The_Rorab

No, I don't necessarily disagree with you really, just trying to explain why I think a fair few people do feel inclined to thank him.

I'm just desperate after Rodgers to have a manager that feels like he wants to be here, a manager that is willing to work with the development side, and honestly the most important part for me at least and why I much prefer Maresca to the likes of Parker et al, a manager that makes it feel like the club is trying to pull in a new direction and give a chance to change things - with some sort of actual plan behind it.

I think mainly for not being Brendan Rodgers and not being an absolute bellend - which really shows how far Rodgers pushed us as fans that that is something to be lauded - but it weirdly feels like it is after so long of feeling constantly derided and alienated by our manager!

True, but all I can think about is the disparity between for example the general perspective on Rodgers and all the previous clubs' fans who know exactly how his tenures will go. It just feels a mistake to me to not listen to fans of clubs who have had him before and it feels stark that despite 2 promotions, neither fanbase rate him at all.

I think the other issue I have with Parker is just generally the behind the scenes aspect. I think we need wholesale change behind the scenes, and Parker is a manager that I feel will absolutely not destabilise anything and will allow us to continue without pushing for any meaningful change in the way other managers might. Which honestly might be why we'd be signing him over others. I just get the feeling that they see Parker as a way to keep everything the same and plug fingers in ears for another season and just hope the magic formula is found to get us back up but if not we'll just get rid and go again. Maybe that's me being overly pessimistic, and I desperately hope whatever we do works, but to spend nearly 2 weeks and come out with Parker would be a bit gutting to me.

One of my biggest issues with Parker is that basically none of the Bournemouth or Fulham fans think he's any good and that despite being promoted with both. I often think fan reaction is a good barometer, and that doesn't bode well to me. I think for me we'd be gambling on Parker to get us straight back up because he's done that before but I'm unconvinced he has anything about him in terms of actually reintroducing a club ethos and long term structure in the case we don't go straight back up - though he probably won't be here in that circumstance I guess. I'm thoroughly whelmed if this is where we go from here. As with all managers if they come in I'll support them, but I'd honestly prefer keeping Smith even to Parker.

To be fair my remark was a bit pithy - I don't actually think Daka is rubbish, I think every player played below their capabilities because of Rodgers and then the continuation of our absolute dumpster fire of a club towards the end of the season - but I think it's clear that Nacho had a better season than Daka - so I'm not surprised people might have that take. I'd edge Nacho over Daka certainly going forward, but I think Nacho is likely to leave anyway so I think it's irrelevant. Daka's underlying stats might look better on those two metrics, but honestly I don't think you can in any way say that Daka performed better last season. I mean for example your first stat may show that Nacho underperforms his xG, but he had a whole 2 higher xG according to Understat than Daka managed - so despite less playing time he had far better chances to score and the shot conversion rate you've quoted is marginal between the two. Understat also says Nacho only underperformed his xG by 1.13 and that Daka did marginally by 0.06 so I assume your data is from elsewhere that may or may not be more or less reliable. I think at the end of the day Nacho has proven far more at our club than Daka, but I'm not in the process of writing players off so hopefully Daka can come good for us.

If I had to guess probably the bit where his minutes per goal is vastly superior and where he scored more goals and had more assists and was our player of the season?

To be honest with the current faith I have in the board, I expect there will be no concrete news for about a month, with various rumours not coming to fruition before announcing Dean Smith is permanent manager on like a 5 year deal and then flash forward to us 17th by Christmas. I desperately hope not, but that's just the confidence I have at this point.

I can't wait to yet again for about the 8th time this season to be inevitably disappointed by the team on Monday after we've yet again been granted some semblance of a lifeline by teams around us being rubbish. It'd be just us if Leeds lose, and then we get battered 5-0.

I definitely don't begrudge the lad if he moves here, but I do feel like this is endemic of the kind of move that we always make - a 20yr old from the 7th tier. Again, he could come good, I don't want to imply I'm writing him off and it's only a trial, but we always seem to just take the cast-offs from other academies and older players from non-league in our academy - then do nothing with them until we release them at 24 - there's hardly ever signings from other good academies or hot prospects unless they've been released or anything like that. We always just seem to scrimp and save when it comes to the academy - not necessarily the worst thing to do, but I would love to see us just be a bit more ambitious with all aspects of the academy.

