I suspect, is going to find himself squeezed out if we bring new men in.

It's good to see people giving a new manager a fair crack of the whip, given that he's walking into a club which looked barely good enough to go up post-Xmas, is facing a deduction, and hasn't done much business thus far. If we lost the next three or four or even five we'd still be the biggest laughing stock in the game for firing him, and rightly so. Potter in?! Delusions of grandeur, once again. Perhaps some will remember the shaky starts under Wallace, Milne, O'Neill and Pearson Mk. 2. Or the amazing starts under Taylor, Levein and Sven. I understand anger and frustration, but that doesn't make it right. We competed away from home with a side that finished 13th, having got a point vs one of the league's best teams in our first game. Yes, we were poor and need to get a LOT better. No, I don't think much of the Ayew signing (though our bigger problems today were longer standing ones). No, I'm not convinced that the club is headed in the right direction, nor that Cooper will turn out to be the right man. But I'm very thankful that the noise I heard our fans making at the game was a lot more positive than some of the rabid nonsense on here. In fact, much of this is embarrassing, childish and totally unhelpful.

I've always been Andres rather than Andrew in certain countries. They just revert to that automatically, and of course it's fine. People do ask for the correct pronunciation from time to time. I often find it a bit pretentious when football commentators and 'people of that ilk' (to quote the big man) try to pronounce names correctly, and usually get it wrong. I remember Steve Coogan saying that the origin of Partridge was the fact that sports commentators have a sense of their own intelligence which isn't merited. Perhaps that's what's going on with that. Another example is how Spanish people always call Queen Elizabeth 'Isabel' and Charles 'Carlos', whereas we try to call their King 'Felipe' rather than 'Philip'. It shouldn't really matter, but perhaps some English people do this to either compensate for their poor grasp of foreign languages, or in some cases to sound cleverer than they really are! I'm not sure. Actually, I do this when it comes to ordering curries. So I have no right to sneer.

I honestly didn't see that.

I honestly thought he had a nightmare. Thankfully, for him, most of his colleagues were equally dire. It's highly unlikely that anyone will pinpoint his deficiencies when they're up against those of the CBs, CMs and wingers. Something huge needs to happen if we're to avoid humiliation this season. We should be 3 or 4 down. But you never know.

The O'Neill era was marked by unimpressive and unimaginative-looking signings which made you say 'oh, that old carthorse?!' or 'is that really what we need?' I'm clinging on to the hope that these signings are in that Claridge / Keller / Prior / Marshall / Cottee / Taggart / Sinclair / Impey bracket, rather than anything from the Adams era. Even Pearson liked a few veterans, albeit at budget prices. It's more expensive, even relatively speaking, than any of the aforementioned, but then again he's a good few years younger than most of them were. Even if Reid and, if he comes, Ayew, certainly aren't. And our recent recruitment hasn't always suggested that recruitment is in line with management. But you never know.

I remember that when Pearson was fired, they both celebrated it on the grounds that Neil Lennon might be the next boss. So I'd hesitate before going wild about their endorsements. And I might be wrong, but I think Pearson - when asked - said he preferred The Cure and XTC. And not just because the latter wrote 'Making Plans for Nigel'.

Didn't Nige tell them that he thought they were crap? Or did I imagine that?

I suppose the question is the degree to which he's in charge of it, given that he reports to Top. Is it Rudkin who decided, for instance, that only a possession-based game is truly sustainable? When the owners first turned up, before Rudkin was in charge, we heard similar assertions that they wanted a more continental brand of football. We also saw a haphazard transfer policy until Pearson and his team reappeared. So these things predate his tenure. Equally, the book-balancing which seems to have done for us recently is unlikely to have been his principal remit. And if Whelan is also reporting to Top and, as with Rudkin, the boss has seemed no cause to move her on, you'd have to guess that there's consensus. This is all retreading old ground, I know, but within it all - especially given the inherent level of risk-taking in the business, and the past success that these people have had - there's room for people to sound a note of caution in our retributions, while still wanting change. And being balanced enough to point out that, if our current footballing woes are of Rudkin's making, then he'd also need praise for past glories under his watch.

