deep blue

Good and interesting post, but I find your view that the LibDems ever had economic policies that were anywhere near to Thatcher's rather weird.

Interesting. What area of Manchester are you? I'm with the LibDems in Stockport where we did a good job of holding off the Reform challenge in the recent local elections.

We probably came close to having that in the Champ last year. Look where that got us. We don't have a bigger wage bill because we have better quality players ... it's precisely the poor recruitment that has hamstrung us with an overpaid, lazy and uncommmitted squad. What makes you think any of that is going to change in div1?

I suppose he wouldn't have signed without that.

That should be the case, but that presupposes that the board have an ounce of football and financial nous, and use their position to consider all the stats available before making a decision. With KP we know that isn't the case and, sadly, many of the supporters have more relevant knowledge and acumen that those responsible for making the key decisions. Here's just one example ... the decision makers have shown over the last few seasons that they think it a better strategy to pay peanuts for managers and then spend a fortune on garbage players rather than believing that getting the best manager in is the most important starting-off point.

You can stop right there.

Him or Farage ... it's a hard call to make.

Will they be able to afford to do that?

I'm intrigued with this statement as I see no justification at all for making that assumption. There will be a limited number of players left from last season, most of whom were well below par last season. The rest will be made up of players from our development teams (however promising they may be it's expecting a lot that they will immediately be able to slot into div 1 action) and new signings/loanees (our record on those over the last couple of seasons has been abysmal). So what do you base your assumption on?

Just like to add my thanks to the Trust team. You've given an awful lot of your personal time to this over the last few months. Your work appears to have been very professional and thorough in your approach. It raises hopes of being effective, too, and I hope you manage to keep on pushing at the club to get better communication from "those that count" to the fans. Thanks again.

A travesty he never played for England. Even though he was competing with several good midfielders for a place I would put him as arguably th most complete midfielder in the English league in his prime.

I don't think it's a two tier approach either, nor do I think you can be too harsh on the police as it was a very confusing situation with so many conflicting allegations being spouted. But the one thing I do find inexplicable, and indefensible, is why the police felt the need to handcuff someone who was on the ground and showing no indication of being a threat.

This the most concise (at the same time accurate and damning) description of possession football I have seen.

I think it's Davie Gibson, Ian King (or Tony Knapp), Gordon Banks and Frank McLintock.

A few here are taking that view, but nobody has pointed out that he didn't have to accept that responsibility and would have shown better judgement (and more concern for the good of the club) if he'd said "no".

It would be more progressive on your part if you actually gave your critique of the key points he made rather than just a throwaway dismissive comment which is meaningless.

Is your real name "Top"?

Why don't you look up Challinor's managerial history first ... to see how wrong you are.

But we're not a top tier football club any more!

If it's a consortium then maybe the other members of it have the nous to be able to continue it successfully.

Stockport's owner is a good example of this, but you're talking lower levels of investment ... but that's maybe the level we're at now.

I disagree and I think Finnegan's take is spot on, It's true that Rodgers gave us some fantastic football for a couple of years but with the squad that Puel had built I think we were poised for that level of performance with any less cautious manager in respect of on-field style, and I'm sure there were quite a few managers who could have done as well ... without ruining the club strategy in the process. As for not supporting Rodgers in the later years, our dismal failure to achieve Euro champs league qualification for 2 successive years probably made extra funding out of the question.

I've been similarly waiting for Restore to get their act together and split the mad populist vote, but they seem to have gone very quiet. Do you have any idea whether they're in a state that enables them to make a significant challenge in elections?

That's a misleading take on the situation. Through pure football ignorance they put Pearson into a position where he had to leave because they wanted to appoint a football celebrity. Said celebrity failed spectacularly and had to be sacked very quickly (danger of relegation). They then appointed another celebrity, Sven, who spent loads but didn't progress the squad. According to many people on here, they were strongly advised by Birchy and others within the club to reappoint Pearson. So KP had no connection with the initial appointment of Pearson, foolishly got rid of him, and only reappointed because they were prepared to take the advice of "people who knew" within the club.

Your last sentence is nonsense. It's because he's played for us in the past that we have good insight into his character and can be fairly sure that he has the strength to be his own man that our recent managers have all lacked (Enzo excepted), and we need that almost more than anything else in our next manager.