Hirsty The Blue 94

Seemed the 3 at the back actually carried us some level of threat, so I'd stick with that but massively shuffle the deck. Jakub Nelson Vestergaard Okoli Winks Fatawu James Ricardo Monga Ramsey Ayew/Caranza/Daka Couldn't decide who was the least shit option up top having seen all 3 of them now start.

Usually you can pin point one or 2 bad performances, but literally all 11 shouldn't walk out for the 2nd half. An utter disgrace, no accountability, no desire, no effort, no quality.

Bloke just got out coached by Phil Parkinson, which should tell a tail in itself. When he got the job the style of football he promised is nothing what we're seeing on the pitch. He's been dealt a shit hand in terms of incomings, but he is playing it even worse. I've seen no real shift from anything we were doing last season, other than the fact we're playing against crap sides so getting away with it.

Cant forsee how that challenge meets the excessive force bar personally. The height of the challenge was that expected of a sliding challenge, at no point was contact made any higher then the top of the foot/bottom the ankle. Reckless for me and a yellow due to the speed in which he went into the challenge, but certainly not a red. If 7 of their blokes hadn't come charging at the referee then I'm not sure he sends him off. When I did my refereeing course, our tutor who now refs in the National League said player reaction can sometimes be a big giveaway in how bad a challenge was, and feel Oxford players sold it to be a leg breaker which conned the ref into showing a red. I hate it about the game, but we're not street wise with these sorts of things. Okoli got a forearm to the chops first half, none of our lot made a song and dance of it so the ref turned a blind eye, multiple times in the game if we were a bit more savvy would have got better decisions. Think the ref only started giving us a decision after he booked big Vesty who then went on to berate him for the next 10 minutes, that's what Hamza should be doing as captain.

Vesty had a good 2nd half after a ropey 1st fair play to him..

Literally looked like he could have dealt with their entire front 3 on his own tonight, and his distribution is a different level to Championship centre halves. Redemption arc 2.0 incoming?

Obviously massive part of the shambles is above him, which hamstrings what he can do. But that's not changing as much as we want to anytime soon. But as others have mentioned, this stinks of Sousa coming in and trying to imprint a style on players who either don't have the capability or don't care enough to do it. Wants to play a high press but that's started by Ayew who for all he is bashed a touch unfairly isn't that sort of player. Has a collection of midfielders who are incapable of have no desire to do what is asked. And a back 4 too slow and weak to go and press 1 v 1 against their front players, defeating the entire purpose of the system he wants. Decent managers at this level win playing a multitude of ways, take Pearson first spell it was very direct up to big Howard and play off that, whilst being solid at the back. When he came back and had better players played a more free flowing brand of football. Over the last few years at this club so fed up of managers being wedded to a style and system despite not having the players to do it. Either the board back him in the last 2 weeks which seems unlikely or he has to adapt to what we have. For all his many faults.Cooper in recent years has been best at this, be crap for 75 minutes then have some chaos ball for 15 where we stole the odd result.

Vestergaard is a cut above in the Championship in terms of ball playing centre backs there probably aren't many better in the league, and he reads the game pretty well to step in and make interceptions. We all know his weaknesses, he is slow on the turn and for his size not as good or as strong as he should be in the air. No point in worrying about what might happen if we go up til we get there, if you look at our squad there are only probably 3 players good enough for the Premier League as it stands, so just pick the team that's most likely to get you up. I would assume Faes is angling for a move and been plenty of talk of Okoli moving on too, so naturally Nelson would slot in there. Think the whole argument that Vestergaard is a bad egg is largely nonsense, he was disgruntled because Rodgers bought him, hardly played him, and when he did set him up to fail with a high line. RVN clearly had a massive ego and wanted to seem the tough guy, but got no respect from many of the senior players last year. The fact he got the armband when Justin went off over someone like Thomas or Winks suggests he is part of the leadership group, so obviously Marti and the rest of the squad seem to respect him.

Must be utter dog muck to be the worst player in a trio of Faes, Vestergaard & Okoli. Reminds me a lot of Amartey without the ability to be able to actually defend a bit. Any offer get this clown off the books and write it off as another expensive failure.