Okay, I could be wrong. I don't go over everything with a fine tooth comb, to be fair! But would you agree that there's a danger of people having made their minds up that Rudkin, regardless of who he reports to, is primarily responsible for our decline? Might that let others off the hook? Might it even be the case that Top quite likes him being in situ in order to take the flak? I'm sure you'll tell me that people do all of those things too, but I don't get the impression that it's to anything like the same extent. To clarify, I want to see evidence of the club learning from its errors, and think a rejig which sees Rudkin moved on would be encouraging, because it'd demonstrate a serious rethink. I just find the degree to which people focus on his role is a tad strange, and maybe a result of us not wanting to 'turn on' Top.

Totally go along with that. I've seen him loads since he was at Derby. Really don't rate him at all.

You've been pretty consistent. I might not agree on everything but you've gone to pains to explain that the board, including Top and Rudkin, have question marks against them. Still, balance matters. I think sometimes people just want to rip their shirts off, daub themselves red, don a bandana and go baying for blood. And anyone who doesn't is 'one of them'.

He misses the point that a person can be responsible for something positive, and then subsequently be to blame for something negative. Pearson took us up two divisions and formed our best ever side, but history shows it was right to fire him. Ranieri won the league, but likewise. Shakespeare kept us up but had to go. Puel restructured our squad superbly, but few would argue that he needed to leave. Rodgers outperformed expectations for two years, but was patently counter-productive by the time he departed. I mean, in life in general people aren't just uniformly good and bad. You can't go saying 'well, you got that right so we should just carry on doing whatever you say'. The same Prime Ministers who oversaw our recovery after World War One were the ones who failed to rearm the country, and appeased Hitler. Should we have stuck with them? Where Top is concerned, he wasn't primarily responsible for our ascent. He was the son of the owner, rather than the owner, and the 'football people' have always been the boss and their people or, if you want to be overly generous, Rudkin. For a long time he's overseen decline at the club, and it's right to ask whether he's still the right man, or is even interested in being the right man any more. You can appreciate the money he's pumped in, much like Derby fans might appreciate Mel Morris' investment, but at the same time see that either he changes his way of operating, or needs to hand over the reins for the good of the club. Even a first half hat trick doesn't mean you shouldn't come off when you're pooped after sixty minutes.

Okay, so you don't have anything to say, you just want to be a bit spiky. That's alright.

You make some great points. I'd only reserve judgement on the second paragraph, and whether it's better to have no plan as opposed to the wrong plan.

Do you disagree with any of what I said? Or perhaps have inside information?! Either might be perfectly valid, but you need to elaborate. I think I made clear that I have serious doubts about him, but that we're letting Top off the hook, and being unjustifiably critical, if we simplify everything by saying 'just sack Jon. He's the problem.' Or, equally, 'sack Cooper. He's rubbish.' It seems a bit cheap to say that anyone who tries to offer a bit of balance is working for the club, or for Rudders! Arguments can't always be reduced to straightforward populist solutions. And just because I'm not frothing at the mouth doesn't mean that I'm not thoroughly pissed off with the board.

