Ex Lion Tamer

Seems to be a first team choice though regularly coming off around the hour https://www.transfermarkt.com/jordy-clasie/leistungsdaten/spieler/104223

Its not impossible that Hughes will want changes to the way the club is run which he has kept to himself during the relegation battle and which could be a sticking point. But i expect him to join - what other jobs will he get that are better than this one realistically?

Is this true? It seems speculative to me. Surely the system will always be imperfect. There have always been bargains that come out of nowhere and there always will be. It wasn't really even that difficult to find out about Mane. He scored 31 goals in 63 games for Salzburg. Anyone could get hold of those stats at the touch of a button, and surely most clubs did. What we identified is that he had the potential to step up to the Premier League, which is the hard part. Its about judgement rather than knowing a player exists, which is why Paul Mitchell is so sought after. And we were willing to take a punt which a bigger club wouldn't. How many of the top four clubs would have put up with his poor form which had everyone on here up in arms? But it was necessary for his development.

Depends how you define success. They thought they could go even bigger than 6th if we kept some of the great players we kept selling. Perhaps they were egged on by fans complaining about players being sold, and saying Les was in the pocket of Liverpool etc. With hindsight it didn't work but that is why they did it

Fulham seem to have some good players but this Kamara bloke will/would get found out pretty quickly in the Premier League

The good news is that Hughes has never had good starts at the clubs he's managed, but gone on to do quite well. So hopefully we will kick on next season

Long is better than Brett Ormerod so that is something

Pellegrino had one good season with Alaves having being sacked at his two previous clubs. Pochettino had 3.5 seasons at Espanyol where until his last season he achieved creditable mid-table results despite having to sell his best players every summer. So not that similar. If the new Pochettino is out there, then yes I'd go for it

Sorry wrong thread

Let's re-establish in middle table with Hughes for at least next season. Then we can be ruthless like we were with Adkins if we feel he is not getting the most out of the players available

We should work out what makes him tick and build the team around him

Something like this would have been good https://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/stoke-city-relegation-coates-lambert-1545636

My impression was that Gabbi wandered off and didn't really get involved in the celebrations until people started to collar him. Maybe it's just his demeanor but he didn't seem very happy

If Stoke is the marker then he should give us at least a good couple of seasons before it goes wrong. In the same way that Strachan did quite well at Coventry for a few seasons

Their manager is know for staying well at clubs then losing it badly. Let's hope the tide has turned

Others may differ but the VPN i have doesn't offer a server in Hampshire.

It doesn't let me listen to Solent live stream as it recognises i'm not in the region. So it was nice that they made this one more widely available

I don't live in Hampshire and have been missing being able to listen to Solent football coverage. But Jesus, merrington talks a lot of ****e. Apparently the club let Fonte by not forcing him to stay!

Who else would we have got? On paper Puel had/has a good history of getting middling teams to overachieve. Pellegrino - not so much

Looking forward to seeing Gallagher leading the line in the Championship. Also is there any chance that Carrillo will stay and be a class apart at that level?

Mark Hughes is a premier league quality manager with a track record of good mid table finishes, if we can keep him then we will have one of the best in the Championship. Our "European approach" worked while it worked. We just need to start doing it well again. We are not Sunderland. They have a serious culture problem in their squad and are unattractive to players geographically. We are potentially similar to Blackburn, but Gao hasn't been in any way as eccentric as the Venkys since he took over. He seems to be leaving it to the football people at least, its just they've let him down. The big questions is will there be investment in the squad? I don't think anything will come from the owner but if we sell a lot of players then we may have something to spend. Is there still VVD money in the bank? Plus we will have parachute payments. Wasn't it said after our last relegation that we had learnt our lesson and would be inserting relegation clauses which halve each player's wages? That would help us.

This is basically what i came out with too, although i'm worried i was too harsh on Huddersfield

I really don't understand why people want Bilic. West Ham were a shambles under him

Hughes on a short term contract would be ok

I think as someone posted on the other thread, they wanted to limp through until summer when they could get their ideal manager. And they've only just realised that this was going to lead to relegation