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But we don't know what he does

No real idea how good an appointment this is but if he has a plan to get results that extends beyond trying to keep it tight and hoping for the best then he is an immediate upgrade

Yeah I liked him, one of the many weird and wonderful loanees of the Sven era. Like you I wouldn't have guessed he got that many caps or that he played at a Euros. Had a good old stint in the Premier League as well, I didn't realise he spent so long/played so many games at Palace

Van Aanholt

No, hence why that too was a risky appointment. Some risks pay off and some don't.

Is it not more likely that rather than saying to the players "whoever the new manager is will be someone for whom we don't have to pay compensation", which I agree would be quite an odd thing to do, Top simply told them who the new manager is going to be and Percy either doesn't know or has been instructed by his source/the club/whoever is briefing him not to say who it is?

Can you shed any light on how close Martin O'Neill was to getting the job this time?

Ten Hag signing his contract as we speak

For some reason I can't really explain I feel like RVN would either be a huge success or total failure, nothing in between. Either we stroll to a top half finish and he leaves for a Champions League club in the summer or he fails to win a single game and gets sacked. My similarly unfounded suspicion about Corberan is that he would be right in the middle, solid but unspectacular. Neither would blow me away exactly but needless to say I would be more optimistic about the rest of the season with either of them than with Cooper.

We're also not likely to get a manager who was actually any good during that previous experience because if they were, they're likely either holding out for or already occupying a decent job. It's a bit like how unless you've got loads of money and pulling power, going shopping for Premier League proven players tends to be very expensive and provides very little value in return. Our preoccupation with experience seems to mean that rather than gamble on a relatively unknown quantity who might excel at this level but also might be crap, we'd sooner go for someone who has proven themselves to be the latter.

Depends on what your definition of an achievement is. For me, getting a really poor Huddersfield to touching distance of the Premier League only to be halted by Jon Moss is an achievement, as is getting West Brom to the playoffs despite financial turmoil and a squad that saw basically no investment

He can only use the players he has at his disposal though and West Brom have neither an abundance of talent nor the ability to buy it. I don't think he's come in, dismantled a really exciting creative team and then demanded they spend tens of millions on buying cloggers, that's just what they have.

Big ask for him to juggle his morning radio show with managing us I reckon

The points about him setting up defensively regardless of opposition is my main concern with Moyes and why I find it a bit odd seeing so many people refer to him as pragmatic, which I understand is everyone's new favourite word even if they don't really understand what it means. Apparently playing the same style every week is really bad unless that style involves getting everyone behind the ball and launching it when you get it, in which case it's pragmatism.

Overachieving compared to the estimated market value of our squad maybe - I believe total wage bill tends to be a better indicator of performance and the figures for that I can find put us at 13th-15th. Estimates sure, maybe not even semi-accurate ones, but at least a player does actually have a wage rather than a theoretical market value. I'm not sure what it is you're actually upset about and the idea that Top has appointed Steve Cooper to get us playing like Man City then sacked him for failing to do so is completely mental so I think I will leave you to it.

Right but that says they think we could be higher up the table had we managed to beat either Everton or Ipswich and not been playing so badly in basically every game. It is very clear to me and I would imagine most other people that league position is not the primary factor in his dismissal but if you believe otherwise then fair enough.

I can't say I've seen that anywhere. John Percy reckons survival is our sole focus and Cooper was told as much when he joined but I would be interested to read anything of substance to the contrary.

Realistically, he's not been sacked because the board or supporters think we should be higher up the table, has he? The aim is to stay up and I have no doubt whatsoever that Top and co. would snap your hand off for 16th at the end of the season if offered it, as would I. He's been sacked because the performances have given little reason to believe we're likely to finish that high and both the fans and more importantly the players have been left totally unconvinced by his methods and tactics.

Guess he maybe means in terms of our willingness to look abroad or at anyone without prior experience in the league, which I'd agree with. We're perfectly happy to pick up unproven players from relatively weaker leagues but when was the last time we seemed even vaguely likely to appoint a manager who hadn't already coached in this country? It is an inherently risky thing to do obviously but equally it's not as though someone like Cooper or Smith is a surefire success because they've demonstrated they can be at best mediocre here. People are regularly underwhelmed with the names we're linked with and our unrequited infatuation with Potter, understandably so, but that's partly because we make the pool of potential candidates a lot smaller than it needs to be.

Christmas party in Copenhagen is a regular thing isn't it, am I right in thinking that's where they were in 2015 when we saw the pictures of them all in fancy dress? Doesn't look great after a defeat obviously but if they had waited for us to win a game they might have been waiting a long while and if it helped to lift spirits then good for them.

Is setting up to defend all game every game regardless of opposition when you've got some of the most talented and exciting attacking players outside of the elite clubs at your disposal - Paqueta, Kudus, Bowen etc. - especially pragmatic?

Definitely. You could argue there was a disconnect between Maresca and a pretty sizeable chunk of the fanbase but crucially the players were largely behind him and believed in what we were doing. I dread to think what it must have been like going from that to working under Cooper.

Yeah so they could have spent a week working with the other half and then the following week getting the squad ready for Chelsea couldn't they? That would probably have been quite nice

Full credit to you for getting this over the line mate

I am staggered, thought he'd be here a good few weeks yet. Not sure why we'd wait until after the international break but better late than never. Could tell from him lashing out at the officials again that he was well out of ideas and if Vardy's reaction when he came off was representative of the how the squad were feeling then that probably pushed him over the edge. For all that he is obviously a bit crap and his whining about referees made him look like a bell, I struggle to muster any real negative feeling towards him. We decided to give the job to someone who isn't very good and surprise, he wasn't very good at it. It was like having Dean Smith back.