Didn't Craig Hignett score an equaliser against Arsenal once as part of Mickey Adams OAP army?

Underwhelming but I guess it shows where we are as a club, no choice but to give him a go and see. For those so positive on him, had we appointed Alex Neil, John Eustace or Gary Rowett who had all done similar jobs at similar size clubs to QPR last year, would you be so excited or is it because he isn't British and managed abroad that he gets extra kudos for that?

Think a big issue here is that whoever the dice eventually falls on to get the job, they know they weren't in any way the 1st choice for the job. By all accounts, Martin, Dyche & Rohl were clearly the favoured candidates, and the combination of them going elsewhere, turning us down or being too awkward to get out their current club being stumbling blocks. Firstly it doesn't say much about their character & self worth if they're happy to be 4th, 5th or 6th choice, and secondly I don't think it would give me the impression that they would have particular clout in the boardroom regarding transfers, contracts etc if they were so low down the pecking order of candidates. Now it could be that all the other names were smoke and mirrors and whoever we end up with was the guy we wanted all along, but given how long the process has dragged and how many people have been interviewed/been at Seagrave I very much doubt that. At this point we just need someone in so they can start their work both with the players here, and transfer dealings in and out given the season starts in 4 and half weeks. When Enzo came in which was 3 weeks earlier, if I recall although we won our 1st 4 games, but we got hammered by Cov but nicking it, and scraped by Huddersfield, Cardiff and Rotherham in unconvincing manner before being outplayed and beaten by Hull. It was only after the 1st International break when we stuffed Southampton that we looked like the 'Enzo' way had been mastered.

Rugby is played 90% by privately educated posh toffs, where as football is largely a working class sport. Can you imagine Jamie Vardy calling a ref 'sir.' Refs at the top of the football game get paid enough to be called a naughty word every now and again.

You're giving this mob too much credit, remember it took us about 2 weeks to sort Dean Smith out for an 8 game caretaker stint, in the middle of a relegation battle, and left 2 wallies to caretaker the 2 biggest and most winnable home games of the season. Wouldn't surprise me if Top and his stooges dilly and dally for another week or 2, whilst every other team is planning got next season, setting out recruitment strategy etc, before making a decision either way.

This will end like Sousa & Cooper appointments, being so wedded to 1 system unless your Pep or Klopp and have the elite of the elite only ends one way. Take whatever points deduction is chucked at us as this moron isn't the man to take us where we need to be in the long term.

I was, was loud from pockets in the Kop and L1, but should have been an absolute bloodbath of toxicness. Club cynically used Vardys last game to try their best to deflect the attention away from them. They probably were aware this ruling was coming as well but had it buried away until today.

Wish this had been announced prior to Sundays game, would have put a taint on all the happy clappy positive spin that the clubs cynical 'Vardy Party' and saved them from getting some serious abuse.

Loved how Nigel looked like a proud dad clapping him as he was doing his lap, assume Nige either wasn't fit enough to walk round or didn't want the limelight on himself, which would be a very Nige thing to do. Think they got it about right today, albeit did allow alot of scrutiny of the shambles of a season, lack of direction at boardroom level and lack of effort on the pitch to go unpunished.

I mean that's largely nonsense, he managed for almost a decade in the Prem, got relegated once with Burnley then immediately established them and got them into Europe, and it was only after they removed him they went down. He took over Lampards crap at Everton who were destined to go down and kept them up, dealt with points deductions and limited money and again kept their head above water. Moyes is a level above Dyche no doubt, but Dyche is absolutely the sort of appointment we should be looking at. He would rebuild the ethos of a club on its arse, and also unlike Enzo wouldn't bugger off as soon as any club bats their eyelids at him. His style of football is direct, not just hoofball, gets it forward quickly, gets it wide and gets crosses in, to me that's more entertaining than tippy tappy across the back 4. His style of pragmatism if he takes us up is much more likely to keep us in the division than the likes of Martin who would play the same way every week and get beat to not sacrifice his principles.

