Ex Lion Tamer

Leicester - Cifuentes did ok with QPR but it wasn't hard to improve on the performances under Ainsworth. He's not at the level Leicester should be looking for. Shef Utd - got rid of one of their best managers who had them overperforming. Selles pretty unremarkable track record. West Brom - Mason is unproven. Could be great, could be terrible. Coventry - ok I forgot Lampard got them to the playoffs last season. Still think he's living off his reputation as a player a bit and benefiting from the work Mark Robins did at the club. He had resources at Derby and should have done better I think. He's probably solid at this level but certainly nothing to fear. Middlesbrough - Rob Edwards was relegated twice with Luton and sacked by Watford.

Leicester, Sheff Utd, West Brom, Coventry and Middlesbrough have all made highly risky, if not outright foolish, managerial choices. It can only play in our favour.

I think MLG has put forward the most likely explanation here, to be honest. Any time Alfie House has a rumour that he's trying to clarify, he will go to the media team as his first point of contact. There's no real need to try to stand this one up with a more illicit source

Letting go of one of your most successful managers just because they lost in the playoffs is never going to end well. They've been wide open at the back in this game, no way are they contenders. This league does like anyone's based on the opening games. Much more so than recent seasons.

But people who work in clubs (not just ours) say having a player for this off the field stuff is important, so why shouldn't we take their word for it? We don't see it so it's hard to appreciate, but it is plausible that there are things a player can do that a coach can't. Demonstrating how to train professionally, and how a player should conduct themselves off the field, for example. Being a role model basically. That's something coaching staff can't do Also building relationships / helping with problems as more of an equal rather than as a coach who will inevitably be more distant.

And yet none of them are really prolific at this level. I think they may struggle to break our defence down, especially if we go three at the back

We'll clearly bring in some decent players towards the end of the window and you'll all be saying "oh actually this season might not be too bad, I'm actually kind of excited"

I have my doubts like everyone here but it's interesting that we're painting this as the club's decision when presumably Still is on board with it, or perhaps even the main driver of the decision? Also the club decided Baz wasn't good enough last season so they're obviously not totally wedded to him

It's probably even harder now to sign Prem-ready players when in the Championship. The gap has widened

If we look back at 2011/12 then none of our Prem-ready players were signed for big money at the start of the promotion season. They were all smart signings for reasonable fees or academy products who we spent at least a couple of years nurturing. It's something you have to build over time - hopefully we're doing that with our latest crop

You're trying to defend someone allegedly driving 125mph. Perhaps the tyre was more likely to puncture at that speed. It was certainly more likely to be fatal.

Do a Google search for HCDAJFU and you will get only Saintsweb threads and news stories about the FBI having it on their 83-page glossary of internet slang

It's €5m and Onuachu is easily worth more than that for his record in the Belgian and Turkish leagues

in fairness to the guy, he was only in that role because Joe Shields fucked off and left us in the shit

A welcome return from Guided Missile, who has been rather quiet lately!

Charlton fans wanted him out at Christmas but he's changed their tactics and turned it around. He's clearly always had something about him and can get teams massively over performing at that level. But he needs to be given time and the results along with his interview style were too poor for us

Fans complain about players not having loyalty anymore, but we pushed out two players with great attitudes who wanted to stay, Alcaraz and Tino

Worth saying that it took us more than one summer to acquire and develop those players. It has to be a long term project

He was agreeing with you. Stop looking for arguments

My memory is that it's normally one full back in the back three, not two. So Neville, Bertrand, Walker at various times alongside two centre backs

Appears to have been fit this season but only used on the bench

Not sure where you read this but I bet it's not the first or last meeting about transfers this winter

Not wanting to use a buzzword but we do need to minimise the scar tissue from this season and try to get some positive momentum going otherwise our recruitment/retention challenge in the summer will be all the harder. A couple of good value loans and promising signings for next season will be well worth it if they can help get a few performances under our belts and show we're starting to turn the ship around

Edozie is better at this IMO, though understand why he was let out on loan

I think more likely he goes to a mid level Prem team. Goalkeepers don't seem to have the mobility that outfield players do - I can remember Jaaskelainan getting rave reviews season after season but still staying at Bolton. And there are one or two questions about Ramsdale away from his shot stopping