We haven't even played a game yet, so you might be jumping the gun a bit! Plus we weren't on promotion form from New Year onward under Enzo, and it was clear to most that some degree of a rethink was needed going into the PL. We only got over the finish line because we temporarily abandoned our fixation with possession at all costs. As such, 1000x worse is a hell of a stretch. When you consider that (a) the players look as disconsolate as you might expect them to look with no marquee signings and a hefty looming points deduction - neither of which are the manager's fault; (b) that any boss would struggle to keep us up under those circumstances, and (c) that eyebrow-raising selection decisions may reflect either limited options or certain players losing faith in our project, it's incredibly harsh to judge the boss in those circumstances. And Cooper has plenty of pedigree. Like Maresca he's won a promotion, albeit a far less likely one, but he's also kept a side up thereafter. So if he's rubbish then, based on respective records, what would that make Enzo?! On a final note, re: Rudkin and Whelan, I strongly suspect there should have been a restructuring in which one or both of them were moved on, but that's on Top, and may reflect his waning interest in the club, or inability to manage a business. One thing I don't know is whether Rudkin, as the only member of the board with a coaching background, has been the only voice of reason in a room full of wild and unsuccessful ideas proposed by those who don't know the game as well as he does, or is responsible for our decline. Nobody has any way of knowing that, though we can be sure that Top is responsible one way or the other. But we can be sure of this: that when people say Rudkin isn't qualified for the job, I think ten years on the job for a side that was in the drop zone when he took over, and won the league 18 months later with a transfer policy that was lauded throughout the footballing world suggests the opposite. We can't slate him for all the bad stuff without giving any credit for the good bits, or saying 'Oh, that was because of Vichai'. Like you, I suspect that he should be shown the door, but it's a 'best guess'. And I'd also love to see Nige back, but I have no idea whether he's suited to the role. What I would say is that, before Rudkin (or NP) entered the scene, we saw a substandard recruitment policy and bizarre fixation with continental football under these owners. So the common denominator there is, yet again, Top.

Obviously I'm pretty glum as things stand, because it looks like the board has lost interest. Bringing Cooper in is neither here nor there for me. We could have made worse appointments, and while he's clearly struggling to make things work, I think going overboard with criticism will only deflect from the real issues. I also believe that most bosses would find our current predicament borderline unmanageable. Yes, the sidelining of Ricardo may seem odd, but it might also be justifiable. Ricardo is a bright guy, and if he's feeling disillusioned then he'd perhaps be better off sitting things out. Equally, the manager might consider that sides have sussed the inverted full back role, and Ricardo isn't well-suited to a more conventional RB role, or CM role, at this level. I suspect we'll see a few other eyebrow-raising decisions made, but which are mostly consequences of (a) poor investment and (b) unrest in the dressing room. It'd be madness to turn on the boss before Top was held to account. Personally the deflation began for me back in January when we heard about the FFP problems. I thought it'd be better to either take any deduction as soon as possible, while we could have made use of our huge points advantage over 3rd, or simply stayed down and got our house in order instead of kicking the problem a few months down the line. On the other hand, I appreciate that some felt promotion to be a necessity if we wanted to balance the books for the future. In which case I'd have liked to see us no longer scraping the bottom of the barrel for experienced players. Quite often, if they come cheap it's because nobody else wants them, and given that there are loads of players at PL level who aren't truly good enough, it's a strategy which rarely pays off. I actually thought that our focus on bringing in players under BR in the 15-25m price bracket often meant we were picking up the leftover fish from the big pond, rather than potential gems in the smaller one. The Golding signing made me wonder if we were going to try to bring in 6-7 players from PL academies and lower leagues as a means of building for what comes next. Much like we did under Pearson, and perhaps should have done to a greater extent under Enzo. If you coupled that with an honest admission from the board that it was going to be a tough year, that mistakes had been made and learnt from, and we had to see the longer-term picture, then I'd have at least been enthusiastic that we were seeing the first steps towards a brighter future. Hopefully the next few days will give more cause for optimism.

If they are, as some have imagined, going through the motions ahead of selling up, then that gives Cooper a card up his sleeve, at least. Should he consider the situation to be hopeless, he can say it and know that he's practically unsackable on the grounds that we'd look like a complete mess of a club. It's all supposing that he actually feels the need to underline his concerns, and that they want out, but if so speaking openly would create a climate where they simply had to either do better, or hasten their way to the exit. And it would get the fans off his back - which is vital for us, because if the criticism is focused on him, we might be deflecting from the deep-rooted problems at the club.

Who pays for this?