Ex Lion Tamer

A year in the Championship might be good for him though

He was only a sub at Rennes. He may have potential but it was visible a mile off that he wasn't going to come in and improve our team

Also a reminder of why there are still plenty of points for us to pick up this season even against teams we wouldn't ordinarily back ourselves against. (although to be honest I still think we're getting relegated)

The counterpoint being that we wouldn't have put the club on as strong a footing long term. We might have stayed up which is obviously a good thing but after a season or two we would find ourselves with lots of ageing players who would need replacing for even more money, and less scope to make profit on the new players. Also we tried to sign a £40m striker and couldn't pull it off for whatever reason. Relegation is shit obviously and I wish it wasn't happening. But we do have a really strong pool of talent now that we can either sell for decent money or keep and use for a rebound

Clear thread across almost all of those signings are that they are promising players but not yet good enough to keep us up

If you have a list of candidates in order of preference with Selles in the middle, it makes sense to slow things down once you've crossed off everyone above him

My view: Hindsight tells us he should have gone but there was a reasonable argument that with financial backing he may have been able to turn things around. He had had really good spells in the past with much less backing This was a cock up, for sure. I think the plan was to get a striker but they chose ambitious targets and didn't have simple back up options This was a mistake, it's so hard to bring keepers through young. This position should be treated separately within the overall strategy Really hard to begrudge him the move when he wanted to leave. Players aren't just pawns that you do whatever you want with. What would morale in the rest of the team look like if we denied him his wishes? The problem was not replacing with enough depth I don't think enough recognition is given to how good his record was with Luton but the interview process clearly needs to be looked at It's difficult to bring in quality before the end of the window. Agents always want to spin things out and get the best offer I think its understandable to give him every chance before pulling the trigger. Wolves was clearly the point it became untenable

It would be negligent if we didn't

That doesn't help, of course!

You would think. I don't know much about his personality or leadership qualities though

JWP may wear the armband but there's absolutely nothing stopping other players from shouting/encouraging/organising. The real problem is a lack of senior quality at centre back / DM

He kept Leeds up last season when they looked on course for relegation. I'm not super excited by the appointment but that is the logic

That's one club. Meanwhile there's people on here who want to give Lampard and Gerrard a go after their failures

Bruce wouldn't actually be the worst shout, as long as it's just till the end of the season. He tends to get teams playing well at first before stagnating. Could do a Mark Hughes for us. Won't happen though

It's not that top players can't be great managers, but I've seen enough of Lampard and Gerrard to know that they are not going to make it at Prem level

Please God not Lampard or Gerrard. If they hadn't been top players then no one would be giving them a second thought

I don't disagree but that's what they'll be thinking

I reckon Jones has the Wolves game. Brentford away isn't the easiest fixture these days even if it was a dire performance. Lose at home to Wolves and the writing really is on the wall

This is my thought too. Remember when we stuck with Pellegrino because certain people were too proud to admit they were wrong

In fairness, Bree know how Jones wants him to play from Luton. Don't know why Bednarek has come straight in though

Ralph definitely looking better with every passing game. People might start to realise now what a good job he did keeping us up with such limited resources

The line up will be interesting for this one. I'm suspecting that the line-up for Newcastle was more of a b-team than people are realising. Jones obviously can't admit that he threw the cup but I'm hoping for a better team for this game

For all that, I actually think they'll improve a lot now they've got a proper manager

There will also be some weird results towards the end of the season when higher teams have nothing to play for. Plenty of points to be had, if we're good enough to take them

We did our best and spent money but it's so tough to get game changing players in January when you're bottom of the league