I cannot fathom people slating Nacho this season in any capacity, regardless of his shortcomings. He is the player he is, but there's surely no doubt that he's head and shoulders above our other striking options on form, and seems to be the only one that can actually change a game on his own out of the 3 - which is no disrespect to Vardy, but I haven't seen it from him once this season. But yeah, absolute madness people still not rating him imo.

I'm pretty sure our decision making for quite some time has simply just plug fingers in ears and hope. Sacking Rodgers this late with no plan for what to do is just the last in a string of nonsense we've pulled. First was the blind hope we'd be fine spending no money this summer, then the blind hope Rodgers would somehow keep us up after we were abysmal repeatedly and obviously, and then I'm confident Plan A after the sacking was blind hope Stowell and Sadler would keep us up. There's just absolutely no forward planning to be found here and it's why we are where we are.

I feel like you can make a statement regarding the competence of the board by simply observing the state of the club throughout basically all facets of it and how we've been mismanaged over the last few years if I'm quite honest.

Where's the option for we're doomed if we don't so we might as well take him if he's literally all we can get but please god let it just be done and let it not be a 3 year deal?

The thing with saying that having Iversen instead of Ward would only have been a marginal difference is understandable - we have had far more problems than just Ward; but in a season that looks like it'll be decided by potentially very fine margins, it only would have taken a few fine margins for us to be in a far healthier looking position.

If we win this game I think it'll be on the sheer strength of will and sense of losing the shackles rather than superior quality - which I think is the likely rationale behind Vardy starting.

I think we just have to hope the Mendy/Ndidi double pivot was only horrible because it was coached by Rodgers. I think the line-up is understandable from the perspective of trying to resolve our biggest weakness - conceding about 2 goals a game, and if it does so, then we might have a better chance of getting results from games, but it has to be with a plan when going forward - we can't just hope Vardy or Maddison bails us out with a moment of magic. The line between putting defending first and having a dedicated plan for an out ball and a method of getting forward versus just trying to shore up the defence by sticking more men back and hoping is one that I really hope has been considered - because if it's the latter I can see us losing and being under siege if there's no thought behind how we're getting forward. I'm cautiously hopeful, even if specific personnel haven't shone in certain areas under Rodgers, maybe a lack of Rodgers could help, but we'll see - I admit I'm more pessimistic about our chances than optimistic, but there's always hope with the unknown that definitely wasn't there for me under Rodgers in the past months.

I think we want CBs to be playing using their skillsets - the ideal is a CB who can play it out from the back, but for example when your CB is Dan Amartey and he has a 50/50 shot of passing it to the opposition when under pressure then it's less ideal.

He's had a loan at League 1 level where he only managed 3 apps and then one at League 2 level where he only made 10 and was cut short - he definitely doesn't seem anywhere near our level sadly.

I get it, and honestly the fact that you're still managing to stay positive is probably credit to you, I certainly can't on the basis of our games this season, so kudos on that! I'm personally just glad someone in the media is finally sticking the boot in in any degree. I think you're right that the tweet is negative, but I'm of the opinion that it doesn't matter if it helps or not, because we've been a dumpster fire without any public criticism so I just hope maybe either this galvanises players or at least fires a rocket up someone's arse. I don't think we can keep on with the same old same old week in week out before it ends up with us in the Championship - whether that's this season or the next, so anything that has even a slim chance of instigating change is a positive to me.

I don't mean to pile on or belabour the point but out of: - Mounting injuries - Loss of form - Defensive lapses - Wasted chances - Poor game management Mentioned in the tweet, what exactly does winning the xG battle contextualise? Which of those is incorrect by virtue of winning a game on xG?

The thing that gets is that if he survived the horrific run early in the season, why would we have any hope or expectation that he'd be sacked after this?

I should clarify that I don't really think Hamza is good enough for where we want to be, but I think the difference is simply that whilst it's true he wasn't good enough before, our standards have dropped interminably as well - so his level feels more akin to ours, especially when you have most of our midfielders dropping constant poor performances. Personally, regardless of whether he's having a good season for Watford, I just don't think he'd offer enough in possession to work the way Rodgers wants the midfield to play - and whilst he does love a tackle, unless he's worked on his positional discipline I don't think it'd solve our issues - though at least I'd feel like he gave a damn as opposed to Soumare!

If Nacho isn't Prem standard then we only have about 3 players who are.