murphy

Very unfair to call Ruud second worst. He deserves the undisputed worst ever, hands down. He's earned it.

Martin might see it as the ideal time to take over then and restore a languishing juggernaut to former glory and with it his reputation.

Imagine the old firm smarmfest. Rodgers V Martin. The snake oil derby.

Just to play devil's advocate here, Rodgers' 'silver medallist' approach to transfers was the idea that we could take players that were a tier above those that a club like ours might otherwise be able to attract. Attainable because they had failed elsewhere. It does happen. Players fail at one club but thrive elsewhere. That said, it didn't work for us and it's testament to the ocean-going ego of Brendan Rodgers that he believed he could succeed where other managers had failed. We also had a very successful transfer strategy pre Rodgers/Congerton that we should have continued with.

Yes, I had to stop buying them for that reason. They don't last 5 minutes in our house. King of biscuits? May well be, but allow a shout out for the humble bourbon. If you open the packet, allow them to go stale, you basically get an upgrade to cake. Delicious.

I was working (sort of) up in Merseyside and got chance to work in the Midlands for better pay. Anyway, I kind of lied on my CV making out that I was more capable than I actually was, but what's the harm? I thought, no one will ever find out. Trouble is, they did find out. My superior left for a job in France and I got promoted into his role. I looked the part, wore the whole uniform and everything, but it was carnage. It was obvious that Ihad taken to the role like a fridge to water skiing, but the pay was so good I just had to brazen it out. I think I just about got away with it. But that's the last time I pretend to be a goalkeeper.

Ricardo? Yes. Big oversight on my part. Evans? Yes. Justin? Hmmm...that's a matter of opinion. Fofana? No. Very good player. A signing that worked out terribly for us. Castagne? Average. We should have done better when Chilwell left given our standing and the length of time we had to plan. Mavididi? Ok. Inconsistent. Good Championship player. Soyuncu? Master of the meltdown. Another that downed tools and left on a free. Obviously I'm not privy to the inner dealings the squad but when he was criticised for play acting injury on motd, in the lead up to a goal conceded v Spurs he was rightly dropped. We barely saw him again under Rodgers. I think that it is reasonable to assume that he reacted very badly to that instead of swallowing his medicine. We needed him in our relegation season and he was sulking. Not for me. Don't care how massive it is.

Yeah, but I'm ace on the piano!

If we win this, we can start a teams that cannot catch us thread

Bet they're not so excited at the moment

It doesn't matter who we play. To paraphrase a certain coiffured orange ape, we have no cards.

I think they will beat us because we are that bad but we won't finish bottom. I can't see Southampton getting a further 4 points from their last 3 games.

We won the title with gems signed under Pearson - Morgan, Schmeichel, Vardy, Albrighton, Mahrez, Huth and with the addition of Fuchs and Kante of course. The likes of Schmeichel, Vardy and Morgan became the spine of the team for years to come. We were also helped by the emergence of academy graduates, Barnes, KDH and Chilwell. The old guard plus academy players has been the basis of our success. Good signings, post title, I can list on one hand - Tielemans, Maddison, Maguire, Hermansen, Ndidi .... struggling after that. Fatawu maybe.

Regardless of who is worse between two awful managers and I think that Ruud takes it, we have to be aware that at the time of Cooper's sacking we were ahead of wolves and palace who now sit on 41 and 45 points respectively. The first club outside of the bottom 3 have double our point tally on 36. Neither of our two managers gets anywhere close to survival.

I didn't realise centre backs were allowed to score goals

You can when our other centre backs are Vestergaard, Faes, Coady and Okoli.

Can't believe I missed out Faes! If ever there was a player emblematic of our decline...

I'm not giving Rodgers credit for Tielemans, so let's look at the other three. Castagne? Ho hum at best. Inadequate Chilwell replacement and part of our relegation team. Justin? Terrible. Fofana? Actually a terrible signing in hindsight. Left us in the lurch twice. Once through no fault of his own which led to us buying Vestergaard as a replacement and then downed tools the following year to join Chelsea leading to us buying out Faes. When you take off St etiennes sell on fee, we made no money on him after wasting £30m on those aforementioned clowns. I'm not blaming our terrible recruitment on Fofana, I'm just saying that it didn't work out very well for us regardless of how good a player he was himself.

Ward, zieler, Bertrand, Vestergaard, hernandez, inler, Amartey, perez, soumare, Silva, iborra, daka, slimani, Musa, skipp, Ayew, Reid, diabate, kristiansen, Bennett, tete, souttar, Ghezzal and ward again. Have I forgotten anyone?

Danny Ward by a mile. Industrial sabotage that and will cost us a decade. The Bertrand and Vestergaard signing because you Could see it coming a mile off. What? Were signing half of the second worst defence in the league from perennial strugglers Southampton when we are chasing champions league qualification? The defence we put nine past? Right-o. What could possibly go wrong?

It absolutely has to be Alex Smithies. Despite the fact that he is no longer at the club, he is the best option for a protest vote. Vote Smithies!

Mass Hairmansen would be a more suitable name for Wout Faes. In fact I can think of several more suitable names for Wout Faes.

Now that really would be comedic. Perhaps with 'the entertainer' dubbed over it. The Les Dawson version. If I had to guess I would say that 2/3 cock ups were Justin related and 2/3 Faes related. Maths was never my strong suit.

Losing every week obviously has a demoralising effect on the players. Twelve games in, the players were not yet mentally defeated. There was still hope, if misguided. The cumulative effect of defeat after defeat creates a negative momentum and the players have become crushed and have checked out, hence we have a team unfit for purpose and weaker than the sum of its parts. This would have happened under Cooper too, I'm sure, but it takes time and is part of the reason that we have become worse under RVN. I can't accept that this squad, man for man, is as bad as we have shown. With the right mindset and organisation we should at least be more competitive. The other problem is that the squad is unbalanced with a lack of creativity and attacking intent. Our recruitment has not addressed that and that is largely on Cooper. He got his players in and failed to strengthen the team.

And they sign Danny Ward to play in goal.