Dan

Having a lot of possession doesn't necessarily mean you were boring, it more than likely means you had the superior players and the tactics employed by both managers were tailored to suit this. I think possession is for the most part a byproduct of who has the better players, rather than it being the primary aim. There are obviously freak examples - Martin and Maresca are both obsessed with it.

Burnley's defensive record is a total freak. They've conceded more chances than Leeds.

Martin got promoted last time out from a quite similar position and O'Neil kept Bournemouth up against the odds, and probably would've gotten Wolves over the line this year as well. I'm not saying I want either at all by the way. I'd not put it past our board and I'm a lot less confident than you of them making a good decision. I've thought a while it could be O'Neil.

I would probably agree and I think it would be too big a step up, a massive gamble, but I also think we're not far off hitting a point where we'll consider this a decent appointment either.

I do think our pull has gone down from two years ago when we last went down. Maresca was a novice and we did get quite lucky that he turned out to be good enough to get us up. We are repeatedly letting our managers down now and it's this sort of thing that would give even someone like Southampton, bad as they are, the upper hand over us. I don't see anyone with any real calibre taking this job. It'll be someone out of work and a bit desperate. We're not a good bet at this point. I think we actually do have pull for foreign managers where they would probably be less aware of what happens here who would see us a route to the Premier League. But then we pick from a limited pool anyway. It does point to Martin or O'Neil (ha)

I genuinely think it's my doing. I started sarcastically doing it once, on here, because he was getting the flack for everything. I actually liked and rated him! It's right at the top of my CV anyway.

We could do a lot worse than Rosenior. Strasbourg have picked up this season under him (though they have been given a bit of a helping hand with their recruitment) and Hull have imploded without him. Not as straight forward as that, but his record is steady without being spectacular. I'd be OK with him, I think.

You know what, in fairness, Woyo Coulibaly. Now he may be a dud, but he wouldn't be too hard to shift and he didn't cost much. If you start to utilise money properly, padding the squad without spending big money then you can spend more on the actual key positions. Say Leicester sign Ao Tanaka instead of Skipp, we've gotten arguably a better player, but importantly we can probably make a signing or two in January. What we ended up doing was waving a white flag.

It's complete pie in the sky because it will never happen with this lot, but I'd go for a nuclear overhaul. I really do think clubs are capable of doing this but ours absolutely aren't - they're generally just bad at physically getting things done. Within reason you probably have to keep a few of them but I'd allow anyone who wanted to to go (and I would generally implement this within reason). I'd happily have about 15-20 out, about 10-13 in and promoted a few youth players to the squad. They don't have to come in and start every week. Alves being a bit part player is absolutely no issue for me. If he becomes more key then great. Maresca had no qualms about throwing in McAteer and Wanya Marcal early doors, which impressed me. There's a bit of an expectation with these academy players that they have to become your talisman or star player. If Alves and Braybrooke became our 19th and 20th best players next season, that's absolutely fine. It beats what we usually do - pay millions to achieve this. I'm not entirely against signing older players but it's a bit of a luxury and we don't really have that in our financial situation. Lay the foundations, buy generally younger players, almost irrelevant where they're from but make sure they're decent value for money, low risk and high upside. Similar to what Sunderland have done. Look to the lower leagues of England. Look to Scotland, France, Belgium etc... anywhere basically. There is value out there. More than anything - adopt a policy at this club and stick to it for a number of years. This policy is to assess what a player is likely to offer in terms of squad contribution and don't pay a fee that goes over what you expect of them. Skipp for example at the price we paid should be virtually our best player. We'd have been no worse buying someone from Slovenia for about £2mil for what he's ended up contributing. Get picky about squad value and do this until we're really able to afford these luxuries. In short - do the total opposite to this season in every way.

Worth pointing out that relegation makes the Ayew & Decordova-Reid signings totally pointless, and frankly damaging. Literally only justification for those two especially can be if we achieve anything in the short term and we've abjectly failed. Van Nistelrooy has gotten the balance entirely wrong. He's managed to nerf our poor attacking to a point we overplay and now never score, while not improving the defence one bit.

DM me if you want.

It is genuinely staggering how much of a mess they've made of this season. As bad as some of the previous ones were, you can sort of see how they happened. Series of bad events. This one they've had every warning they could possibly want. They've already had the relegation kick up the arse, they've already had the PSR debacle and only got away with it through a technicality. My problem is it seems that bouncing back up, and the docked points avoidance are probably treated within the club as vindication for what they do. They are that pig ignorant of everything going on around them. They will not realise the mess we are headed for until we're there. Not a perceptive bone in any of their bodies. To actually serve up a season of two terrible appointments, numerous terrible value for money signings after being given the biggest warning and get out of jail free card there is tells me everything about them. We are doomed until they go. How bad truly can this get? I'd say it's almost certain now that Aiyawatt leaves the club below where they found us. Given the jolts we've had in that period, that is a truly astonishing fumble. One of the worst ever.

Worst case scenario is a slight uptick which just means instead of being relegated at Wolves or against Liverpool, we're relegated at Forest. We're already down. It would be the miracle of all miracles if a team this bad survived from here. We just need this out the way now as quickly and as painlessly as possible.

Saturday 3pm as well. Away support in general has absolutely boomed in the last decade. We would frequently only take 1,500 or so to games in the West Midlands. Unthinkable nowadays.

Stranger things have happened. Notice how terribly Rob Edwards did at Luton this season - they were getting praised despite totally tumbling in the second half of last season and this has spiralled to a point they're in serious danger of back to back relegations. I don't think it will quite get to that point, but you really can't entirely rule it out under Aiyawatt. Decline is all he knows. I can never forgive Aiyawatt and the fact basic pride has been ripped away from this club. The absolute shame of 2022/23 and the piss taking we tolerated from the manager has set the standard. It's now hit a point where a manager can survive losing 13 games out of 14. Absolutely unforgivable for me.

My gripe personally is he doesn't score enough. I'm not pinning this situation on him but he didn't score many at all in Belgium either for a quite attacking player and I don't think it's a coincidence that he hasn't solved the issue at all. Think he's more creative than Buonanotte but he isn't as good a goalscorer. It's a total farce that Van Nistelrooy doesn't play them both. We can't defend anyway. We can't attack anyway. Lets at least make it a little less predictable and have them both on the pitch.

You can virtually guarantee it will be the latter.

I can see it somehow getting worse. Some proper shellackings coming. Reckon there's at least one 6+ loss.

Hull away in December 2007, year we got relegated and they got promoted. We lost 2-0 in December. It was absolutely baltic. Truly awful, got to be about the worst away I've ever done.

No honestly they should put this on TV. It could be comical. In all seriousness I'd agree - there is about a 1% chance this moves for TV. I think it's safe to book.

is that Soumare's plane?

Portugal going to piss another tournament away indulging Ronaldo.

I voted on the fence and then remembered this - that tilts me probably to a yes. Though this reason alone is why it wouldn't happen. I didn't understand some of his anecdotes about them when we appointed Van Nistelrooy. To be honest it wasn't enjoyable was it. We could've been a lot more fun. Slow football just doesn't do it for me. I've tried.

I've seen that email tonight with the new proposed message - I'd not be against that either. It needs to be pretty on the nose. This has a pop at both Aiyawatt and Rudkin - which is good with me.

That's everyone else's problem. We owe nothing to the rest of the game. I really think Aiyawatt is quite weak though and takes the opposite view.