Ric Flair

He is a good player, Sunderland have built a very young and dynamic squad and I think they'll continue to knock on the door for promotion, not sure if it'll happen this season but they'll get up eventually.

Yeah wouldn't surprise me

Still never truly forgiven him for selling Max Gradel for £200k.

They know what their doing up there after years of being ran by utter prats. Their recruitment has been very clever, they might not quite make top 2 this season but they'll go close.

Nailed it

Yeah the final handful of games they moved him centrally. He was barely used at Forest Green from what I recall and when he was he was as a wing back.

The reason I hope he has a horrible day is, I know what sort of man he is. He doesn't care one iota about whether others hope he has a good day or not. He also won't care if I hope he has a bad day, you know what you're gonna get with Nigel. He doesn't waste energy or emotion on sentiment. Some of our fanbase thinking we need to show him an outpouring of love and appreciation or make it easier for them to play us, he'd sneer at. He doesn't really care and come Saturday between 3-5pm, I hope he hates it by us thraping them. I'd back the man to dust himself down and enjoy a nomadic walk on Sunday and a couple of pints. He's his own man, he doesn't need us.

This is what's impressed me most. Maresca is creating a system that looks to exploit teams in certain areas but you need a nucleus of players who look after the ball too and he plays a massive part in that.

I feel this is why he didn't excel at Forest Green or AFC Wimbledon. Both played him mostly as a left wing back or right wing back I think. He can do a job there but in this system he's just hit the ground running. He always scored and assisted a lot for the U18s either on the wing or attacking midfield.

Ben Petty masterclass

I'd like to think I sit somewhere between viewing Pearson with a god complex and therefore being incapable of processing any opinion that doesn't worship his every move, and getting frustrated with the former and wanting to be able to discuss Pearson without fawning over him. It's emotive and I understand that, break down what he did here and its beggars belief. For some though, the return of him on Saturday would be like going to watch The Chippendales for a bunch of drunken slosh buckets. I'm glad I can't go, we moaned all last year that we're too nice and not ruthless enough but I guarantee the atmosphere and attitude from a chunk of us on Saturday will be more interested in making sure Pearson and Kingy know we love them, than making it an unpleasant place for Bristol City to deal with on the pitch. Will be forever grateful for what he managed to build here, its was a once in a lifetime achievement for us all and the best thing about it, that isn't talked enough about is the trust and faith he put in to recruitment, sports science, analysts etc. He built an amazing team of staff but wasn't egotistical to have to have the final say over their expert opinions. Lots of them have gone on to prove to be hugely talented in their fields and he built a lot of this in the Championship. The discovery of Paul Balsom was unbelievable. He learnt a lot of this from his time with Sam Allardyce I'm led to believe. Anyway, this topic will always create plenty of back and forth. I personally hope we absolutely thrape them on Saturday but that won't make Nigel think any different to how pur club and fans view him and his time here.

I hope we batter them and he has a horrible day.

I'm afraid I can't agree with you on that. We left ourselves with no ability to sign players because we'd maxed out wages and then were asking unreasonable fees for those we wanted to move on. I've always felt that rewarding successful players with large contracts needs to be incentive based and achievement based, likewise new signings quickly increase their salary if they succeed, rather than get £80-90k a week straight off the bat. Hopefully we learn that if we get back up.

Rudkin deserves credit for any players signed for reasonable transfer fees and hopefully sensible wages. He gets neither criticism nor praise for thr players themselves, unless he pulled off a masterstroke convincing the club or player to join.

Yeah there's a nucleus of solid PL players but we'd need 6-8 additions minimum but some clubs come up and need double that or more.

James was very good in the Championship and crap in the PL. He'd been better than Drinkwater in the PL in 2014/15 but that's not a compliment. Drinkwater, obviously had the season of his life the following year. In fact didn't Drinkwater get nominated as the 2nd or 3rd best Championship player in 2013/14?

Right now it looks like we've aced the transfer window but we need to remember the level we're at. Also, this perceived success might reduce if we go back up. We had to win 7 of the last 9 games in 2014/15 to stay up, despite housing several players good enough to lead us to the biggest sporting achievement in history the year after. Look at Burnley, the likes of Manuel Benson were phenomenal at Championship level last year and looked a bargain at £3m or whatever they paid, if he flops this year though that may soon be forgotten. We'll need a huge overhaul next summer too if we go up, it's very difficult to build quickly and get a high level of hits in the PL but you have to to survive.

Mads Ricardo Faes Vestergaard Doyle Ndidi Winks KDH Fatawu Vardy Mavididi

He's moved on to bigger and better things than us I'm afraid.

He is already ensconced in my heart.

Surprised this hasn't had any posts in tonight. He was up there as MOTM tonight I reckon. Defensively he was everywhere. There's so many good performances tonight but on the back of some honkers, he was class.

Incredible that he should be on 5 goals as that free header a few mins before he got his goal was on a plate. I'm made up for the lad, his work rate is such an asset to this team and with decent pace and seemingly a natural ability to get in positions to score, he's the find of the season so far.

Seriously impressed with him. His distribution is obviously rare but that isn't to make up for not being a good shot stopper, he's very good at that too. Excited to see how good he is going to be. There will be huge interest in him.

I thought he did well, got much more involved in the final 20 of the 1st half. I liked him and McAteer's link up play.

The contrast between how direct he looked away at Rotherham and tonight was stark. He looked very slow and clumsy. He's better than that, I trust Maresca to get him primed. Him being on pre season with those clowns instead of joining us in early July at play here too.