West Brom away great escape season will always be my #1 goal despite all his later achievements, none of them would have been possible without that goal.

Same people turning their nose up at Dyche are the same ones that did the same when Moyes was linked after Cooper (not that he necessarily wanted to come) He has achieved far more than some of the journeyman being touted about here, getting Burnley to Europe is given their budget was an outstanding achievement. Think people fall into a trap of judging a book by its cover when talking about his style. It isn't just hoof it, he likes to get the ball wide, get balls into the box. To me that is more exciting than having 65% possession amongst your centre halves and goalkeeper. Also I would say it's much more likely to keep you in the Premier League (as he did with Everton despite being completely hamstrung.) Pearson falls into the same category from an outsider, they see him as some sort of Brexit manager, but our football under him particularly in the year we went up was entertaining, and the back end of the great escape the same. He would have to be backed to bring his type of player in which to me would ne the biggest obstacle as can't see many of our pathetic mob being able to cut it.

For my eyes we certainly need someone with Championship experience, look at the top 3 Wilder, Parker and Farle all have multiple promotions on their CV. I think Enzo was very fortunate he had a squad who were far too good for the league and bought into his style of play. If you look at what we might be left next year compared to what we had 2 years ago. 1 recognised goalkeeper who has played less than 40 senior games of football. Of the defence they are either wanting out (Faes, Kristiansen, Okoli) injured to the point are now broken (Justin, Ricardo) 2 years older ( Vestergaard, Coady.) Midfield the same, Ndidi and Soumare will want out, Winks 2 years older and lost all desire now his beloved Enzo has gone, Skipp will probably be functional but no KDH by any means. Wide players Fatawu providing his ACL hasn't negated some of his raw ability will be a weapon, otherwise you're left with the OAP's of Ayew and Reid on either side. Up top we will have likely 1 recognised senior striker in Daka who was about 4th choice 2 years ago. It's going to either need someone to get a tune out of a completely demoralised mob, or look to move as many on as possible and rebuild, that's not a small job and certainly not a job for an inexperienced coach such as RVN. Ofcourse the problems are much higher up, but can anyone really see any movement in the board room to change the way we operate? In which case this managerial appointment is crucial, get it wrong and we're down there for a while if not worse. If Boro don't go up Carrick would be my choice if you can prize him away, equally Rohl would be a solid option if he hasnt already sorted his next move. We need a manager, not a head coach, someone who is going to reset the standards at the club, reign in the egos and command respect. Basically Pearson from 10 years ago.

Almost like not having a floppy haired moron who is constantly out of position is a burden lifted. Of a bad bunch he is our best centre half we know his weaknesses and yet we expose them rather than cover them. He was fine in Germany, kept Southampton up every year and does well for Denmark all at the top level.

Correct, if Steve Howard wasn't suspended for the 1st leg against Cardiff I'm convinced we would have won and turned over Palace at Wembley. King Power came in and actually took us 2 steps backwards, chucking money at Sousa and Sven which saw us nearer the bottom 3 than the top 2. It was only the Birch suggesting bringing back Nige which got us back on the path to success. He and his team deserve 90% of the plaudits of where we got to, any billionaire can chuck money at things, it takes someone with skill and knowhow to translate that into success. Look at Chelsea for a case in point under Boehly. Saying that, I still think something more nuanced than just 'King Power Out' is needed but that decision has seemingly already been taken. A light needs to be shone on everything at the club, owner, Rudkin & Whelan, Ticketing, Scouting, Manager, Players, Annoying bastard over the tannoy, dodgy gambling deals, safe standing fiasco, the list goes on. Putting all of that on 1 mans door (he is now the owner not KP) almost gives everything else a free pass.

I'd be more inclined to go with the 'Rotten from Top to bottom' as well. A clear dig at Top, but also includes everything below him including Rudkin, Susan, the morons who are in charge of ticketing decisions etc, as well as the manager and players who can't escape criticism as well. I think the majority in the ground (not saying they are correct) would give Top leeway if he proved in the summer there were actually lessons learnt from last relegation and he made significant changes in the structuring of the club. So going KP out would likely make it sound like a noisy minority.